Mastering the Remote Revolution: A Frontline Perspective

The digital landscape has been evolving for years. I watched, with cautious optimism, as companies dabbled in remote work, never truly committing. Then, the world as we knew it changed, as did our perception of “office space”. With this seismic shift, I learned some invaluable lessons about fostering cohesion, efficiency, and camaraderie across virtual teams.

1. Redefining Remote: The Philosophy of Seamless Integration

From my years of leading diverse teams, I’ve observed a recurring misconception: the difference between on-site, off-site and in some instances overseas teams. To be truly effective, I advocate for blurring this distinction. Each meeting, training session, and casual chat, no matter where it originates, must originate from a unified company ethos.

The goal isn’t just equality — it’s unity. It’s the assurance that even if a team member is a thousand miles away, they’re still an integral part of our core vision and culture, and their contributions matter just as much as anyone else’s.

2. Scouting Stars in the Digital Sky: The Art of Remote Hiring

Identifying talent remotely has its challenges, but the principles remain. At the core of our hiring practice is one principle: consistency. Whether interviewing for roles in our primary location or anywhere else in the world, the focus, depth, and cross-functionality remain unchanged.

This isn’t about uniformity but about ensuring every new member, irrespective of their geographical location, aligns with our values, ethos, and operational standards. If we are to function as one cohesive entity, every cog in our machinery must be precision-fitted. At Mercury, we even bring remote team members together to meet the broader team and involve them in strategic planning.

3. The Digital Toolbox: Breaching Boundaries

In our experience, digital tools can make or break a remote setup. At Mercury, we are fully committed to our remote employees. We make sure they have access to all company materials, including the company strategy, and provide the same quality of training by bringing the same trainers to them, even if it means traveling from the US to Turkey. Thanks to Atlassian products Confluence and Jira, as well as MS Teams, every meeting is recorded, every agenda is clearly defined, and every conversation is open to the entire team, ensuring nobody feels left out. The ‘virtual water cooler’ is alive and thriving; it’s just found a new home in the cloud!

In addition to our quarterly product development meetings, which bring people together from all locations (in Turkey and in the US) for 3–4 days and are attended by our leadership team as a demonstration of our commitment to remote locations, we also make sure our remote employees meet once a month with their peers who live relatively closer to each other. This allows them to work together closely and break bread together because, at the end of the day, human-level connection means a lot — it goes a long way. Occasional face-to-face meetings, intensive workshops, and fun social events bridge the digital divide and remind us of the humans behind the screens.

4. Social Ties in a Virtual World: Fostering Connections

Here’s a lesson we cherish: remote work shouldn’t equate to isolation. Through trial and error, we have understood the importance of replicating the office’s social vibe in the virtual realm. Weekly coffee chats, or even our regular ‘lunch and learn’ sessions scheduled in a way that our remote teams can also join comfortably, have been instrumental in cultivating bonds that transcend work.

It’s about recognizing that our colleagues aren’t just voices on the other end of a call; they’re individuals with stories, interests, and a need to connect. These seemingly minor initiatives culminate in a positive, satisfied, and more engaged workforce.

5. Rethinking Remote: A Call for Respect and Commitment

Perhaps our most significant realization in navigating the remote terrain is this: mindset matters. For too long, many businesses have treated remote setups as secondary, even disposable. It’s a viewpoint that not only hampers growth but also erodes trust.

By pivoting and viewing remote teams as long-term investments, we’ve noticed a transformation. Teams feel valued, their dedication shines, and the commitment to projects is real. There are inevitable tradeoffs, but keeping core collaborators in sync ensures seamless ideation, prototyping, and development. It also requires flexibility — avoiding consistently off-hour meetings for your remote teams.

6. Bridging the Time Zone Divide

While remote collaboration offers unmatched access to talent, one key challenge is managing distributed teams across time zones. Some overlap is essential for alignment. In our experience, at least 3 hours of joint working time is optimal for meaningful interactions.

7. The Roadmap for Tomorrow

In an age where boundaries are becoming increasingly fluid, we’ve discerned a fundamental truth: mastering remote work isn’t just about adopting new tools or strategies. It’s about a cultural and philosophical shift that places trust, respect, and unity at its core.

8. Bottoms-up Decision Making: Empowering the Team

In our structure, we strategically position our business teams closer to where we do business and their counterparts in remote locations. For instance, we have our product managers and UI designers in our home location but technical product managers and developers in remote locations. Ensuring seamless information flow between our business teams and engineers in an agile manner is paramount. Hence, cross-functional collaboration between all functions is crucial.

To achieve this, we have adopted a bottom-up decision-making approach, empowering individual contributors (ICs) with the authority to make decisions as long as all related cross-functional teams are included in the process. We employ the DACI (Driver, Approver, Contributor, Informed) decision-making framework to facilitate this.

In this model:

• The ‘Driver’ is the person responsible for driving the decision-making process and ensuring its implementation.
• The ‘Approver’ is the one with the authority to approve or reject the final decision.
• ‘Contributors’ are subject matter experts or stakeholders who provide input and feedback.
• ‘Informed’ individuals are those who need to be kept in the loop regarding the decision and its outcome.

By empowering our teams with this approach, we ensure that decisions are made with a comprehensive understanding of their implications across all functions. This fosters a sense of ownership and accountability among team members, leading to better outcomes and a more harmonious working environment.

This approach that we are cultivating at Mercury has proven to work well, and our team released the first version of our shipping platform as planned this year. They continuously improve it to serve our clients in the healthcare and life sciences space using state-of-the-art technology, with our dedication to usability and functionality. When we set the release date as April 19th this year, the team, both remote and at home locations, went above and beyond to make it happen. That’s the type of dedication you get from your teams when you truly invest in them. Then, the Return on Investment (ROI) becomes extremely high.

Remote work: Not just a challenge to overcome!

To all business leaders, People Operations professionals, and team managers reading this: remote work isn’t just a challenge to overcome. It’s an opportunity — an opportunity to build resilient, dedicated, and united teams that will lead companies into the future. As we often say to our teams, the digital frontier is vast at Mercury, but with the right approach, it feels just like home.