If you don't understand remote teams, it's time to start learning

Welcome to a new weekly 'newsletter' you can subscribe to here in LinkedIn that will analyse the future of work and technology, drawing on work from my daily Big Revolution newsletter.

Yesterday I was listening to a podcast interview with Gitlab founder and CEO, Sid Sijbrandij. As someone who has managed a remote team in the past, I was happy to hear that Gitlab handles its remote employees well. It hires wherever the best people happen to be and pays them as sensibly. What do I mean by ‘sensibly?’ I mean 'in a way that works out best for employees and employer alike.’

As discussed in this blog post, Gitlab has a formula for calculating pay that takes how much a role would be paid in San Francisco where the company is based, and then adjusts for factors including an employee’s location

This makes sense for both sides, as the company prioritises the quality of life the person can expect with a certain role. If you paid someone in India the exact same salary as someone in pricey San Francisco, the Indian employee would be living like royalty, whereas the American employee would perhaps have a comfortable but unremarkable existence. That’s not exactly fair, is it? And it can’t do much for team morale, either — or the company’s bank balance.

Smart, location-aware salary calculations are just one factor in running a good remote team. I’ve experienced good remote teams, and bad ones. The bad ones are where remote staff members are treated as second-class citizens. These poor souls struggle to get in touch with anyone, feel they can't contribute meaningfully to team meetings, and can feel like their chances of promotion are limited.

The best remote businesses build all their processes around online communication and documentation, meaning staff who happen to be based at head office don’t have an advantage in progressing their careers or just getting day-to-day things done.

If I’m based 1,000 miles from head office, I should be able to get hold of the head of HR just as easily as the person sitting three desks away from them, for example. This is perfectly possible with modern software like Slack or Microsoft Teams, and a bit of discipline from all concerned.

Investing in making sure everyone comes together in the same physical space at least once a year is important, too. You don't need to work in the same room all year round, but a couple of days of everyone being in close proximity does wonders for team spirit and rapport between colleagues. It's amazing to see two people meet in person for the first time after working together remotely for months; that online rapport often transfers seamlessly to the offline world.

If you've ever worked remotely, many of the points above may seem obvious, but they're not always so obvious to employers. If this is all new to you, perhaps it’s time to start thinking about how your workplace can become remote friendly.

As remote working becomes more common in all sorts of fields of work, this kind of best practice will become ever more important.