TLDR: Short post sharing some super awesome resources I’ve been using to build our remote team
It’s taken a while for me to recognise this, but I now know I’m a researcher at heart. When I decide I want something or want to do something I dive head first into it and dump hours and hours of time researching the very ins and outs, read up on reviews and watch endless hours of youtube clips.
So when it came to making that decision to build a remote team I went in search to learn from some of the best companies that have successfully fostered remote teams. Now I’m not talking about companies that offer some of their team the freedom to work from home, I mean companies that have been hiring remotely with staff working anywhere and anytime of the day!
After leveraging off these learnings I just wanted to share these great guides with those of you who are thinking about or on the path to creating your own remote team, but more importantly want to learn from the best how they’ve created their remote team culture. These are not ranked in any order and all are very useful resources I’ve used personally.
Resource #1 – Embracing Remote Work by Trello
If you haven’t heard of Trello before, then I highly highly recommend that you check them out. It’s a fantastic way to affordably create simple processes for any startup and to track projects very easily. Anyway, their guide on “How to Embrace Remote Work” is a good first dive for anyone unfamiliar with remote teams and remote work.
What’s important that probably isn’t highlighted enough is as great as the idea of flexible working hours, remote working locations and self-management style may sound, it may not suit everyone. I’ll share more insights in another post, but it’s something to be aware of when you’re hiring.
Resource #2 – Ultimate Guide to Remote Work by Zapier
This guide was like my bible!
It was the cornerstone for a lot of the way we do things, but the best part about this guide is that it isn’t only just in-depth, but it dives in to have contributors from other huge remote companies like Automatic (creators of WordPress) and more to help co-write this guide.
It goes into almost everything you could want to learn about remote team building, culture, processes, on-boarding, retreats, performance reviews and even more! It’s served me really well and often I come back to read through the guide to check-in to see what other items I need to implement.
Resource #3 – The Complete Employee Onboarding Guide by SweetProcess
This isn’t sooo much about remote team building but I believe on-boarding is super crucial to retaining and having staff perform to their very best. Doesn’t mean I’ve figured it all out, but it’s something that’s important to our company and says a lot about the company.
This guide is an amazing resource that goes super deep into the exact steps and the suggesting timings as the employee comes on board. I love the suggested timings as it really helps to keep things moving, but without overwhelming your newest hire.
Resource #4 – Remote by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson
This book is a great read and is written by the founders of 37signals (basecamp.com) which is one of the largest project management tools used by many of the large corporations. It’s another great resource setting up the mindset of why today is a great time to be going remote and how to build your team in the right way.
So these are just a handful of the resources I’ve been using. There are many many more others out there, I’ll do my best to share more of what other fantastic remote team building resources and especially remote team culture resources I find. So feel free to bookmark this page!