In the last few months, humanity has been forced to adapt to a new way of living. As many non-digitally native industries had to shift paradigms due to Covid-19, one of the major changes for most people has been working from home (WFH). With all these radical changes the natural question is: how can teams implement WFH smoothly and successfully?

To answer this question, UTOPIC0DE’s team interviewed Macarena Poo, a Front-End Experienced Developer who started to work fully remote three years ago, when she moved from Canada to Mexico after having worked at an international tech company.

Currently, Macarena works fully remote from Mexico for Zipline, an East Coast company that helps retailers coordinate their brick-and-mortar stores by streamlining communication with people from different countries such as the United States, Canada, Mexico, France, and the United Kingdom.

Considering her valued skillset and remote experience, we decided to approach her to gain useful insights and ensure you get the best advice to thrive in this new working dynamic.

1. How can a society embrace and become familiar with remote work while deconstructing myths?

“It’s a process that will happen gradually,” Macarena asserts. “Companies will realize the benefits of remote work on their performance, from reducing costs, such as for the office space, to increasing employee satisfaction, by giving them more free time.”

Some managers who had worked on-site throughout their careers are concerned that remote work may be detrimental to productivity. The fact that they can no longer see their team physically working may bring concern as to how much employees are working. However, managers can deconstruct the myths of working remotely by applying two essential ideas:

  • Teams can measure productivity by being more result-oriented and not by focusing on time spent in the office or connected to a platform.
  • Teams can increase trust by using high-quality digital tools that improve remote teams’ communication and organization.

This guide will further explain these two essential ideas:

2. How can you and your company build a strong team culture when working remotely?

When working from home, teams have a different way of interacting than in an office. The second scenario might be more straightforward for someone with a traditional mindset. Nonetheless, nowadays, integrating remote workers into the company culture is easy, and all team members can do their bit to build solid work relationships.

Macarena explains that Zipline applies a few tactics to make this culture real. For example, her team schedules a daily meeting called Social to discuss announcements, news, celebrations, blockers, etc. Every Friday during Social, all team members do the wave, raising their hands one after another in an organized sequence. They also use this time to make jokes or develop a group activity. Then, after this meeting, there is Post social, where people can have a little chat and interact with other team members. Post social is a great way to socialize and increase team interaction.

These activities have a positive impact on how people interact during video chats and convey a relaxed vibe that allows team members to share information they would not have shared otherwise — due to tight schedules or client meetings. Also, these team-building efforts can be aligned to the company’s values and culture and can have significant input on a new member onboarding experience.

Here are some more tips on how to build a remote team culture:

  • Team offsites are a great way to create bonding between team members. This can be done with a trip if people live in different countries, or a day trip if people are in the same city.
  • Ask people about their life before starting a meeting.
  • Code sharing between teams allow people to work together and learn from each other.

3. How can you create an effective remote work routine?

Having an established work routine at home can be difficult. There are many distractions, and if employees get too comfortable, they may fail to meet a deadline or complete a task. To avoid distractions, Macarena recommends:

  • Exercise, take a shower, and get dressed just as you would for an on-site job.
  • Set a work schedule.
  • Avoid staying in your pajamas and working from your couch. Instead, find a suitable desk and a place with enough light and space.
  • Take a few minutes to relax and some breaks throughout the workday.
  • Find a way to socialize to avoid feeling isolated.
  • Find and use digital tools to increase your productivity.
  • Set clear objectives and responsibilities.
  • Only attend relevant meetings with colleagues who are crucial to the meeting’s success.
  • Working sessions are highly encouraged.
  • Share your working progress and do regular check-ins with your team.

4. How can you be organized and autonomous when working remotely?

One advantage of remote work is having a flexible schedule, which is why it’s fundamental to learn how to manage your time efficiently and be disciplined. In this way, you won’t find yourself working every day until 3 am. As there are no physical barriers anymore, it’s easy to get caught up in work.

When Macarena has to deliver several projects, she talks to her managers to know what the priorities are. Additionally, she also performs the following actions:

  • Establish clear priorities and urgency levels.
  • Make checklists and set daily short/long term goals.
  • Start with easy or difficult activities, depending on what you like and need.
  • Set an established work schedule and stick to it as much as possible, without losing the natural flexibility of working remotely.
  • Observe how your teammates and leads work to understand what performance they expect for different tasks and projects.
  • Follow and document the processes that allow your company to reach outcomes.

5. How can you get people to take your work from home job seriously?

According to Macarena, you need to treat remote work like a regular job. Many people think that you’re not working just because you’re at home, and they assume you are free all day. We must learn to say “I’m working” and adjust to office hours. It’s important to be clear with people. So they understand that it’s impossible to have the same level of concentration if you’re working with other people or in a place that is not your usual remote workstation.

