Over the past couple of decades remote work has become increasingly popular. It gives employers the ability to hire the best talent regardless of geography and allows talent to be location agnostic while working in whatever “office” environment is most comfortable for them. However, building an inclusive, engaged global workforce takes intentional effort. At ezhome here are 5 foundational principles we’ve instituted for building our global team:
1. Be Transparent by Default
Information is at the heart of empowering a global workforce, therefore everything from process docs to metrics dashboards should be accessible to everyone. This should be regardless of if you think a person may need it. Nothing’s more frustrating than needing access to a locked document and having to wait until the owner wakes up to grant you access. The free flow of all information regardless of perceived need is crucial.
[Related: Benefits of Workplace Transparency]
2. Create Written Documentation
When left untouched, a company’s communication channels will develop naturally and may not do so in a way that allows the free flow of information on a global scale. For example, direct slack messages instead of channels or one-off conversations where notes are not taken can be detrimental to the team environment.
To ensure a global team’s long-term success, ideas and decisions must be documented in writing so that they can be shared with new staff and also with existing teammates who need new context. There’s no such thing as too much documentation when your team works across countries and time zones.
[Related: How One CEO Successfully Built A 100% Remote Workforce]
3. Invest in Face-to-Face Interactions
While remote work is an amazing opportunity for employers and employees, do not forget that humans are naturally social, and we’re better able to build relationships through in-person interactions. Investing in everything from high quality internet connections for day-to-day interactions to occasional conferences and team meetups will allow you to maintain location flexibility while also enabling the development of strong relationships among coworkers.
Also, keep in mind that you can be creative with how face-to-face is defined, and it doesn’t always have to include a financial spend. Through some testing and iteration, we found that “remote-lunches” are a great way for us to build consistent social interactions for our team.
[Related: The Guide to Building Employee Engagement Programs with Remote Teams]
4. Create Career Opportunities for Every Team Member
Regardless of team and regardless of location, every team member must have equal opportunity for personal growth and career development. That is to say that every level of the company (whether as an individual contributor or manager) should be equally attainable regardless of country and time zone. Uninhibited growth for strong performers ensures that you are able to continually hire and retain the best talent.
[Related: 12 Companies That Have Capitalized on the Talents of a Remote Workforce]
5. Define & Educate on Best Practices
A global team does not and cannot operate in the same way as a team that always works side-by-side in the same office. Everything – from lunch meetings to impromptu conversations – has to work a little differently, and since remote work is still a relatively new concept, new norms must be defined and shared.
Our best practices range from (1) maintaining eye contact as much as possible in group video calls (as you would in a in-person meeting) to (2) always having a good headset available and (3) simply being on time. Define what is necessary to make your environment work well, then document it, share it, and practice it.
The benefits of a global team are immense, but for many it’s a new type of environment and with that there will be some breaking of old habits to form the new. Be transparent, document everything, invest in in-person interactions, enable equal professional growth opportunities, and define and educate your team on your company’s best practices for global teamwork. Do this and you’ll be well on your way to creating a world-class, fully inclusive, global workforce.
About the Authors: Odysseas Tsatalos co-founded oDesk, now Upwork, and is a founder and current CTO of ezhome, a series B funded home services startup. Liz Peterson manages ezhome’s recruiting team from Barcelona, Spain and previously worked at Dropbox in San Francisco, California.
