Efficiently constructing a distant tradition requires unwavering dedication from firm leaders, and if you get it proper, the advantages compound over time. Distant groups require extra funding within the individuals crew, higher communication, and the next stage of proactive transparency than colocated groups. Nonetheless, these are all issues that profit the corporate and its velocity as you develop and scale. To not point out, you have got entry to much more expertise.
Being remote-first has given us the possibility to construct a crew that simply wouldn’t have been doable if we had stayed tethered to a brick and mortar workplace. In fact, entry to a broader expertise pool needs to be earned. It’s a must to construct an organization individuals wish to work for and a tradition individuals wish to be a part of.
We have been distant since 2011 and at present have 130 individuals on our distant crew from greater than 18 nations world wide. In April 2025, our worker engagement rating (through a Lattice survey) was 82% favorable — a full ten factors larger than the common tech firm. Figuring out and embracing a couple of key rules, together with quite a lot of laborious work, enabled us to get thus far.
The aim of this publish is to share the teachings we’ve realized so you’ll be able to determine if remote-first is best for you and apply what’s helpful to your crew.
‘Distant-first’ or don’t hassle
Let’s be sincere: Every approach of working (distant, in-person, multi-office, or hybrid) has execs and cons to be conscious of. That mentioned, if you’d like distant firm tradition to be all or a part of your tradition combine, you’ll want to be all in.
As of late we’re seeing many firms flip-flop. They praised the effectivity and worth of distant work in the course of the pandemic, solely to backpedal with hybrid schedules or inflexible return-to-office (RTO) mandates that include obscure guarantees of “higher connection.” Whereas it’s true that nearer proximity gives extra alternative for relationship constructing, it takes greater than getting everybody in the identical room a couple of times every week to create an excellent firm tradition.
Whereas Assist Scout now not has a bodily workplace, we used to keep up areas in each Boston and Boulder. Neither had a beer fridge, ping pong desk, whiteboard, or workplace perks. We did this deliberately, so whether or not in-office or at house, everybody had the identical advantages. We additionally centered on good habits when it got here to written communication and documentation so that everybody had the identical info. Should you function utilizing the hybrid philosophy, you’ll be able to hold the worker expertise equitable by embracing remote-first practices like those outlined on this article.
At Assist Scout, we don’t view distant work as an worker perk however slightly as part of our DNA. It began as a survival technique — early on, the corporate was primarily based in Boston, and two of our co-founders, Jared and Denny, wanted to work from Nashville. Plus, Boston was house to huge names like HubSpot and Tripadvisor. As a brand new firm, competing with them for native, high-quality expertise wasn’t real looking, so we would have liked to undertake a special playbook.
Our aim was easy then, and it nonetheless is: We wish to work with good, pushed individuals who push us to do our greatest, no matter their location. We’ve constructed a tradition that helps that. Should you don’t plan on creating an equitable expertise when going hybrid or for those who plan to drive everybody to RTO when the winds change course, then distant most likely isn’t the proper selection for you.
Decelerate the hiring course of
Talking of competitors, anybody searching for work will let you know that the job market is fairly wild proper now. If we wished to, we might simply fill our open roles inside a matter of days. However we’ve realized that pace normally comes on the expense of high quality.
It takes a mean of about 60 days for us to fill a job and roughly a month for a candidate to undergo the complete course of. Along with interviews, each function features a paid challenge which is designed for the particular person to spend a couple of hours exhibiting us what they’ll do. We wish to shuttle, giving of us crucial suggestions and simulating what it could be wish to work collectively.
Other than giving us an opportunity to check the waters, an intentional hiring course of like ours can be a beautiful candidate expertise. It lets them get to know a number of individuals on the crew and provides them time to determine if it’s the proper match.
Lastly, we’ve discovered that when the method is extra thorough and entails extra individuals on the hiring crew, it’s simpler to avoid unconscious bias.
Recruit to diversify the hiring pool
There’s been a shift from selling and valuing range within the office currently. However, the information is abundantly clear: Numerous firms are extra profitable. In actual fact, in line with McKinsey, “firms within the high quartile for each gender and ethnic range in government groups are on common 9 % extra prone to financially outperform their friends.”
At Assist Scout, we’re nonetheless dedicated to DEI as a result of we all know it makes us higher. We do proactive recruiting to even out the hiring pool. With out proactive efforts to make the applicant pool a mirrored image of the overall inhabitants, it could be nearly unattainable to construct a crew with various opinions, views, and experiences.
Homogenized groups include blind spots that get in the best way of creativity and innovation. Take into consideration advert or web site copy that misses the mark, or, worse but, is unintentionally offensive. Or design selections that make your product or web site much less accessible. There are many methods issues can go unsuitable, and plenty of them could be averted by guaranteeing that you simply’re not making selections in an echo chamber.
As a distant crew, your alternative to rent individuals from underrepresented teams is much larger. It’s essential to take advantage of that chance and prioritize hiring a recruiter to supply various candidates.
Search individuals who love the work
A typical problem at firms the place execs are demanding a RTO is a scarcity of belief; managers don’t imagine their workers are working except they’ll see them. We don’t actually have that downside, and it’s probably tied to the kind of individuals we rent.
We search for individuals who love what they do and simply want a tradition that may give them sufficient possession to do their greatest work. While you give people who area — that belief — to observe their instinct, dig into challenges that curiosity them, and handle their very own time, the outcomes converse for themselves. If you wish to promote a wholesome distant tradition, focus much less on whether or not somebody’s standing is inexperienced on Groups or Slack and extra on their influence.
Give attention to communication abilities
A tradition’s effectiveness revolves round how info flows. Everybody must really feel like they’ve entry to the identical information, however distant and colocated cultures share info otherwise.
