Working Remotely
140 companies answer 6 questions
Working remotely comes with unique day-to-day challenges. From the initial step of implementing remote policy to nurturing company culture while operating remotely, we ask leading remote companies to share how they approach running their distributed teams from an operational level.
How did you implement a remote work policy?
Organically. It is a very natural work style for both our teachers and internal staff. We also provide the most flexibility compared to the other…
Policy is a dirty word in a healthy remote working culture I think. As soon as you have to legislate your remote work, you have…
I would say more organically to begin with. We had employees volunteer to work remote to test it out. Then it became more formal over…
Can a remote-friendly company have a healthy culture?
Absolutely! But as with any culture, you have to put a lot of effort into building it in order to have a strong one. Since…
We host a weekly “Huddle” where the team checks in, gives a quick update on how their week is going, and then answers the weekly…
Remote companies can often foster health and vitality more so than an office culture. By granting trust to your employees to choose their own, optimal…
How do you nurture your company’s culture in a remote work environment?
(a) At the start of our weekly one-on-one calls, we take a few minutes to talk about something that we are enjoying being involved with…
No gossip policy Empower employees who know they are trusted Servant leadership—invest in our people (holistically, not just professionally) Live out our core values and…
Our online forum is an important part of our company, a place where everyone can share ideas and chat—a virtual water cooler, if you will.
What advice would you give to a team considering to go remote?
Assess if this is the way you would like to drive your company and if the answer is yes—go for it.
You can build relationships in person and maintain them over video calls, not vice versa. “Remote” does not mean walls – in the formation phases…
Follow best practices and be disciplined. When you’re home, it’s easy to be distracted or goof off, and that’s when remote work can fail to…
What challenges have you encountered building a remote team?
Empathy occurs much less naturally, even with lots of video chat and long phone conversations. This is a double edged sword; decisions are less charged…
Getting everyone on the same page! Since we don’t “see” each other on a consistent basis every day, we have to constantly be thinking about…
We’ve had some bad experiences with remote workers. There are freelancers who try to work on other projects while billing time to Hubstaff, and we…
What are the most effective tools for remote team communication?
Our “office” is Hipchat. We have chat rooms for different projects, a room for announcements and a “water cooler” room for cat gifs. 🙂 We…
We use Slack all the time. It’s for work, play, water cooler topics, silliness and direct messages. It’s the hub of our culture. We also…
We lean on 4 systems: flexible project management software like Asana, Slack for more casual office communication, Skype for audio meetings, and Loom for video…
What has changed about how your remote team operates?
With remote work, there’s a lot less verbal communication than before, and a lot more written communication. This communication happens largely in our project management…
As Trello has grown, we’ve had to implement various other communication tools. For example, we have a weekly “Company Overview” board, where we update projects…
We introduced using a wiki to keep all internal processes and documentation organized. We used to use Google Drive and Google sites, but it was…
How does your team address different time zone challenges?
We have a 24/7 support team to handle communications around the clock. We also have specialized remote workers available to answer questions in the most…
Thankfully this isn’t a big issue, but as our team grows, it will become a challenge. More clearly communicating goals and aligning team members will…
Slack and JIRA—the platform we use to track development tasks—are asynchronous tools, allowing us to manage communication even with different time zones. Of course, sometimes…
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