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Did your company start remote from day one? What were some of your painful lessons you wished you learned sooner?

blackhaz 5y ago
From day one it was only me. I was working from anywhere, so I guess that means yes, it was remote from the start. Current pain points we are still trying to figure out: - Gathering the whole team effectively and periodically (once a year or so). - People speaking different languages, so everyone must switch to English when the whole team gathers, which degrades the communication flow a little - only a small percentage are native speakers. This requires good team-building activities. Still trying to figure out what activities would excite the whole team without breaking the bank. - Disseminating our "corporate culture" - supposes daily human office interaction. Having everyone in an online chat helps a lot. - Taking care of pension schemes, as everyone is scattered around the globe, with different systems, expenditure levels, etc. - Having a system that shows who's at the desk, who is on a vacation, and so on. Our service business needs real-time operations, so we need to rely on people coming in at work in the morning and staying full-time. Things we wish we would have done sooner: - Identified a jurisdiction and settled down at some place, call it an HQ. A company has to have a physical home where it banks and pays tax, even if it is 100% remote. An Accountant and a person with a PoA from the Director should be present there physically all the time to interact with authorities and the bank. - This was in the original article, but I wish we would have introduced the tradition of online meetings with webcams on sooner. May sound silly, but this helps avoid turning into a bunch of cave warriors and keeping personal relationships alive. - Introduced a single office closure dates document spanning multiple countries to accommodate for different holiday schedules. I'd say the most important lesson of all is having the right people on the ground to handle relationships with local authorities and the bank. We can all choose to be nomads, but our business would not have survived if we weren't lucky to find a great Accountant and Director's Assistant who live in our jurisdiction, and a person on our "nomadic team" to handle that relationship.

From day one it was only me. I was working from anywhere, so I guess that means yes, it was remote from the start. Current pain points we are still trying to figure out: - Gathering the whole team effectively and periodically (once a year or so). - People speaking different languages, so everyone must switch to English when the whole team gathers, which degrades the communication flow a little - only a small percentage are native speakers. This requires good team-building activities. Still trying to figure out what activities would excite the whole team without breaking the bank. - Disseminating our "corporate culture" - supposes daily human office interaction. Having everyone in an online chat helps a lot. - Taking care of pension schemes, as everyone is scattered around the globe, with different systems, expenditure levels, etc. - Having a system that shows who's at the desk, who is on a vacation, and so on. Our service business needs real-time operations, so we need to rely on people coming in at work in the morning and staying full-time. Things we wish we would have done sooner: - Identified a jurisdiction and settled down at some place, call it an HQ. A company has to have a physical home where it banks and pays tax, even if it is 100% remote. An Accountant and a person with a PoA from the Director should be present there physically all the time to interact with authorities and the bank. - This was in the original article, but I wish we would have introduced the tradition of online meetings with webcams on sooner. May sound silly, but this helps avoid turning into a bunch of cave warriors and keeping personal relationships alive. - Introduced a single office closure dates document spanning multiple countries to accommodate for different holiday schedules. I'd say the most important lesson of all is having the right people on the ground to handle relationships with local authorities and the bank. We can all choose to be nomads, but our business would not have survived if we weren't lucky to find a great Accountant and Director's Assistant who live in our jurisdiction, and a person on our "nomadic team" to handle that relationship.