In-office groups are likely to disseminate info through issues like impromptu conferences, whiteboard periods, chats on the proverbial water cooler, and when grabbing lunch or drinks after work. While you undertake an analogous strategy to working remotely — fast huddles with out documented outcomes, conversations siloed in DMs, and workers and not using a solution to organically collect info — individuals will begin to really feel out of the loop.
To keep away from this, you’ll want to standardize communication if you go distant. All firm info must be recorded and accessible for individuals to eat async, and also you’ll must undertake a stage of transparency that feels uncomfortable at first so everybody feels related with the enterprise.
Most of your communication will must be written, and individuals who aren’t glorious written communicators could battle on distant groups. Nonetheless, there are many instruments that may assist bridge the hole, like Loom for recording brief movies and AI software program that may assist with cleansing up documentation.
You’ll additionally wish to create an ordinary for when, the place, and the way workers are anticipated to share info. As an illustration, we’ve got a clear course of for decision-making that features a devoted #decision-records Slack channel that lets everybody within the firm know when a choice has been made, what its influence is to the enterprise, and the place to direct any follow-ups.
Be intentional about relationship constructing
In a distant tradition, it’s simpler to be productive, however one of many tradeoffs you make is that it’s not as pure to develop a connection together with your coworkers. To fight the issue, we put effort into relationship-building.
There are quite a lot of causes to do that, starting from holding workers engaged to additional enhancing cross-company comms. In spite of everything, you’ll be much more prone to attain out to somebody for those who’ve really spoken to one another earlier than!
Among the issues which have helped us embody:
Fika — A Swedish custom that’s principally grabbing espresso with somebody. Throwing a 15-30 minute fika on somebody’s calendar is an effective way to place work apart, get to know one another higher, and join over shared pursuits.
Luna Park — A sport engine that enables of us to attach for a little bit of informal gaming.
Annual firm retreats and quarterly management off-sites — In-person get togethers the place the crew can meet and join head to head.
Worker useful resource teams (ERGs) — Areas (Slack channels, Zoom calls, periods at retreat, and so forth.) the place individuals can come along with others who share the identical identities or lived experiences.
We additionally put quite a lot of work into our administration coaching and help applications. It’s loads more durable being a supervisor in a distant tradition than it’s in a colocated one, and we wish to be sure that we’re establishing each managers and their groups for fulfillment.
Create clear profession paths
When workers are in-office, it may be simpler for them to identify alternatives for development and construct relationships with mentors who might help them get there. Nonetheless, in a distant tradition, this may increasingly not occur organically, which implies you’ll want to construct it into the best way your enterprise operates.
At Assist Scout, we’ve got two distinct profession paths: supervisor and particular person contributor (IC). This may occasionally appear uncommon as many individuals view climbing the ladder from IC to supervisor because the “aim,” however not everybody needs, or is suited, to handle. And even when an engineer, designer, or help crew member isn’t a supervisor, they need to nonetheless have the ability to progress of their profession.
We have now efficiency evaluation cycles twice a yr which function deliberate alternatives for managers to work with their direct reviews to raised perceive which path they in the end wish to be on and to assist them create a sport plan for easy methods to get there. Constructing profession improvement and progress plans into your distant tradition ensures that nobody ever looks like their profession is stunted or that they’re being left behind.
Optimize for work-life concord
Distant work skeptics usually declare that folks work much less at house, however that hasn’t been our expertise. The very fact is, if you rent individuals who love the work, some find yourself working straight via the day with out even realizing it. In fact, working continuous isn’t good both, which is why we optimize for work-life concord in our working cadence and advantages packages.
As an illustration, along with every worker’s allotment of PTO and holidays, we additionally take two week-long, company-wide breaks annually to permit your complete enterprise* to step away. We additionally provide paid sabbaticals each 4 years, day without work for volunteering in the neighborhood, and studying stipends (and day without work for the educational) to help our workers’ progress and improvement.
Distant staff want issues pulling them away from work, like household, hobbies, and different passions, however together with that, they want an organization tradition that helps and encourages these actions. While you construct work-life concord into your tradition, three nice issues occur: Staff don’t burn out, they do their greatest work, and so they’re blissful working at your organization.
*We’d be remiss if we didn’t give a hat tip to our help crew and our on-call engineers who hold the lights on throughout these breaks in order that our prospects are all the time well-supported.
Put money into distant crew tradition
Distant or not, the tradition you construct is a direct results of the time, effort, and assets you set into it. In hindsight, one of many smartest issues we’ve carried out as an organization is put money into individuals ops.
Most of the points confronted by colocated firms at 50, 75, and 100 individuals really must be addressed in a distant tradition at 10, 20, and 35. This was definitely true for Assist Scout, which is why we invested in our individuals crew early. In actual fact, the vast majority of the issues touched on on this publish are all in place due to our VP of Individuals, Leah Knobler, and her crew.
Leah’s crew creates advantages packages, manages the hiring and onboarding expertise, leads our DEI efforts, plans firm retreats, runs coaching for managers and ICs, comes up with new methods to encourage engagement, and collects suggestions so we all know if Assist Scout resides as much as worker expectations.
Should you’re trying to create a profitable remote-first tradition, you’ll want to put money into your individuals crew, as a result of an excellent tradition doesn’t simply occur — you need to work at it!
Construct a remote-first firm that lasts
To construct a profitable distant enterprise, you’ll want to foster an ideal distant tradition that helps everybody in your enterprise really feel seen, revered, and fulfilled. The entire areas we’ve touched on on this piece will assist you get there. Nonetheless, most of them are additionally useful in hybrid or in-person work environments, too.
Good relationships, clear communication, and work-life stability — these are all simply substances of an excellent firm tradition, interval. So, even when distant work isn’t for you, we hope you spend a while serious about what you are able to do to empower your crew to do their greatest work.
