The Dos and Don’ts When Working With Remote Talent

Nowadays companies are able to use the world as their talent pool. There are sites like Remote OK that can help you find such talent. With that, comes a few caveats and challenges. Here we’ll cover the dos and don’ts of having a successful relationship with your remote talent.

Dos

1. Communicate, communicate, communicate
   1. You need to remember that communication will be one of your biggest obstacles. So define clear tasks with descriptions and acceptance criterion, make sure to clearly lay out your assumptions, and finally make sure that your expectations are well communicated ahead of time.
2. Regular check-ins
   1. Keep weekly, or daily, quick check-ins just to touch base.
3. Real-time messaging platform
   1. Implement a messaging platform like Slack so that your remote workers can easily be reached.
4. Get to know them
   1. It’s harder to get to know people when they’re working remotely for you, which makes doing so even more important. If you’re spending upwards of 40 hours per week with people it’s important to connect on a higher level than work.
5. Include them
   1. Whenever you can, make sure to include your remote team in internal company-wide meetings so that they can meet the group.
6. Documentation
   1. Having a remote workforce will really put your internal documentation of processes..etc at the forefront, you’ll need to make sure you have those documents well put together and easily accessible.

Don’ts

1. Assume
   1. It’s easy to assume the worst when one of your remote workers underperforms or misses a deadline. Try to avoid that and focus on building trust.
2. Micro-manage
   1. Micro-managing is looked down upon everywhere nowadays, but it’s still one of those traps a manager can fall in especially when dealing with talent that’s halfway across the world.
3. Have unreasonable time expectations
   1. Remote workers may be in a different timezone than you and you have to make sure to clearly communicate with them when you need them to be available. Don’t expect them to be up for that meeting that’s 5 AM in their timezone unless you’ve clearly talked this over with them in advance.

Anant has a network of vetted professional across the world that we’ve worked with, want to join our remote team or have questions? Let us know!

Photo by Slava Bowman on Unsplash