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Does anyone have any more information on what sort of structure, organization cultural things can be put in place to help a company function fully remote?

wjohnsto 8y ago
GitLab actually has their entire handbook open: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/
dsumenkovic 8y ago
Hello, Community Advocate from GitLab here. Thanks wjohnsto for sharing a link to our Handbook. I'd love to share our "All Remote" page as well. https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/ https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/. There you can read how remote work is changing the workforce, how it changes the organization, advantages for employees and organizations and what did we learn about remote working. Additionally, our blog page is the great place to learn about our culture and remote working at GitLab https://about.gitlab.com/blog/ https://about.gitlab.com/blog/. Here's the list of our blog posts I would recommend. This may be a really interesting read for you: [1] https://about.gitlab.com/2018/10/18/the-case-for-all-remote-companies/ https://about.gitlab.com/2018/10/18/the-case-for-all-remote-... [2] https://about.gitlab.com/2018/05/17/eliminating-distractions-and-getting-things-done/ https://about.gitlab.com/2018/05/17/eliminating-distractions... [3] https://about.gitlab.com/2018/04/27/remote-future-how-remote-companies-stay-connected/ https://about.gitlab.com/2018/04/27/remote-future-how-remote... [4] https://about.gitlab.com/2018/04/17/remote-work-facilitates-devops/ https://about.gitlab.com/2018/04/17/remote-work-facilitates-... [5] https://about.gitlab.com/2018/03/16/remote-work-done-right/ https://about.gitlab.com/2018/03/16/remote-work-done-right/
- bengale 8y ago
  Thank you for making these available and being so open.
  - dsumenkovic 8y ago
    You are welcome!
- simonebrunozzi 8y ago
  Thanks for sharing this. A quick suggestion though: you might want to limit the number of links you share in a single comment, as these 2+5 seem a bit too much for me, and they might look like you're trying to publicize your company a tad too much. Or, from a slightly different perspective, they might look like you're trying to say as much as possible about the company you work for, instead of focusing on providing value to your readers. To be clear, this just as a simple suggestion, based on the perception I had from your comment and from my personal experience (former tech evangelist at Amazon for 6 years, trying to give you my 0.02 to make you succeed in one of the hardest jobs in the world - I've been in these shoes :D)
  - Aeolun 8y ago
    While I agree with the suggestion, the way you tried so hard to be non-confrontational about it made it a little bit nauseating :P
    - simonebrunozzi 8y ago
      You know? You are actually right. And your suggestion to me is very valuable. Thanks for sharing it.
  - dsumenkovic 8y ago
    Hey Simone, thank you for the feedback. I really appreciate your thoughts and your advice make sense. It's amazing to see people from various communities helping each other with simple tips, we call that a small iteration :-). I never expected this thread will grow this much. At the moment of posting my comment, the thread was almost empty and my intention was to share as much of valuable information to captaindiego. However, it turned into a reaally big thread and the context of my comment probably turned into something else for later viewers. Anyway, as we always try to stay transparent I left it as it is. Thank you for your great opinion, I'll consider your words when posting a comment next time.
pilom 8y ago
1) Everything gets a ticket to track it. Managers can't track "time in chair" so they need something else to track to know if you're doing your job. 2) Daily talking stand ups work really well on my team to just chat and get some "people" time in. 3) If it is a "some people work in an office and some are remote" situation, then ALL meetings need to be done on teleconferences. And, when the call is over, the meeting is _over_. No follow up chit chat about the meeting with between the people in the office. Some companies go as far as to say that you need to take those meetings from your desk rather than the conference room as it is really hard for the couple remote people to keep up with the non-verbal messages that can get passed around.
ryanmercer 8y ago
I don't have anything myself but Zapier has this resource https://zapier.com/learn/remote-work/ https://zapier.com/learn/remote-work/ They also have some remote work blog posts in their blog https://zapier.com/blog/ https://zapier.com/blog/

wjohnsto 8y ago

GitLab actually has their entire handbook open: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/

dsumenkovic 8y ago

Hello, Community Advocate from GitLab here. Thanks wjohnsto for sharing a link to our Handbook. I'd love to share our "All Remote" page as well. https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/ https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/. There you can read how remote work is changing the workforce, how it changes the organization, advantages for employees and organizations and what did we learn about remote working. Additionally, our blog page is the great place to learn about our culture and remote working at GitLab https://about.gitlab.com/blog/ https://about.gitlab.com/blog/. Here's the list of our blog posts I would recommend. This may be a really interesting read for you: [1] https://about.gitlab.com/2018/10/18/the-case-for-all-remote-companies/ https://about.gitlab.com/2018/10/18/the-case-for-all-remote-... [2] https://about.gitlab.com/2018/05/17/eliminating-distractions-and-getting-things-done/ https://about.gitlab.com/2018/05/17/eliminating-distractions... [3] https://about.gitlab.com/2018/04/27/remote-future-how-remote-companies-stay-connected/ https://about.gitlab.com/2018/04/27/remote-future-how-remote... [4] https://about.gitlab.com/2018/04/17/remote-work-facilitates-devops/ https://about.gitlab.com/2018/04/17/remote-work-facilitates-... [5] https://about.gitlab.com/2018/03/16/remote-work-done-right/ https://about.gitlab.com/2018/03/16/remote-work-done-right/

bengale 8y ago
Thank you for making these available and being so open.
- dsumenkovic 8y ago
  You are welcome!
simonebrunozzi 8y ago
Thanks for sharing this. A quick suggestion though: you might want to limit the number of links you share in a single comment, as these 2+5 seem a bit too much for me, and they might look like you're trying to publicize your company a tad too much. Or, from a slightly different perspective, they might look like you're trying to say as much as possible about the company you work for, instead of focusing on providing value to your readers. To be clear, this just as a simple suggestion, based on the perception I had from your comment and from my personal experience (former tech evangelist at Amazon for 6 years, trying to give you my 0.02 to make you succeed in one of the hardest jobs in the world - I've been in these shoes :D)
- Aeolun 8y ago
  While I agree with the suggestion, the way you tried so hard to be non-confrontational about it made it a little bit nauseating :P
  - simonebrunozzi 8y ago
    You know? You are actually right. And your suggestion to me is very valuable. Thanks for sharing it.
- dsumenkovic 8y ago
  Hey Simone, thank you for the feedback. I really appreciate your thoughts and your advice make sense. It's amazing to see people from various communities helping each other with simple tips, we call that a small iteration :-). I never expected this thread will grow this much. At the moment of posting my comment, the thread was almost empty and my intention was to share as much of valuable information to captaindiego. However, it turned into a reaally big thread and the context of my comment probably turned into something else for later viewers. Anyway, as we always try to stay transparent I left it as it is. Thank you for your great opinion, I'll consider your words when posting a comment next time.

pilom 8y ago

1) Everything gets a ticket to track it. Managers can't track "time in chair" so they need something else to track to know if you're doing your job. 2) Daily talking stand ups work really well on my team to just chat and get some "people" time in. 3) If it is a "some people work in an office and some are remote" situation, then ALL meetings need to be done on teleconferences. And, when the call is over, the meeting is _over_. No follow up chit chat about the meeting with between the people in the office. Some companies go as far as to say that you need to take those meetings from your desk rather than the conference room as it is really hard for the couple remote people to keep up with the non-verbal messages that can get passed around.

ryanmercer 8y ago

I don't have anything myself but Zapier has this resource https://zapier.com/learn/remote-work/ https://zapier.com/learn/remote-work/ They also have some remote work blog posts in their blog https://zapier.com/blog/ https://zapier.com/blog/