How we put together a super team on a remote site and never regretted it

I do not call for a revolution, but I want the offices in Russia to be massively closed, and most of the employees switched to a remote site. It seems to me that this will allow both people and companies to work more efficiently.



I will share my personal experience on how to hire remote employees, how to form work processes and how to equip a cozy virtual "office".



Now 10 people work in our YouGile team, and all are in a remote format. We do not attract investments, we make a profit and grow in active users at 10% per month for 2 years now.



Daily Planning



And I can say that forming a super team on a remote site is quite realistic - the remote work market is growing from year to year. I have something to compare: our first IT company (RedHelper) rented 250 m2 on Paveletskaya in Moscow.



The article has two parts: "Part 1. How we look for people" and "Part 2. How we organize work." After all, before organizing the processes, it is important to form a good team.



I invite you to look into our "backstage".

Part 1. How we find strong professionals

A competition of 100 people for 1 vacancy is a real prospect even for the smallest company, if it is ready to hire remote employees. I’ll reveal a few rules that help us get a lot of feedback and select really strong colleagues from them.



Here is an example of how in 10 days we received 294 responses to hh.ru:



HH job postings



This is not an absolute indicator, the number of responses depends on the position, level of salary and other factors. However, it is clear that there are many who want to work.

How to write a vacancy

We always indicate in the job title that this is remote work. This name is sometimes moderated on hh.ru, but I edit it back and call support. The result (more than 3 times more responses, without regional restrictions) is worth it.



In addition, this allows you to "lure" to yourself the best specialists who are always employed. And udalenka is almost the only way to start working with them. This is especially true for startups who dream of a cool developer, but cannot offer him the same chic open space, as for example with Yandex. But they can offer a democratic udalenka.



In the job description, we adhere to the "home" style. No officialdom and bureaucracy. One thing is the office vacancy of a large bank, and quite another is a vacancy for a remote employee in a modern IT company. We just write who we are and what we do.



Often we ask candidates to complete a short task in a cover letter:



“Write in your own words in 3-4 sentences what a project management system is.”



So you can understand in 30 seconds whether to conduct an interview. This works well when hiring copywriters, designers and managers, but for techies it’s better not to use this move. The responses of cool programmers are not enough, so we try to protect them.

Why always keep a job open

It makes sense to interview 1 candidate out of 100, but the most interesting. If you need to find a specialist urgently, in 2-3 weeks, then you will inevitably have to make hard compromises and lower the bar. If you choose a strategy of permanent recruiting, then you can safely aim at a candidate a level higher and select really strong colleagues.

Who are we calling for an interview?

• The candidate successfully completed the mini-task, which we asked him to do in a cover letter.
• It is desirable that the candidate already had experience in remote work. According to my observation, in 80% of cases, a person without experience on a remote site will not be able to get involved in work processes. But there are more and more people with such a background. Only 3 years ago, only 5 out of 100 candidates previously worked remotely, but now every fourth.
• It is also important for me that the candidate has measurable results and achievements. If not professional, then at least personal. For example, the title of master of sports matters to me. It shows that a person is able to work hard, achieve goals and win.

A good move is to hire remote employees for half time. (4 hours a day)

My experience shows that it is often held pros who choose this format. They already have a job, but they want more. Perhaps they combine several projects. And this is an indicator that the specialist is standing. In addition, in this way you optimize costs yourself: if an employee does not meet your expectations, you will part with it at a lower cost than in full time mode.

How to interview

The main task that I set for myself at the interview is to understand whether a person can complete the test task. This differs from the usual approaches when they try to make a decision on hiring for a probationary period during an interview.



Why is this important to me? If at the next stage the candidate completely fails the test task, then the problem is how we organized the selection, not the candidate. Therefore, all my questions are related to whether a person can solve the problem.



I carry out the interview in video format, through the Whereby system (a good alternative to Skype).

How we play with sails at an interview

At the interview for the position of sales, we lose various sales 2-3 times. The first game is with a product that the applicant sold earlier. The second game is with any product that comes to mind. We sell horses, oranges ... I specifically drive the sales into deadlock: “I don’t need to”, “I have already signed an annual contract with another supplier” - and see how it will get out. The key here is not memorized template scripts, but flexibility and the ability to search for different approaches. Sometimes we “turn around” roles, and in the role of a seller, I myself offer options for resolving a dead end question. If the candidate quickly catches my train of thought and copes with the task in the next game, then this is clearly a good challenger.

Paid test task (the most important point of selection!)

During this stage of hiring, the main task is to check the mindset of the applicant and to determine whether he is suitable to carry out the tasks. And the test itself should be a small real task.



For example, for a copywriter vacancy, we suggest writing an article in any format for 4 hours and 2,000 rubles - “Comparison of various control systems”. In this case, the candidate can (should) ask any questions.





