Managing Remotely
140 companies answer 6 questions
Managing a remote or distributed team successfully requires good support, planning, and communication. Whether deciding if and how to get the team to meet in person or defining the line between vacation and flexible work, the management of a remote team has differences from managing traditional on-site teams. In our Managing Remotely section we ask top remote companies how they keep their teams running smoothly from thousands of miles away.
Do you have remote communication protocols for your remote workers?
Ha, no. This sounds terrible. Where is the trust?
We have clear, written guidance for our team members with regard to how quickly and thoroughly they need to respond to prospective business clients and…
No. “Trust” is a core value of ours and we trust that our team will get the job done and it turns out that they…
Do you organize remote team retreats?
Airbnb works great and really strengthens the team. Understand any dietary restrictions and assist in any way possible getting your team from their house to…
Yes, in-person time is important. For us, the most important part of the retreat is all of the non-work time. We plan a fun activity,…
We meet once a year and vote for the location that most people want to do. So far, we’ve been to Barcelona, Bulgaria, the Philippines,…
Do your remote team members meet in person?
Yes, we usually kick-off a project in house – so we’ll fly folks in for that. Also, we host an annual retreat every year for…
Not only do we all meet twice a year in person, we live together in a giant house for a week to work and play.…
Yes we have regular company retreats because we understand that nothing beats face-to-face contact for getting to know people and helping to build trust and…
How do you measure the productivity of remote workers?
At Toggl, we have a result oriented culture and everyone’s productivity is measured by their results. We have small teams working together: back end team,…
Depends on the roll, but in most cases it becomes very clear who is productive and who isn’t. For engineers github is key.
We don’t- the culture around productivity is the same for both office and remote- get things done.
What elements are key to successful working relationships with remote teams?
Make sure there is not an “us vs. them” culture of HQ vs. remote workers. Treat everyone as remote, regardless of their location.
If you can, by all means spend a week with new colleagues onsite. That immensely helps in building trust. Ongoing, having regular video calls helps.…
Communicate, communicate, communicate. And when you are done with that, follow up with good communication! You have to be able to express yourself well on…
What is the hardest part about managing a remote workforce?
Making sure we build relationships offline as well as online.
Sometimes remote workers just don’t have that much time for your company. They may have multiple clients, be traveling the world (you never know with…
It’s a bit of a tie for me — the two things I struggle with most are satisfying each person’s needs as a remote worker,…
How do you keep remote employees engaged and feeling part of the bigger picture?
Our leaders are continual learners in what good leadership truly is. Ultimately, we keep ourselves moored in our mission, the continual development of a warm…
Provide strategy document annually to keep the team focused. We also use this document to assist team members in shaping quarterly goals which show team…
In addition to regular team group video conference sessions, as in our daily scrum meetings, we meet as a company once per week which we…
What is your BYOD policy for remote workers?
We currently provide company equipment to our employees.
We supply all of our employees with the tools they need to get their jobs done. All team members are provided a laptop and an…
All of our team members use their own devices. We build our own proprietary tools for our team, so device compatibility is baked into the…
What is your time off policy for remote workers?
Employees start with two weeks of paid vacation. We also accommodate employees with school age children by letting them take extra unpaid time off over…
In short, “take some”. We used to not track days off, but it resulted in some people (mostly US employees) not taking enough time off.…
We don’t track time off but expect people to take roughly 4 weeks vacation. Most of our team doesn’t have set hours so it’s really…
What were your biggest fears in managing remote workers?
I think my biggest fears are when we lose touch with someone. Every once in a while, someone will just “disappear” – they don’t answer…
My biggest fear was probably that everyone was just going to goof off and not get any work done with little oversight. This has been…
Not being able to express when an issue is truly urgent. This is a problem, but it’s gotten easier the more we all work together.…