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?

Inspired HR

It was a formal process that included doing a lot of research, creating boundaries and parameters, and including our clients in the process.

Fire Engine RED

One person at a time! We’ve been all-virtual since our founding in 2001. When we were hiring our first team member, the “perfect” candidate lived…

WooThemes

We knew no alternative so many policies were as natural as breathing. We tried to develop and lean on trust rather than develop policies.

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Can a remote-friendly company have a healthy culture?

TaxJar

This all comes down to hiring. It’s critical to hire like-minded folks who genuinely want to work together. For us, we have way too much…

StudySoup

I feel like we have a very healthy company culture, and we’re constantly working to make it better. We do little things sometimes like spend…

Aha!

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…

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How do you nurture your company’s culture in a remote work environment?

Lullabot

Retreats are a huge thing. We have an annual all company retreat, but we also have more focused retreats pretty regularly for smaller teams within…

ICUC Social

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…

Omni Interactions

We schedule engagement activities each quarter that all can participate in. We make sure there are activities that resonate with the types of gig workers…

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What advice would you give to a team considering to go remote?

Five Q

You must excel at “human” connection. Dispersed workers still need nurturing. Find ways to reach through the technology and make people feel like people. You…

Appen

Make sure work obligations are completely understood, that communication capabilities and a robust technology infrastructure are fully embedded in the organization, and that you have…

InVisionApp

We succeed at making remote work by being deliberate about our communication process. We have work-related communication tools, like Slack and Google Hangouts, as well…

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What challenges have you encountered building a remote team?

Project Ricochet

The biggest challenge we’ve found is when we encounter verticals that aren’t able to handle an “officeless” company. One of our team members worked for…

Fog Creek Software

Personality conflicts are particularly difficult to resolve remotely. We’ve found that when a team is having a hard time seeing eye to eye, the only…

komoot

We have a great culture and team and have been growing very fast in the past few years. The biggest challenge is ensuring we keep…

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What are the most effective tools for remote team communication?

Collage.com

We meet in person every three or four months for an all-company meeting where we strategize and work on big projects together in person. Otherwise,…

Hanno

We detest emails. That means that the vast majority of our communication falls into 3 channels: Slack, Asana and Skype. We communicate a lot though,…

Scrapinghub

If I had to pick one, it would be group chats. We have always used group chats (a la IRC) since we started. At first,…

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What has changed about how your remote team operates?

Sanborn

With remote work, there’s a lot less verbal communication than before, and a lot more written communication. This communication happens largely in our project management…

GitHub, Inc.

The most noticeable change for me has been the size of the company and the effect that has on team (and inter-team) dynamics. When I…

Packlane

We have much more discipline and structure in place for managing various processes. 

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How does your team address different time zone challenges?

AnswerFirst

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…

OnTheGo Systems

Everyone adds their working hours to company calendar, then each team leader knows very well when everyone is on working time. This allows us to…

TOK.tv

Slack and JIRA—the platform we use to track development tasks—are asynchronous tools, allowing us to manage communication even with different time zones. Of course, sometimes…

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