There seems to be a somewhat deepening divide between those who believe remote teams can work for an organization and those who feel it can’t possibly work. The discussion really got started when Yahoo! (and subsequently Best Buy) said ‘no’ to its remote workforce back in early 2013. A number of books have been written on the topic, most notably “Remote: Office Not Required” and “The Year Without Pants”. They’re well worth a read if you’re considering going down the remote teams route as an employer or employee.
Can the remote workforce model work?
It can work well based on my own experience, but it’s hard work and there’s no single ‘weird trick’ to it. On top of that, it requires constant care & feeding. Making the model work comes down to a carefully balanced mix of ingredients that, when you put them together, provide a high likelihood of success.
Advantages of this approach are numerous when done right. Just to mention an important one: At a time when companies all over the US with a more traditional, co-located workforce model are having trouble finding sufficient talent in the technology sector, we’re actually doing quite well. However, working remotely is not for everyone and some remote workers and employers unfortunately find out the hard way.
It all starts with hiring the right people
We primarily hire for a good cultural fit & potential. Once a good fit and mental horsepower have been established, we look at things like skills & experience. Attributes we value greatly as part of our culture are things such as honesty, openness, empathy, mentoring abilities, good social & communication skills, passion for the product and/or field of expertise, big ideas and a small ego. We take our work very serious but ourselves not so much, so a good sense of humor is almost required.
On top of all these things, we look for people who are leaders, drivers, disciplined and self starters. We don’t micromanage our workforce and we don’t measure productivity by how long someone has been sitting at their desk every day. We like to think we have a ‘safe’ environment for learning. No questions are stupid, and no one is hoarding knowledge as a means to job security. Every team member is both a mentor and a student, and we encourage people to ‘stretch’ themselves, either through self initiated learning, courseware, or by a team member taking someone else under their wing during the first few months on the job.
We implicitly trust employees to do the right thing and they have customer satisfaction and the company’s goals at heart when making decisions. Additionally, we don’t have a set vacation policy so that everyone can take time off if they feel they need it. We have yet to see any abuse of that policy. In order to keep everyone on the team focused on why we do what we do as a company, we ask that everyone takes turns assisting customers with requests for support. This approach so far has helped making sure team members stay focused on the right priorities: Making life easier for our customers and adding value.
Ingredients for effective remote teams
Besides hiring the right folks who can handle the newfound freedom of working anywhere, anytime, communication is without doubt one of the most important pieces to this puzzle. We use several communication methods to stay in touch with our team. Besides traditional email, which most people loathe but still has a place in this universe, we use things like Slack for group and private messaging, WordPress for company-wide communication, Google Hangout or Skype for meetings and one-on-one conversations, and tools like Jira, Waffle.io + GitHub, Asana and BaseCamp for coordination of projects and activities.
We adhere to agile software development principles as much as possible, and regular video ‘stand ups’ using Google Hangout are standard fare for each of the product teams. We keep our development teams small and have a product manager in charge of the roadmap for each product area. We like to think that we apply just enough process to lubricate the productivity of each team. Keeping our teams small has allowed great focus, simple processes and excellent transparency when it come to achievements, issues, accountability, etc.
We probably communicate more than you would in a traditional co-located work environment, but that’s absolutely needed. Even the occasional non-work related banter on the various chat channels is absolutely needed for creating human connections between team members even though it seems counter productive. More communication also means that we require pretty good social skills across the board in order to communicate effectively.
For me as a manager it also means that I talk to everyone on my team at minimum once a week in a one-on-one setting. My leadership style is that of a servant leader, by sharing decision making ‘power’, and putting the needs of other first. I mainly see my job as removing obstacles and enabling my team members to be successful in our setting, and I do whatever that requires. I like to think that I gently push people to realize their potential. Being able to see each other when talking one-on-one is key, so services like Skype and Google Hangout are my most important tools. Building a trusting relationship with someone who works remotely is not easy and requires that you are a good listener. We keep our hierarchy as flat as possible because it just works better, but it means I have a lot of one-on-one meetings.
Referring back to my first point about hiring the right folks from the onset: You will undoubtedly hire the wrong person for your culture at some point. It’s just going to happen. This is where you need to react quickly and through coaching try to remedy the situation at first. If that is not effective, then be decisive and say goodbye before your culture is poisoned to the point where your team is significantly affected by it. You’ll know it when you see it happen. It’s not pretty, but you can’t let it linger. This is obviously an important item no matter what your workforce model is, but it’s even more important in a remote setting.
Face-to-face meetings
We have a nice office in Boulder, CO that is equipped with workspaces for people who want to work in an office environment for collaboration or other purposes and happen to live in the area, but most of our team members are not located near our office. Every three weeks we organize an all team meeting that is conducted using Google Hangout and YouTube live streaming to keep everyone in the loop of the latest developments from various parts of the organization.
Additionally, we get everyone in the company together twice a year. We have been growing so fast that it’s great to meet the ‘new folks’ in person and to reconnect with everyone else. The most important objective of those in-person meetings is the human connection; strengthening the bonds we have as a team. It’s great fun to see everyone connect over board games, hack-a-thons, communal cooking, personal passion presentations and other activities that draw people closer together as a group.
On top of those two meetings a year, we get together with the developers, designers, operations and QA engineers an additional once or twice a year to discuss topics of process or technical nature and to strengthen the bonds as a team. So far it’s been well worth it to expend the time and money to get together and spend some time in the physical presence of your peers.
Do you have any advice for people who are considering remote work?
Be honest with yourself. If you don’t have the drive and self discipline to get your work done without someone looking over your shoulder, this is not for you and you will flounder.
Also, you’re not going to have a commute, meaning that if you work until it’s dinner time, you have to be able to switch instantly into your role as a father, mother, spouse, etc and not keep thinking about work. This will take some practice.
Additionally, because of our flexible work schedules, people work at odd hours. We ask that people have sufficient overlap during the day with their peers, but some people love to work at night, or very early in the morning. It’s easy to see these people working (because they’re active in our chatrooms) and think “should I be working too?” and develop a feeling of guilt. Managing your workday is important because it has to become a sustainable rhythm.
Furthermore, it’s tempting to sit behind your computer in your pajamas and just work that way. I think it’s better to get dressed for work like you usually would and make that part of your routine. It puts you in ‘work mode’. If you easily feel cooped up in the house, go work at a coffee shop for a few hours if the type of work you do is conducive to a busy environment. Some like to work from a co-working space, but that requires an additional monthly investment that can be quite high in some cases.
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Frank Watervoort is TeamSnap’s Vice President of Engineering and is located in Colorado. You may reach him at frank@teamsnap.com. Nearly 7 million users around the world use TeamSnap to coordinate sports and other ongoing activities. Interested in a career at TeamSnap? For more information, please visit http://www.teamsnap.com/about/careers.
