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?
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…
It depends on the team. I don’t know of any teams in our company that mandate response times for internal communication, but plenty of teams…
The norms generally depend on the role, but we do have some. Editors are expected to respond to submitted work within 2 business days. Customer…
Do you organize remote team retreats?
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…
Twice a year we organize a team work retreat. We just returned from a week in Lake Tahoe, CA. Our retreats aren’t really “vacations for…
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…
Do your remote team members meet in person?
We do! Twice a year, we gather the team for weeklong retreats, so we can both work together and get to spend quality time getting…
Some of our team members happen to live nearby, so we meet up once a month or so for lunch or coffee. Many of our…
Each year we hold a company meeting and try to gather together as many remote teams as possible. These meetings last a few days and…
How do you measure the productivity of remote workers?
We’re an Agile organization, so self-examination is built into our workflow very naturally. We set goals, then examine and measure progress, output at regular, discrete…
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.…
We use a productivity-tracking tool called Worksmart, which helps managers and their team members assess how team members spend their time. Worksmart has a variety…
What elements are key to successful working relationships with remote teams?
Weekly calls are important, as is setting and communicating realistic and exciting goals.
Effective communication Understanding Accommodation
Clear tasks, responsibilities, and deliverables.
What is the hardest part about managing a remote workforce?
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,…
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…
Working with the changing priorities of remote workers as the economy changes. As the economy evolves, workers prioritize new and different demands on their attention.…
How do you keep remote employees engaged and feeling part of the bigger picture?
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…
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…
What is your BYOD policy for remote workers?
Given the nature of our business, we require all of our remote workers to have their own secure PC in order to avoid compatibility issues…
Everyone is free to get their devices from the company, but as far as I know everyone’s just using their own machine.
The only equipment needed to work remotely for Coalition Technologies is a reliable computer and Internet connection. The computer should have a webcam and audio for…
What is your time off policy for remote workers?
We have a minimum vacation policy at Buffer where we ask employees to take at least 15 days off every year, in addition to whichever…
You can take off whenever you like, but we pay you by the hour. You get one to five weeks of vacation depending on how…
We have a few set major holidays as company holidays and instead give more PTO days for team members to use as they please. Funnily…
What were your biggest fears in managing remote workers?
There is always fear that collaboration is based on face to face contact but it turns out it is not! People can work on things…
I’m a first-time people manager and first-time CEO. My fears were (and still are) around leading a team of people. Being remote was never part…
Accountability. The fear that people would simply flake, walk off into the distance, play video games instead of work. Sure they came true. And then…