That’s because organizations are finding it more important to hire the right person, not necessarily the right person who happens to live close by. The result is managers running teams from one city while the entire team is in another. Then, of course, there are the crowning jewels of remote work — 100% distributed teams. No office overheads, far fewer office politics, and you can hire whomever you want.
However, how do successful teams like Zapier, InVision, and GitHub do it? How do they run major global organizations without any Monday morning meetings?
Part of their secret sauce is in the following five tips for driving and scaling distributed teams.
1. Design a Robust Hiring Process
Even the best hiring managers generally start from the same place — who is around, and can do the job? But when it comes to scaling distributed teams, that hiring process becomes incredibly important because the primary limiting reagent of location no longer applies.
Basically, it means that for any role, you have a much, much deeper applicant pool. At the same time, most hiring processes are based around the in-person interview. But that’s not an option for distributed teams.
This means that distributed teams need to rethink the hiring process because they're looking for sharper needles in a much larger haystack.
Distributed teams hiring process tips:
- Bring in more people: Get buy-in from a broader team, where each member is reviewing specific criteria for their role.
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Make a robust screening process: You can afford to only hire people who are excited to work for you. So take advantage of that. Set a more time-consuming and robust screening process to both adequately evaluate applicants and so that you can tell early if the person’s going to be a good fit.
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Bring your values into every interview: Clarify your values internally (more on this in a second) and then make that a core part of the hiring process.
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Build out a remote interview: Even if the person you’re shortlisting ends up being from around your local area, if you’re running a distributed team, make sure the interview process is 99% remote. That will give you the best sense for how easy someone is going to be to work with day to day.
2. Clarify Your Values
The real difference between a centralized and distributed workforce is culture. When everyone’s in one place, the culture will develop naturally. That vacuum will be filled.
With remote teams, the challenge is building a culture. It’s perfectly normal for a remote worker to have no personal affiliation for your organization. And that’s a problem. It makes employee churn more likely, it makes employees care less about your organization, and it’s less likely to produce great work.
The single best way to get around this problem is to hammer home your values and live them internally. Ideally, every employee should be able to share what your values are off the top of their head and recall a recent example (e.g. within the last 30 days) of when those values were seen in action.
3. Avoid the Central Hub
Central hubs are fine and, often, a requirement. However, if at all possible, try and avoid them. Distributed teams should be just that — distributed. When there are one head office and a bunch of small satellites, it can create animosity between the smaller sites and “corporate.” Ultimately, this impacts productivity and the effectiveness of your distributed team.
So what’s the solution?
Decide early if you’re a distributed team, or a team with multiple locations, including a core head office. There’s nothing wrong with that — but you do need to be upfront about it to the people you hire and with yourself. That will keep everyone on the same page for what to expect.
4. Break Up Bulky Departments into Agile Teams (and Invest in Team Building!)
Big, monolithic departments work in single locations because you have enough casual interaction that teams and groups will form naturally. What’s more, a lot of process and confusion that comes with bigger departments is navigated by going over and talking to someone. Distributed teams don’t have that option.
The solution is to break them into smaller, natural groups. Not only will this promote in-team bonding, but it also means that as a leader, you have less to focus on since your team leads do the heavy lifting day-to-day. Again, since this is a distributed team, the less management you need to put in, the better off you’ll be.
5. Use Technology
Finally, make sure you’re adequately using technology. Distributed teams need more than web conferencing and Slack. Everything from sending a quick note, to a formal request, to asking a quick question to getting feedback on an idea needs to have a tech tool to solve that problem.
Platforms like Slack are increasingly popular for multiple functions since other tools integrate and build on top of their tech, but there are dozens of other technology that can help you stay connected with teams that span the globe.
The driver of this is simple: you can’t ask for something if you don’t know where it is. That means that knowledge needs to be:
- Obsessively documented
- Stored, searchable, and retrievable
- Open and accessible to everyone.
Evaluate your business processes, and if you find areas where these criteria aren’t being met, then it’s a good idea to look at what tech you have or can buy a solution to help plug the gap.
Wrap Up
Distributed teams are going to become more and more common, as companies look further afield to find the people they need. However, even without hallway conversations and spontaneous lunches, you can still grow a team that’s dedicated and successful.
To us, the core takeaway is that organizations need to be clear about the team they’re looking to hire (distributed, centralized, satellite offices, etc... ) build the culture, values, and team structures that work effectively for that model, and then buy the technology they need to execute effectively.
When these three things — careful selection, culture and values, and technology — come together is when we see teams who both excel as individuals and excel as a group to drive the company forward.
