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?
We expect our team to be available and responsive during business hours, but we don’t have any strict guidelines around response times. If a team…
We have an overlap policy where we expect everyone to be generally available for conversations and video chats. Remote does not by definition mean time…
Yes. Here’s a direct quote from the handout we use: “Sometimes a quick response is needed to a question. When this is required, please either…
Do you organize remote team retreats?
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,…
Yes – see my blog where I wrote the definitive guide to planning an offsite.
Yes! The events count as one form, and they love to meet up for potlucks and meet and greets. We’ve also sponsored two successful trips for…
Do your remote team members meet in person?
Twice a year, the entire company gathers in a destination travel location for a week. We call these “onsites.” This is our opportunity to look…
Not yet. Skype and Google hangouts are what we use.
Yes, we meet in person to work together once a year, or whenever we can. Our first event was in Malaga in 2013, and then…
How do you measure the productivity of remote workers?
We’ve experimented with OKRs and Squads but they haven’t worked or us. Ultimately, we created our own hybrid of the two systems – goals and…
Through project management and time tracking tools.
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.…
What elements are key to successful working relationships with remote teams?
Always assuming your coworkers have good intentions. For example, an emoji can be translated in different ways. Knowing your coworkers have good intentions, means you…
Andrew Montalenti, Parse.ly co-founder and CTO, has said: “The biggest thing missing from fully distributed teams is true face-to-face communication. There are a lot of…
Clear communication guidelines are very helpful. Miscommunication happens all the time in person, and happens a lot more over Slack or email. Just recognizing this…
What is the hardest part about managing a remote workforce?
The toughest part about managing a remote workforce is making sure everyone feels connected to the team and culture of Appirio. We work very hard…
Balancing socializing in a virtual workspace with not working in a silo. When working remotely, it’s so easy to either block out everything and become…
Getting everyone to not use their mute buttons on group calls. It can be difficult to have meetings that require brainstorming and input from many…
How do you keep remote employees engaged and feeling part of the bigger picture?
Each team that is working for a client takes responsibility for all the issues: financial stuff, agreements, customer relations, etc. Thanks to our policy, people…
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 make our communication better by having daily calls and hangouts between team members. We get the entire team together at the GitLab summit once…
What is your BYOD policy for remote workers?
As a company we have internal policies that helps us to have key security measures that protects us from any liability concerns that possibly could…
Everyone is free to get their devices from the company, but as far as I know everyone’s just using their own machine.
All gig workers are required to supply their own equipment as a business owner.
What is your time off policy for remote workers?
We have “unlimited time off” for our salary workers. Our rule of thumb is if you’re wondering if you’re taking too much time off, then…
Unlimited. Take what you need – we don’t count your sick or vacation days.
20+ vacation days, with unlimited sick days. We also have generous parental leave and benefits.
What were your biggest fears in managing remote workers?
I used to worry about things not getting done or people not feeling responsible. But so far, our people care and everything gets done.
We heard some small commentary from traditionalists when we started the company as a virtual company, wondering how we could manage remote workers effectively when…
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.…