Finally Going Full Remote? Here's Everything You Need to Know First

Remote work is booming largely because of the lockdown. But this way of working has been around for a long time - especially among knowledge workers. During the pandemic, a lot of companies tested remote working for the first time, and most of them do not plan to go back to the office even after the lockdown. However, some holes need to be patched and things taken care of before any founder jumps into remote working permanently.

A lot of founders got to test-drive remote working for the first time during the lockdown. This didn’t come with careful planning as we all had to go remote due to the emergency. If you’re a startup founder, don’t mistake this time as the real nature of remote working. The lack of preparation and the rush to use all the remote working tools available to make working from home desirable aren’t enough.

As a founder, you have to know that this was an emergency and you need to do a complete planning of your remote workforce if you plan to go remote permanently. No founder should follow the trend and implement remote work from the “rushed” lessons during the pandemic. Just because Twitter or Square is allowing remote work doesn’t mean you should
too.

Remote work isn’t just about allowing employees to work from wherever they want - it actually goes beyond this. Founders need to define their policies - including working time (a set number of hours a day or flexible working hours), are there salary adjustments? Who is providing the internet for work from home staff - the company or employees? Is your company helping employees with home setups? How about handling your security? These things have to be thought through and planned carefully by startup founders before thinking about permanent remote work.

Then there’s the type of remote work you want your employees to adopt. Are you allowing all of them to work remotely, as in fully remote? This would mean you won’t operate an office and there’s no headquarters. Founders may also consider partial remote work, where employees can work certain months out of the office and some months in the office. It could even be some days in the office and other days out of the office. These are important steps that every founder should analyze in detail
and probably conduct internal research to know the ideal setup that will be
beneficial for both the startup and its employees.

We are tempted as founders to think that the most important elements in a company when going remote are the company and employees. But customers also matter and there are questions startups should ask about their customers before going remote - even for companies that produce software or only provide services.

Founders need to scrutinize how possible it is to serve their customers seamlessly with a remote workforce. And if you have customers spread across the world, you will need to make sure that your remote workforce can handle the cultural and time zone differences. How will you handle meetings with clients going forward? Does a new setup by your employees affect how they deliver to the customer? Proper planning about serving your customers and clients is an important element that every founder
should consider before moving their workforce remote.

Without trust among employees and between employees and management, no remote workforce will succeed - no matter the number of tools used. For those that start with office work, trust should be built while you work in the same office and this should be fine-tuned to fit a remote working environment. Building trust is a triple-edged sword that will make sure that communication between and among employees and management  is smooth. It also eliminates unnecessary supervision and micromanagement, two factors that could be the downfall of a robust remote team. Trust also gives employees confidence and makes them feel like they matter.

There are tools our there for a lot of activities in the remote work revolution - from communication and collaboration to team building activities such as virtual games. While these tools are great in helping remote companies get work done, collaborate, and have fun, founders should be careful not to fall into the “remote work tools trap”. It’s easy to think that the presence of tools means you don’t have to do much again. I mean, there are tools for human resources, those for communication, those for team building, and a lot more - so why should you care much about how your team is faring. However, founders should remember that these tools are only there to help them accomplish their tasks, and are not
replacements for the human touch and planning that’s needed to make a remote team work.

Founders need to create the needed environment that allows employees to feel like engaging with one another even outside work. They need to build an atmosphere where employees feel comfortable asking their colleagues or management for help when the need arises. These are not done by tools, but rather by careful planning. So as a founder, you need to ensure that the human touch and planning needed for a team to work are not done by tools, but rather by you and your management - and you should always be up for the task.

Remote work isn’t difficult to implement. Just like working from the same office as colleagues, remote work also has challenges. From loneliness to micromanagement, there are a lot of things every founder should take care of when working with a remote workforce. It’s only proper planning and taking into consideration every issue that might arise would founders be able to build remote teams that last and propel their startups to the next level without ever meeting in-person.