If the company is newly remote, you might ask about how the transition is going, what tools and practices they’ve put in place, and how its affected the company culture. Inversely, if they’re remote-first, you might ask about what they do to maintain company culture and the traits they look for in their employees. It’s easy to feel intimidated by this question but the best thing you can do is focus on your https://remotemode.net/ past successes and how they relate to the company and job you’re applying for. Answering this question is much easier if you’ve done your research on the company and the role, so be sure to thoroughly read the job description and company website. While this role is a big step up from my current content marketer role, I’m excited to take on new challenges and grow into the remote marketing manager role.

What teams should do is agree on preferred work hours and define meeting calendars that everyone should stick to. This way, the whole team remains available, resolves issues as quickly as possible, and improves overall performance. Staying on the same page when working with people from around the world — not to mention the difficulty in communication and diversity — may be quite challenging to balance out. But, the creative minds of our interviewees offer great insights into how you can deal with the most common remote-work pitfalls. Michael Alexis is the CEO of teambuilding.com with 10 + years of experience in the remote industry.

Motivation in the Workplace: Tips to Keep Your Remote Team Going Strong

We look for creative team players who are willing to bring new ideas to our company. To find a great cultural fit we expect to onboard people who are aligned with our core values, which are quality, excellent support, open-mindedness and creativity, a positive attitude, and honesty. To be successful at LiquidSpace, employees must set and achieve remote work experience examples their own initiatives. This isn’t just about grammar, it’s about succinctly communicating your ideas and the ability to express your personality through writing. I lean towards people who are self-motivated, organized, work well with deadlines, and are very driven. We find these to be the best traits for a remote work environment.

As more people begin working from home, it’s important to address working from home pros and cons. Addressing any challenges head-on ensures everyone can work from home successfully. The 2019 State of Remote Work report found that one of the top reasons survey respondents gave for working remotely was work-life balance.

How to Answer Interview Questions About Working from Home

For example, if you plan for an hour break and return to your desk after only 40 minutes, walk away for another 20. Following our tips is up to you – you know your company better than anyone, and depending on your working culture, you’ll know how to make the most out of it. You can’t keep an eye on everyone at all times, especially digitally. This is why your first step is to identify your organization’s internal influencers.

From an anthropological perspective, remote work can interfere with the process of sensemaking, the forging of consensus or of a common worldview, which involves absorbing a wide range of signals. With remote work, it may also be difficult to obtain timely information, unless the regular sharing of information is taken care of separately. The situation where team members don’t know enough about what others are doing can lead them to make worse decisions or slow down decision-making. Remote work allows employees and employers to be matched despite major location differences. Remote work also reduces costs for the worker such as costs of travel/commuting and clothing.

Con: Communication and collaboration can be a challenge.

As lovely as rolling out of bed and into your desk chair might sound, remote work does have some downsides. Working in your home can be distracting (think your roommate’s loud sales calls or your cat constantly walking across the keyboard). It’s also easy to get sucked into doing just one load of laundry when you know your boss isn’t going to walk by and ask you why you haven’t turned that report in yet. Plus, you don’t have colleagues sitting all around you to serve as positive peer pressure to keep working or to provide a sense of camaraderie that keeps you going.

It is hard to interpret tone in an electronic communication, therefore some miscommunications occur. When working from home employees have to inspire themselves to get the tasks completed. Utilizing time management tools to complete assignments within the prescribed period of time. Once a company’s employees are spread far and wide, leadership will want to keep tabs on them to some extent.

How is remote work different than work from home or “flexible hours”?

And know that you probably won’t have experience with every single platform any given employer uses. Just be sure to mention how quickly you’ve learned new tools in the past. This might feel like a conversational ice breaker question, but it’s one you need to answer thoughtfully. The hiring manager is trying to gauge your level of interest in and comfort with taking on a fully remote role.

• Sometimes you need to extend your day or start early to accommodate someone else’s time zone.
• Most of the team I support is located in different parts of the world.
• While companies as large as Twitter and Dropbox have already committed to a remote-friendly future, others remain unconvinced.
• After all, your team can be just as effective, if not more, working from home if you have the right tools.
• Make sure you have a professional background that is free from clutter and try to have good lighting, whether that is from natural lighting or via a ring/key light is up to you.