Managing Remotely

We do not have explicit communication norms set for our team. In terms of responding to communications, it depends on a number of factors and…

We let each other know when we are going to be hard to reach by email or phone and may pass on key responsibilities.  When we…

Communication in a virtual environment is absolutely key to building trust. And so for this reason we expect our team to respond to emails, and…

For a remote team, the main focus is actually just to spend time together face-to-face, so plan everything around that. We find a yearly all-team…

Yes we sure do! Jungle Camps twice yearly. It is a great way to meet, work, and grow together. It is also a time when…

Yes, we do. This is critical for us. First of all, you need to have a clear agenda with what you want to achieve during the…

We have monthly meetings in person. The idea is to meet, to connect and get motivated for the next month. Moreover we have a bigger…

Our home-based team members are often separated by hundreds of miles. We rely on technology to bring our people together and harness the power of…

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…

We give our remote workers a lot of freedom. Every order placed through Scribendi has an accompanying deadline selected by the client from the available…

Weekly updates are detailed reports we receive every Friday that outline what each team member accomplished during the week and their focus for next week.…

Productivity is roughly equivalent to answering two questions: 1) Am I meeting the goals I’ve set out? and 2) Am I gaining progress on key…

It is critical to have open communication and no silos.  Everyone should be able to communicate with anyone and be open to reply quickly.

Clear tasks, responsibilities, and deliverables.

Having very clear guidelines about exactly how to do the work. Documentation—especially training videos and reminder emails—are crucial.

It can be tough to make sure everyone, across departments, is on the same page about the big picture initiatives in the company. We resolve…

There’s arguably more overhead placed on the shoulders of leaders in a remote company. The hardest thing is to acknowledge the overhead and be really…

Sensing everybody’s mood, level of motivation, identifying issues before they develop.  With an on-site team, you get to take advantage of facial expressions, body language,…

While we aren’t big on meetings, we do have a regularly scheduled Monday meeting where we go over any admin items and talk about the…

We have weekly all-hands meetings that we conduct via video chat. This gives everyone a chance to hear what’s going on in the company and…

Most managers have a mix of head office and remote workers in their teams, and work hard to ensure people feel included and communicated with.…

We let everyone choose their own devices, computers and operating systems, and reimburse a set amount for each employee every 3 years.  We do have…

People can use whatever device they’d like, as long as they can use the software and apps our team is already on 🙂

We provide a monthly stipend for these sorts of things via a prepaid debit (Pex card) and we offer to front-load it on hire if…

We have an open time off policy, which translates to take the time off that you need. We ask each person to discuss time off…

We ask that everyone let their team members know about any planned time off with as much advance notice as possible. There’s not limit, but…

We have a fairly standard PTO plan for full-time [A]gents.

My biggest fears were around not being able to manage work output, and not having clarity into someone’s projects. For the first 6 months this…

Not being able to meet some people in person means we have to rely more on references and our gut to gauge a potential hire.…

People being dishonest about the amount of time they are spending working on your project and doing things on the side. There are big brother…