Eliminating the need for office space (and office small talk), remote teams are flexible, dynamic, and effective. You get the very best staff from anywhere in the world, and they get to work on their own terms. It’s a win-win situation, but many companies are still reluctant to take the leap. How do you know you are building a solid team? How do you trust your staff? Here are a few tips on how to overcome these questions and start building your remote team.
Use the Freelance Market
The easiest way to build a remote team is to use freelancers. You can find freelancers for almost anything nowadays, from web and software development, to IT and networking. Job boards like Upwork make it very easy to put together strong, reliable remote staffing firms. Using freelancers is also a good way to find employees you trust. Part-time jobs can be great for freelancers who want a stable gig, while full-time remote roles are increasingly common.
Before starting, you should inform yourself about the legal rights of freelancers. In particular, you will have to watch out for misclassification, which is when a business hires someone as a contractor when they should be an employee under the law.
Diversity Is Key
Diversity is important in any team, but it is downright foolish not to take advantage of the global pool of talent you have access to when you hire remotely. A 2017 study looked into how companies build successful, culturally diverse remote teams and attempted to build a framework for this. Elements of this framework include effective coordination across time zones and a focus on building trust and understanding across cultural gaps.
Get the Right Tools
If you want a cohesive remote team, you will need to invest in a few tools. Some of the best collaboration tools out there include Slack (the industry standard for team communication), Trello (great for project management), and Google Drive (free, convenient file management).
Don’t Neglect Mental Health
Freelancing and other forms of remote work can be extremely empowering, but they also have their downsides. Isolation, loneliness, and the stresses of self-employment can all take a toll, which is one of the reasons why one-quarter of freelancers have experienced depression. Commit to being supportive of your remote workers by creating a culture of openness around mental health, checking in regularly, and promoting a healthy work-life balance.
Give Regular Feedback
With remote working, there are few natural opportunities for feedback. This can lead to a team that feels disconnected, unmotivated, and inefficient. The best way to avoid this is to schedule regular feedback for all remote workers, whether its a bi-weekly email or a monthly Skype chat. Whatever format you use, follow the key strategies for effective feedback: make it concrete, talk one-on-one, and always end on a positive note.
In fact, make sure to show your appreciation for your team’s strengths and successes as often as possible. There are many small ways to do this, from remembering birthdays to offering training support and giving employees real opportunities to give you feedback.
Build Company Culture
Company culture is an intangible and elusive term, but it’s one that companies have been chasing for decades. A good company culture reinforces your company’s values and gives your workplace a distinct energy while bringing your employees together.
As you can imagine, company culture can be very hard to foster within a remote team. Zapier, a tech company with a mostly integrated team, has a great blog post on how they do this. Among others, they use tools like Slack to encourage fun interactions between employees, as well as perks programs to keep them motivated and occasional in-person team meetups when possible.
The internet has revolutionized workplaces in many ways. Without a doubt, one of the biggest is eliminating the need for a physical workplace at all. This can be a scary concept for employers, but it shouldn’t be. Remote working can benefit everyone involved. Just build a team and company culture that values employees, and they will return the favor by working hard.
Questions or comments? Have any additional tips or resources to share? Reply below or reach out to Tina Martin at ideaspired.com.