You’ve heard somewhere that hiring remote developers is a bad idea. Maybe you’ve even declined to hire a promising developer just because they’re not in the same city or time zone.
However, the idea that hiring remote developers is bad is a misconception that might cause you to overlook a pool of highly talented professionals.
Are you skeptical about the value of remote developers in the modern workplace? Here are four misconceptions about hiring remote developers and how you can avoid making them.
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Myth #1: Productivity Will Slump
Established tech companies of all sizes are turning to remote hiring as a smart business move. However, how can you be sure that remote team members will focus on their work?
A study by the Harvard Business Review provides good news. Employees allowed to work from home for nine months were 13.5% more productive than the on-site worker control group. In addition, the remote workers were also happier and less likely to quit.
After being hired, remote developers must face the same productivity challenges as their on-site colleagues. That means that the need for actionable development plans, clear communication and priorities, automated tools, and minimizing the need for debugging is everyone’s problem.
What You Can Do
Here are tips for keeping your remote developers sharp and efficient:
Minimize distractions. Even remote work environments have distractions. The trick is to minimize work time lost to them. Encourage developers to plan and prioritize their work before they start each day. Remind them to set up their email and messaging software to deliver messages when they are least likely to disturb the workflow.
Emphasize the use of automated tools and processes. There’s nothing like automated development tools to avoid time-consuming mistakes, rework and manual testing, or QA methods.
Encourage real-time collaboration. The same tools and methods that accelerate communications throughout the development life cycle provide an effective platform for group problem-solving.
Read More: How to Create a Software Development Workflow for Remote Hires
Myth #2: Teamwork and Company Culture Will Suffer
Concerns about remote workers fitting into your local work culture usually fall into three categories:
Remote developers won’t share your company’s work ethic. In the context of hiring, when people refer to culture, they usually mean work ethic and moral standards. In reality, just like non-remote workers, they need enthusiastic testimonials and references from earlier employers to build their future careers.
Reliable developers who work remotely will often work hard to gain your trust and prove themselves as an invaluable part of the company.
They won’t show the same sense of accountability as your on-site team members. Smart developers aren’t just sharp technical specialists, but socially smart professionals as well. Because they succeed or fail on the strength of their reputation, they know that it pays to be trustworthy and accountable.
They won’t ever be part of your team. Remote developers (especially those with plenty of experience) have worked in many workplaces and followed many rules and protocols. They know that it pays to try and try to fit into your world.
What You Can Do
Engaging great remote developers means more than discovering their coding prowess.
You can find trustworthy team members with good communication skills by using standard resources and interviewing methods.
Dig deeply during interviews. In interviews, use open-ended questions that relate to a candidate’s experience working hard and avoiding ethical compromises. To ensure a good fit with your work culture, make sure that candidates share your code maintenance, documentation, and testing priorities.
Use online tools to promote team-wide communications and collaboration. Companies nowadays are spoiled with many communication tools such as Slack, Google Hangouts and Skype to build and grow meaningful team relationships, along with an abundance of project management tools. These tools will help make the remote working collaboration of ideas, products, and services part of the development process.
Build trust with transparency. Don’t keep your remote team members in the dark. Make sure they know whatever your on-site developers know.
Read More: Good Developers Don’t Always Make Good *Freelance* Developers
You can also try Arc, your shortcut to the world’s best remote talent:
⚡️ Access 350,000 top developers, designers, and marketers
⚡️ Vetted and ready to interview
⚡️ Freelance or full-time
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Myth #3: Our Sensitive Data Will Be Unsafe
Given the multitude of security breaches and incidents that occur daily, it’s reasonable to be concerned about data security beyond your firewall.
The good news is that there’s a wealth of effective, affordable security solutions available to remote developers everywhere.
What You Can Do
You might already have the resources needed to secure your data offsite. Consider these tactics:
Sign an NDA. It’s an important part of data security and a good way to start protecting sensitive information.
Start with secure cloud-based services. Setting up remote employees with cloud-based applications provides them with software programs and practices that are often as secure as on-site operations.
Establish security hygiene for remote team members. That means setting up proven security practices, such as two-factor authentication, and virtual private networks (VPN). These practices dramatically reduce the risk of malware infections and security breaches.
Describe your security expectations in detail. Make sure that remote team members learn and consistently maintain your security standards.
Read More: Hiring In-House vs Remote Developers: Cost & Competitive Advantages
Myth #4: Communications Will Falter
When you’re used to getting a colleague’s attention over lunch or in the hallway, it’s easy to discuss changes or problems that must be addressed quickly and clearly.
But what happens when colleagues work in different states or countries? That’s when it’s time to address these concerns:
Will I get the responsiveness that modern development projects require? In another survey conducted by TINY pulse on the satisfaction and productivity of remote workers, 52% reported having contact with their manager at least once a day.
When an immediate response is needed, communications tools, such as video Skype and Zoom, are available. These applications usually include whiteboard and screen sharing capabilities that make real-time development teamwork a snap.
Living in different time zones will make communications difficult. As remotely distributed teams become more common, team members must become mindful of who is where and what the time is at their location. Here’s a tool designed to keep developers informed of who works where and when.
The quality of meetings will decline. Remote work does not mean the quality of communication goes down. Tools such as Skype, Zoom, or GoToMeeting are designed to make meetings more effective.
What You Can Do
Make your expectations clear. Provide your remote development team members with a clear understanding of required work hours and availability.
Prepare for meetings. Help remote team members streamline communications by sending them the agenda and other required information before the meeting begins.
Create virtual break rooms. Use tools to enable on-site and remote team members to socialize. This might include offsite meetups or setting aside time for casual conversation via video calls.
Read More: Managing a Distributed Software Development Team: 5 Lessons Learned
Moving from Hiring to Distributed Team Building
Many of the misconceptions about hiring remote developers have never been true or aren’t true anymore.
When hiring remote employees, you can avoid bad results by developing the resources, guidance, and relationship building that successful distributed teamwork requires.
You’ve read about four outdated ideas on remote developers and how you can integrate them with your on-site team.
Does your team have a positive experience with remotely distributed teams? If so, please tell us how you managed it in the comments section below. We want to hear what you think!
You can also try Arc, your shortcut to the world’s best remote talent:
⚡️ Access 350,000 top developers, designers, and marketers
⚡️ Vetted and ready to interview
⚡️ Freelance or full-time
