Managing Remote Teams. How'd you do it?

October 18, 2019

by a searcher from Thomas A. Edison State College in Cincinnati, OH, USA

I am looking at acquiring an IT services firm. The operation is relatively lean with only a few employees and several contractors. The entire employee base works remotely. Have any of the successful searchers here acquire a company with a remote workforce? What did you learn? What information is critical to find out during the due diligence phase? Thank you in advance.

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Reply by a searcher
from Hult International Business School in Othello, WA 99344, USA

Micah, I currently have an IT firm with remote employees. Previously I had a remote office with as many as 30 staff in that office. Now my remote staff are all over the world with no office. I preferred having remote offices where staff could get to know each other face to face and I could visit the office and do interviews and work with the team. Having everyone remote makes communication, training and establishing a sense of vision and community difficult, we use tools like slack to help with that and I am sure the firm you are looking at has good processes in place for project management and communication. That is what I would look for, How are they managing communication, project management etc. and how effective are they. They must be somewhat effective or they wouldn't be a target for you I am guessing.

I am currently looking at purchasing remote small companies to provide offices and regional staff where my staff are so that I an have offices again. Even if they don't come to the office every day, having employees in the same region so we can get together in person periodically I think is the direction I want to go. If your staff are all US and really high end and expensive, then just flying everyone to one location once or twice a year may work. That is my opinion. It isn't necessary really necessary to have face to face time.... but I feel like it will help build a more cohesive team. That is just where I am at and how I am looking at it.

Also perhaps the obvious what are the contracts like with the contractors? We like contractors because there isn't a long term liability.... so verify that is the case.

Reply by a searcher
from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in Tampa, FL, USA

Micah, We take into account diversity with age, gender, nationality, and religion. Whether you're in an office or working remote these variables, need to be accounted for in your remote management plan. With that said, we find establishing and training on clear standards, expectations and deliverables help to keep everyone focused on the task at hand. Your younger generation typically feels the need to be a part of something and engaged more than your older generation employees. Everyone wants to feel engage and be a part of something, how you manage that usually is broken up into several different ways to be all-inclusive. Lots of tools out there to help with collaboration and engagement. We offer employees the flexibility to buy and or use whatever device(s) they feel works best for them. Example, a large 17-inch screen laptop or desktop, Apple or Windows, multiple 23-inch monitors, higher-end web cameras and Plantronics headsets that enable them to use multiple devices, all our employee's choices, Yes, I know someone's going to comment on support impact, lots of services out there now that the employees can take to a shop or home service, cost analysis is very similar. But we have found that the employee's sense of flexibility and ownership is greatly enhanced.

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