Remote work seems to be all the rage in hiring these days, but just because you’re hearing a lot about it doesn’t mean that companies are more willing to adopt it. Companies with cultures that value remote workers the same as in-office employees are hard to find, but they soon realize benefits that in-office cultures don’t have, or work much harder at attaining. Remote work should not only exist as an opportunity at startups, but it should change the future of how we define startup culture.
Remote work promotes company diversity
If your company triumphs diversity but doesn’t have a diverse workplace, it’s time to look into creating a more remote-friendly environment. Remote work allows folks from all backgrounds to join the company of their dreams. There are so many folks out there who would love to work for giants like Twitter or Apple, or smaller disruptors like Coinbase, Coursera, or Etsy.
Remote work opportunities directly benefit folks with disabilities, with families, and/or in marginalized communities. Many times, brilliant would-be employees aren’t able to travel the X amount of time every day to get to your office because of other circumstances. Perhaps they have to look over sick family members or are not physically comfortable or able traveling for long periods of time each day to get to work. Maybe they feel like they don’t fit into the in-office culture they see on your Careers page.
Perhaps some folks have anxiety and aren’t comfortable with the widely adopted startup-hailed open floor plan. Many introverts, speaking for myself here, are more productive in an environment where they don’t feel like they have to perform constantly, always be on, and because of that floor plan—distracted. They do their best work at home or somewhere quiet, and that’s as good a reason as any for a remote opportunity.
Not having opportunities for those folks to do their best work means that you’re missing out on talent, and are being narrow in your search for diversity.
Remote work brings the best global talent
This one is obvious. We hear about it all the time. By offering remote opportunities, you allow your company to be open to the world’s best talent. Folks around the globe who think of working at your company as their dream job will finally be able to bring that talent, commitment, and work ethic to your company.
It’s not just a wider talent pool—having diverse employees from all around the globe allows your product to thrive as well. User testing and product testing in different locations alerts you to bugs you wouldn’t have otherwise found and diverse user feedback you may not have otherwise heard. Testing and feedback from around the world allows for a well rounded view of how your product will perform in global markets.
Remote work is for everyone
Many currently offered remote positions are for software developers—the elite of the startup world. Of course, the nature of software development is one that can easily acquiesce to the remote work culture. However, that doesn’t mean that it is the only position that can thrive in a remote environment. Having only software developers in your company as folks who can go remote says something to employees in other fields: this is not for you.
Software developers who prefer to work remotely have the same reasons for choosing remote as folks in other positions, such as marketing, design, and sales. They have families, lives they don’t want to give up in other areas of the world, cross-country moves coming up, communities they can’t leave, or disabilities that make it easier for them to stay where they are.
Not having that opportunity for other folks in your company, yet having it for software developers creates a rift between your company and your employees who are eyeing remote work. You’re effectively making them feel inferior, like they don’t deserve that benefit, and easing them into looking at other companies—even though they may want nothing more but to stay with yours.
Remote work strengthens startup culture
The more we see startup culture perks in job applications and on Careers pages, the more we realize it’s the same thing over and over. If I see another mention of “nerf gun fights”, I’m going to scream. As a startup-obsessed employee myself, I don’t care much about snack walls or bean bag chairs. It doesn’t matter if we have catered lunches (really great post by Wistia—disclaimer, I work there—on this here). Although some folks may find it a real, hard perk—I never want to look at another ping pong ball again.
What really matters in company culture is openness, communication, honesty, and a lack of ego. Remote culture, while it can’t give you a 5:00 beer-flight happy hour, can give you what counts the most thanks to the essence of such work, which is rooted in tireless communication and clarity. I’d like to see Careers pages change to include company perks such as constant clarity, celebrated productivity, and freedom to work from where you’re most comfortable—forget the nerf guns.
Make it happen at your team
If you’re looking at your employees’ schedules and find that most team members take a day every week or so to WFH, you know that remote opportunities are far overdue. If you’re not seeing that—that’s great. You’re ahead of the curve and are able to introduce remote opportunities and changes in your company culture without putting too much up in the air. Here are some tools that I’ve used during my remote stints and with remote co-workers that have helped strengthen our relationship and increase productivity:
- Slack voice calls: Voice calls are a dream come true. If most of your communication is already done in Slack, you’re going to love using calls. They’re a great way to quickly get on the phone through your computer (right through your Slack DM) to explain something or go over something tricky to talk about using text. They work flawlessly.
- Boomerang for Gmail: Schedule emails to be sent when your coworkers will receive them first thing in the morning. Instead of sending an email that will arrive at 7PM their time, send it to arrive at 8AM. It’s a courtesy and shows that you care about their offline time.
- Highfive Video Conferencing: If you have an in-person office for employees, install Highfive in your conference rooms so folks who call in can get a full view of the room and whatever you’re showing on your laptop.
- Zoom: We use Zoom at Wistia to bring folks into our mainly video or presentation based meetings so they can see, hear, and be present at our Show & Tells, post-mortems, etc.
- Double: This isn’t necessary, but it is really fun (and expensive, but hey). We had this moving robot at Codecademy for one of our remote employees, who could walk into conference rooms, be there for team lunch, and generally just hang out and hear the banter.
- Dropbox: This one’s easy. You probably already use it in your office, but it can also be used to empower remote workers. For folks who are in design or marketing positions, Dropbox is an awesome tool for sharing files and projects.
Committing to the culture
You can make changes at your company right now by including remote opportunities outside of software development, for your dream team around the globe. With these tools, you can expand the diversity, culture, and global presence of your company. It doesn’t come easy though—you’ll have to commit. Committing to setting that culture of openness, communication, honesty, and lack of ego requires a lot of work.
In order to make sure folks feel valued and on the same page, bring your team together and talk about remote work and how they feel that they can make the environment inclusive and beneficial. Whether that’s checking in on how you have meetings at your company, how folks communicate with one another around company goals and benchmarks, or simply how they joke around and get to know each other. Both the remote employee and the in-office employee need to be on the same page in terms of clarity and communication. A good office culture requires that.
I’d love to hear about the tools you’re using that aren’t on this list, and how you think remote work will change the future of startup culture. Shoot me an email at [email protected]
Interested in more thoughts around remote work? Check out Zapier’s Ultimate Guide to Remote Working.