Hiring great talent need not be limited to your local surroundings. As more companies expand their global reach and open offices in various countries, placing local qualified candidates in these positions abroad becomes difficult and time-consuming. Getting these candidates on par with your company's standards also becomes a widespread challenge.
Team members who work remotely from home don't have a morning or afternoon commute, which can improve the quality of life and job satisfaction of employees, but there are a few knots to smoothen out before getting started on remote hiring.
Try these tips for successfully engaging and hiring a remote employee.
Be culturally aware and sensitive.
Working with employees from a wide range of backgrounds, ethnicities, practices, and languages requires understanding customary mannerisms and interactions. The way meetings, conversations, and presentations are conducted can rub a candidate the wrong way if the team is unaware of what's considered rude, polite, and different between each culture. For example, it's common Japanese business etiquette to greet a partner with a bow, and not with a firm handshake. Before meeting with a potential, remote hire, do the research and learn the culture's basic traditions, especially if they're outside what you're used to.
Set a code and process of communication.
Get the team to efficiently collaborate and communicate using the same tools. Working remotely can mean employees are performing their duties at a pace that isn't set by the general speed of the office's workflow. If your company is dependant on remote employees for certain open reqs, be sure the team understands general deadlines and processes for submitting tasks and projects. Consider using meeting tools like Skype or Join.Me to screenshare and connect with employees. Running an interview? Try Take the Interview or HireVue for a video alternative. Asana, Basecamp, and Google Docs are also helpful for project management and file sharing. Hipchat and the classic GChat are good programs for chatting with a remote employee to keep give up-to-the-minute news and updates.
Be flexible.
Working with remote employees can entail working off-hours — receiving early-morning emails, meetings scheduled for later times in the day, and a potentially inconvenient set of hours of availability. Try touching base with remote employees at least once at the start of your morning to get a roundup of the tasks they'll be working on for the day. Find out what they're doing, what they need from you, if there are any challenges that would keep them from completing the projects, and how you can help make the proces more fluid.
What techniques is your team applying to its remote workers? Share with us in the comments and don't forget to check out our webinar on diversity hiring with Box's Sarah Lovelace!