Even with a very good resume and a successful interview, only 4 out of 5 applicants do this task poorly. The main problem is trying to "pour water", they write a long and meaningless text. Or they write too advertisingly and “cheaply”.



I expect to get an author’s text, well-thought-out material with facts and valuable advice. Of course, for 4 hours to deeply study unfamiliar subjects is almost impossible. But I appreciate precisely the attempt to do this, as well as the ability to extract and process information. The best candidates ask a lot of questions and write short articles with meaning in each sentence.

Why the test task must be paid

We offer only paid test items. This significantly increases the chances of getting a good specialist. Not every self-respecting candidate will spend time on a free test, and if so, he will be reluctant, without a proper degree of involvement. Test task with payment is much closer to real work. Someone may argue that this is an additional cost for the company, and candidates often agree to show themselves without payment. In reality, it’s just misery, within the framework of the company's expenses it’s generally small amounts, and the level of candidates will be very different.

Part 2. How we organize work

So we got to the point. The team was formed, but now how to organize on a remote site? How to follow the work, how to understand what is going on in the company? I will share my experience in how we solve these issues.

Myth: TV, fridge and sofa win on remote employees

However, if you tied a person to the office - this does not mean that he will work. Facebook, a coffee machine and a smoking room can also win in the office. Both in the office and on the remote - the person either works or not. On a remote site, on the contrary, it’s easier for you to evaluate employee productivity. Since you are completely focused on tasks, and the employee cannot disguise his inaction by pleasant communication over a cup of coffee and corporate events. In a remote place it is almost impossible to imitate violent activity, because it is not visible. But the results are immediately visible. Employee productivity is very easy to evaluate by the number of tasks solved.

How to understand whether an employee is working or playing the fool?

No way. But this can not be understood in the office. It is important here to monitor not people, but tasks. Any employee can do anything and anytime, this is his business. Our business is to see if he solves problems or tells beautiful stories, why it didn’t work out.



Often, managers accustomed to the office have a strong feeling: employees do not work if they are not kicked. When working on a remote site, you need to flip this feeling to the exact opposite - employees work by default!

Do I need to check how many hours an employee worked

Do not even try. That is what the remote work format differs from the office one. We do not work remotely “from call to call”. Some companies offer remote employees to install programs for recording time on a computer. And thereby frighten off specialists who value the remote precisely because of its democratic nature, flexible schedule and focus on results (regardless of the time spent on the process). By tracking work time, you will in fact level out all the advantages of remote work, weaken the self-discipline of employees and reduce their motivation to close tasks on time. Especially if their salary depends on the number of hours worked. In this case, employees will specifically stretch the time they work on the task.

How do we plan work

We are developing a project management system where every task is a chat and, of course, we conduct all communications and planning in YouGile . Sometimes for the sake of tests we conduct some processes in competing products.



We hold common weekly meetings on Mondays. We set tasks for the current week in all areas: development, design, marketing, testing. We display everything on the Planning board. If we don’t have time to complete the task in a week, we reformulate it more precisely. For example, the task was “Write an article”, reformulate to “Issue an article”. There are no fines for overdue tasks; everything is based on common sense.





Weekly Planning Board



Also, every morning we meet with employees at a 20-minute meeting to discuss what was successfully implemented yesterday and what remains to be done today.

How are work processes organized in different departments

Development department

This is what the development board looks like. It’s all about sprints, there is a special sprint sticker by which you can filter tasks. By default, current tasks are displayed. There is a backlog where ideas and deferred tasks fall. The department is still small, and everything is implemented very simply, we do not complicate it specifically.





Development Board

Marketing department

The marketing department is not an ordinary board. It has a continuous brainstorm and discusses various promotion methods. So far there are 5 key points on which we decided to focus: Contextual advertising, Videos, Articles, Email newsletters and Social networks. Key tasks are also put on the weekly planning board for all to see.





Marketing Board

Sales department

A full-fledged CRM system is formed on the basis of the sales department board. Customers are divided into categories according to their status: “Failed to contact”, “Under processing”, “Conduct Skype”, “Discussion of payment”, “Billed”, “Paid”. There are also many stickers: where did the lead come from, what was agreed on, what is the next step. Several hundred cards are constantly in work. Several people can work on the board. To see the tasks of each manager separately, you can filter them by artist.





CRM Sales

Tech support

All requests from users who come to us automatically get into the system on a separate Helpdesk board. Technical support works with tickets and prioritizes. Also, on the other board, a general picture of calls with counters for each request is compiled.





The picture of appeals



PS Still, there are disadvantages in organizing a remote team. For example, on a remote site there is no single regime that forms an office, and this is a really important aspect. But this is a topic for a separate material.



And finally, a small poll ...