Here are my notes for the fifth section, “Hiring and Keeping the Best.”
General vibe: Most of this book is about how to have a healthy team and company, regardless of whether they’re remote. (It’s easier to sell a whole book instead of a blog post, though; also, there may be folks that aren’t familiar with some of these general things.)
- It’s difficult to be on an international team — time zones are an issue.
- Jameson is the only one of us with experience working with an international team. He said it’s too easy to throw stuff over the wall because most of the communication is asynchronous (i.e., long stretches of time between emails to resolve blockers).
- There are pluses of having an international team — exposure to different perspectives, and other minor things such as date formats (i.e., week starting on Monday instead of Sunday).
- Semi-related, dealing with international standards (e.g., GDPR) can be a challenge.
- Needing a common language is needed even if not remote. Additionally people’s accent and manner of speech can be difficult to understand over a phone.
- Geoff has seen the play of having an experienced person go remote at his current company. Rather than leave the company, the individual moved out of state and uses web conferencing to attend meetings.
- Regarding squashing small problems caused by missed cues or context… Jameson said the same thing happens between day shift and night shift. They don’t talk to resolve problems; instead they gripe about each other.
- Houston recently had experience of being interviewed remotely. It was through Zoom, and his would-be supervisor only stayed on for part of the time, so Houston could talk to the team without the boss around.
- Managers need to enforce healthy communication and stop unhealthy ones before it becomes a problem. Set expectations and enforce them because you have fewer channels to communicate and build rapport organically.
- Non-financial benefits (e.g., happy hour Fridays, company picnics) don’t apply remote. You can pay for perks the office has, such as if your facility has a gym, cover your remote employees’ gym membership.
- Houston ran into another issue when facilitating a sprint retrospective team-building exercise. The activity (e.g., building a Lego set without access to instructions to simulate poor requirements) doesn’t work remotely. He did find an alternative exercise: Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes.
- You need to have personal rapport with your team and know about their lives (e.g., hobbies, families). We all agreed that the book was flippant toward one 37 Signals employee Jeremy, stating that they don’t know where he’s working from at any moment.
- Regarding seeing a portfolio of work, Geoff had some issues with this. For developers, we may not have a portfolio of because our projects are proprietary, meaning we have to work off the clock to be attractive to future employers.
- Instead of posing real-world problems, ask about a specific time the candidate did something like that. How you solve problems is contextual, and there’s a different pressure of solving the problem during an interview (i.e., being judged) than how you would during a random day at work.
- About paying people under-market because they live in a cheaper area… poaching happens anywhere.
- If you’re open to being paid less, you are opening the door to being less important (i.e., deeming yourself unworthy).
- Ask the company how they compensate remote vs. on-site employees.
- If you’re remote, the main thing others see is your output, not your social ability.
- Geoff affirmed the importance of good written communication; the group agreed this applies in general, not just for remote folks. Although remote workers will have a higher percentage of communication in written form.
- We talked about how we’ve been in situations where we’re five minutes into writing an email and then realize this would be faster to explain in-person or verbally. How do you deal with that when there’s a time zone difference and the other person isn’t available?
- The group was in favor of the test project (and the company paying for it). The test project should be similar to the work you’d need to do. Geoff said this could be hard to contrive (as a hiring manager). For example, maybe create a web app that has the front end done, but the candidate has to figure out the business logic. That way the candidate wouldn’t get tripped up if front-end work wasn’t in their wheelhouse. Or maybe you give them a blank slate to test their adaptability to figure out stuff they don’t know.
- It’s important to engage in activities based on interest (e.g., playing Smash Brothers over Discord); you’re engaging, but at ease. You could do this instead of taking the candidate out for a meal.
- Having stuff figured to support remote work means you’re likely to be in good shape with other aspects. But just because a company is okay with remote work doesn’t mean they have a healthy culture.