Ensuring your company culture reflects the new work models such as remote and hybrid is critical in retaining and attracting the best global tech talent.

This doesn’t necessarily mean massive changes to your current culture, but it does mean reviewing what you do, how you do it, and importantly, how well you are listening to all your employees – no matter where in the world they work.

Here are just three key business practices in building remote tech teams that are tried and tested at Sharesource:

1. Onboarding practices

New remote team members need access to the right technology to get the job done, including the tools for communication. They will need to understand their role, company policies, practices and projects. For remote tech members, it is important to make sure they don’t feel ‘out on a limb’. There is a balance between when to work it out and when to ask for help. The management’s role is to help them find the right balance.

Changes in policies and practices must be shared with current as well as new team members. While those returning to the office, even for just a few days a week, may need to be re-onboarded (or, reboarded) as they settle back into the office environment, often meeting new team members face-to-face for the first time.

2. Ask, listen and respond

A culture of asking, listening and responding is critical in today’s work environment. No matter where your team members are located, it is important that they are encouraged to be active members of the team, contributing ideas and insights on projects as well as company-wide issues and opportunities. Management must be active listeners responding to team members in ways that are thoughtful and motivating rather than hindering further discussion.

It is important your remote team members don’t feel left out when it comes to seeking their feedback or taking their ideas seriously.

Different time zones, however, can impact the asking, listening and responding. A time for a meeting might suit the team in one country but not others, while a team planning meeting has a different dynamic when for those sitting in the room versus those who have logged in.

Forbes article, The Formula For High-Functioning Remote Tech Teams, suggests that asynchronous communication (a style that doesn’t require real-time interactions such as in-person or video meetings) enable remote tech workers to contribute to team discussions when they have the bandwidth to communicate, or at a time that suits their workload.

A culture of transparency in communication across all levels of the organisation, no matter where they are located will build trust between team members, team leaders and senior management and in turn increased productivity.

3. Provide opportunities to grow

If you have the best tech talent, they are likely to be hungry to grow their capabilities and expand their knowledge. By not providing opportunities for this to occur you are stunting your team’s growth and the ability for them to remain productive.

Growth opportunities need to cover training, mentoring and coaching that seek to develop both professional and personal skills.

When all or part of your team is working remotely, access to the right technology is paramount. Not just to ensure the communication tools to enable education programs to occur, but also to ensure that your remote or hybrid tech team is up to date on the latest technology relevant to the business.

Pair programming is also a way of ensuring tech team members are developing their skills. This involves pairing up software engineers to work on programming tasks. In addition to sharing knowledge and skill development, this can offer better solutions and different approaches than either developer could have produced on their own.

Staying ahead of the curve ball

These are only three of several other aspects of your company culture that are critical in ensuring your remote and hybrid team members feel valued and included. These three play a role in keeping and attracting your top technical talent. 

We are in a continuously shifting global environment that demands constant vigilance and adjustment. Smart businesses attract smart people, but to remain smart, you need to be ahead of the curve ball. Here are just a few on how to stay ahead of the curve:

• Monitor and analyse changes in all aspects of your business around technology and people management

• Speak to your employees at every level within the business and encourage them to be your ‘eyes and ears’ is one way to stay ahead of the latest trends

• Monitor global changes that could impact your business, possibly not today but most certainly in a few tomorrows.

What is Reboarding?

Returning to the office comes with social and emotional concerns for employees. Your Reboarding strategy plays a critical role in ensuring that your employees' return to work is a positive outcome for them and your business.