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?
The remote workforce grew organically based on our hiring philosophy, which remains to hire the best people in the world, no matter where they live.
Our earlier years had one office, in addition to a remote team. But eventually the office became irrelevant and, if anything, a way to make…
We were 100% remote for the first 7 or 8 years of the company. How we work remotely has changed considerably as we’ve grown from…
Can a remote-friendly company have a healthy culture?
Absolutely! It’s important to help everyone feel engaged, and we do this in a variety of ways. Our CEO holds an all-company meeting via conference…
Absolutely! Our teams tend to focus on communication because we do have so many remote members. We hold Town Halls quarterly so everyone hears the…
It absolutely can. Just like a company located in an office can have a dysfunctional culture. The key to any healthy culture is having everyone…
How do you nurture your company’s culture in a remote work environment?
We focus on the pillars of our culture: Fun, Action, Communication, Transparency, Trust (FACTT). Fun – Meetups, video chats just to make each other laugh.…
We have an incredible Director of Culture and Development who is focused on developing a strong culture in a remote work environment. Examples of some…
Constant communication with all team members. We also use Slack for sharing “water cooler” discussions. Another important aspect of our culture is our Corporate Social…
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.
Ensure your culture and management support it. It’s one thing to allow remote work, but it’s another to fully support it. If “face time”…
If you are thinking of adopting a remote workforce I would advise you to first do your research – see if a remote work environment…
What challenges have you encountered building a remote team?
Working cross-time zones can occasionally be tough with the development crew. Sometimes if we have a problem on our end, we may have to wait…
This is true for any hire, but particularly true for remote hires: hiring the right person is critical to success. We have added many steps…
Changing the mindset is the hardest part. Everybody in the company has to be on board with it.
What are the most effective tools for remote team communication?
We have a few different platforms and standards for communication. First off, each team has weekly Zoom meetings to discuss progress on various projects and…
We use several tools to maintain constant communication throughout the day. Sqwiggle is our on-demand video platform, Attentiv.com offers us a constant stream to communicate…
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…
What has changed about how your remote team operates?
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 have implemented OKRs because at the beginning everyone just “worked hard” when we were a startup. But as we got older, people burned out,…
We used to all be in Maryland. We had four team members in Maryland and it was really easy for us to all get together…
How does your team address different time zone challenges?
This is likely the largest challenge we face as a remote company. I don’t like making people stay up late or get up super early…
Currently, all of our remote employees are in the same time zone. We are a 24/7 operation so we do encounter scheduling conflicts with our…
Our entire company is online from 3pm-7pm GMT which means we have a 4-hour window for all hands meetings, daily standups, and the off-hand meeting…
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