6. What are the best digital tools for remote work?

Today, digital tools are fundamental to improve team management and communication. Macarena has given us a list of digital tools that you could find helpful:

  • Slack is a channel-based messaging platform. It allows you to create different private or shared channels according to a specific need or topic, such as sales, marketing, jokes, social, etc. You can also update your current status by adding different emojis or writing a little message so that your teammates know how you feel each day. This app can also help you keep track of your doubts, announcements, and blockers, for better asynchronous communication with your remote colleagues.
  • Get Guru, Atlassian, or Wiki are collaborative knowledge management solutions that can help you document processes, methods, or any other company-related tasks in an easy way.
  • Github is a development platform where you can host and review code, manage projects, and build software alongside 50 million developers.
  • Miro is a collaborative whiteboarding platform that enables teams to work effectively together, from brainstorming to creative ideation and managing agile workflows.
  • Visual Studio Code is a code editor that allows you to code in pairs and share your code with others.
  • Zoom is a video conference service that can be used to facilitate video calls, meetings, and webinars of all sizes, depending on the payment plan you sign up for.
  • Google Meet is another video conference service in which you can have daily meetings with up to 25 people.
  • Monday or Basecamp are project management tools to track and manage the time spent on project tasks. With Basecamp, you can also add a bot for asking questions when onboarding a new team member.

There are plenty of possibilities to explore. With these tools, everyone can share, download, manage, keep a record of, and archive any company-related activity.

7. The advantages of remote working VS on-site working. What do you like the most about working from home?

Many studies and surveys, such as Owl Labs surveys, have shown that remote work has many advantages over on-site work. Knowing these benefits could help managers shift their mindset, mainly by eliminating several myths about productivity.

These are the three main benefits of remote work:

  • You are the owner of your own time, have more flexibility, and can focus more on your personal life.
  • You can work for worldwide companies and with diverse teams from your home.
  • You can make the most of your time: there are fewer distractions, and you can be more productive.

8. What are the challenges of remote work, and how can you solve them?

There can be a few challenges when working remotely, such as feeling lonely, getting distracted, not being able to establish a routine, and so on. But this can also happen when working on-site. Moreover, these challenges are easy to solve when you are at home, as you have more freedom and independence to change whatever doesn’t work for you.

The fact of not being able to interact physically with others is another challenge of remote work. We are social beings and interaction is vital. But you don’t necessarily have to work from home. You could use a coworking space and rent your desk. In this way, you could work with other people and not feel alone. Luckily, today there are multiple coworking options or cafeterias to overcome loneliness when working remotely.

Also, you can:

  • Plan out-of-work activities, such as playing games with your team.
  • Organize video conferences to socialize with your team.

Other individual and team challenges you may encounter and their respective solutions are:

  • Lack of initiative. To solve this problem, you could establish clear goals and look for autonomous and proactive people before onboarding them to your team.
  • Lack of trust. A potential solution is to set a routine and achieve small outcomes first, to reach an ambitious milestone or finish a project gradually.

9. What are the biggest fails when working remotely?

Developing bad habits when working from home is one of the most common mistakes. It’s important to recognize them and understand why they need to be changed. Some of these bad habits are:

  • Working on the couch. You’ll probably fall asleep.
  • Not having an established workspace. You’ll be less efficient.
  • Waking up late and going to sleep late. This is an unhealthy routine.
  • Staying in your pajamas or workout clothes all day long.
  • Not having a clear division between working mode and not working mode.

11. How can you avoid communication gaps?

Communication is vital to remote work. Over-communication can be a great tool when you want to be extra clear and straightforward.

  • Use emojis to express your emotions or to establish the tone of the conversation, so there’s no space for misinterpretation.
  • Document everything and write all your messages or announcements clearly so that every coworker can notice and understand them.
  • Use different platforms and channels to have fluid communication.
  • Build a positive team environment in which employees feel free to ask questions.

12. How can you achieve real teamwork in a remote team?

Teamwork is fundamental. To achieve this, communication and the distribution of assignments are key. Regarding communication, you need to consider that when you’re not working on-site, it could be harder to convey or understand messages. That is why sharing doubts, needs, blockers, and also emotions will facilitate interaction between teams, build relationships, and empathy between colleagues.

You also need:

  • Clear task division.
  • Project management. You should have a solid plan and a schedule.
  • Clear objectives and goals.
  • Pair programming. It’s essential if you have a software development team.

13. How can you keep your team in sync?

Staying in sync with your team, even when you’re in a different time zone, can be a bit challenging, but never impossible.

All you need to do is:

  • Communicate effectively. Inform your team about every single detail of a project, doubts, announcement, blockers, etc.
  • Document every process, method, or message.
  • Be straightforward, especially when you need something from someone else.
  • Set clear deadlines, expectations, and goals.

UTOPIC0DE, a tech recruitment platform for remote developers, knows that remote work will become pivotal across all industries. This guide can help company leaders and their team members face the challenges of the transition to remote work. Now more than ever, it is fundamental to address these challenges, understand the pros and cons of remote work, and learn how to manage it.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many businesses to shut down. As a consequence, the unemployment rate has risen, and the economy has fallen apart. With this situation, we are pretty sure that remote work will be the new normal, building new job opportunities under a new vision.

Part of UTOPIC0DE’s job is connecting skilled developers with international tech companies and helping teams transition to this new dynamic. In this time of remote work, UTOPIC0DE wishes you the best.

We invite you to learn here about soft skills to improve your abilities as a developer.