Remote working – an exciting new world
Christopher McNamara, Chief Revenue Officer, Remote, chats wit Enterprise IT News about how they help smoothen the challenges of remote hiring and remote working.
EITN: The future of APAC’s distributed workforce economy. What does this mean?
Christopher McNamara: The Asia-Pacific region is transitioning to a new world of work, and this transition is happening at an incredibly rapid speed. The ‘forced remote’ of the pandemic is giving way to a permanent shift to flexible work which is overhauling the conventional definitions and expectations of the workplace. In our newest Global Benefits Report, people ranked flexibility as one of their most important employment benefits – and workers who are already remote actually ranked flexibility as more important than compensation.
It’s important to remember that the transition to distributed work is not only being driven by employee preference. Companies are also discovering that there are significant business advantages to enabling distributed teams. In particular, the ability to tap into the global talent marketplace.
Rather than hiring the best person who happens to live in your geographic area, you can now access a truly global talent pool. We’ve seen this to be especially valuable in roles where the war for talent is fiercest – like software engineers and product managers. You can also scale your team more quickly and enter new markets more efficiently. These benefits are driving more companies in Asia-Pacific to adopt a remote-first model, just as they are elsewhere. As the economy becomes more global, we will increasingly see Asia-Pacific companies leveraging remote work as an advantage to help them compete and win on a global level.
Rather than hiring the best person who happens to live in your geographic area, you can now access a truly global talent pool.
We also believe that the ease with which companies can now activate local teams will accelerate the pace of internationalization in many businesses here in the region. Where historically localization would have presented many barriers – legal, financial, operational, even cultural – companies can more quickly launch in new locations with greater speed and confidence
EITN: Please share your opinions about the obstacles in hiring remotely – data privacy and security issues, working in different time zones, etc.
Christopher McNamara: In just three years, Remote has grown into a company of more than 900 people who all work remotely from their chosen locations in 65+ countries around the world. Of course there are challenges in managing such a global organization, but we’re yet to encounter an obstacle to remote work that we haven’t been able to overcome.
Working remotely does require some new ways of doing things. Often, the biggest challenges arise when we try to take the old office-centric methods of managing aspects of the work experience – like culture, communication, inclusion, data protection, performance management, and more – and expect them to work just as well in a remote setting. We need to employ different strategies and think about them in a remote-first way in order to succeed.
My team is completely global so we are very familiar with working around different time zones. One of the ways we do this is with asynchronous work practices, which empower people to be productive without needing to meet or be online simultaneously. Asynchronous work relies more heavily on documentation and transparency and puts more trust in employees and their ability to perform. Because we work primarily asynchronously, we can work in our own time zones and limit our meetings to necessary discussions and social connections.
In just three years, Remote has grown into a company of more than 900 people who all work remotely from their chosen locations in 65+ countries around the world. Of course there are challenges in managing such a global organization, but we’re yet to encounter an obstacle to remote work that we haven’t been able to overcome.
I think too often companies mistake culture for pizza and beers in the office on a Friday. That’s not culture. Culture is the set of values, expectations and norms that permeate the way people interact and how stuff gets done. Building culture in a remote first environment begins with defining the type of organization you want to be, the kind of impact you aim to have and how you’d like to accomplish those outcomes. This sense of identity and purpose should underpin the values that define the company DNA and all the organizational machinery that actualises it.
EITN: Hiring critical talent and maintaining employee wellbeing through virtual means what exactly?
Christopher McNamara: As the scale of remote work increases, organizations are hiring — and competing for talent — on a global scale alongside the most successful multinational companies. This can be a huge benefit for emerging companies looking to scale quickly, but they need to remember that they must also provide an employee experience that measures up.
To do this with a remote team, especially one that is global, businesses need to view remote work not as an exception to the norm of daily working life, but instead adopt a purposeful and inclusive remote-first culture.
To be remote-first means treating remote work, and the needs of remote workers, as the default way of working. Transparency, documentation, communication, and trust are all critical so that everyone is equally empowered to do their best. This is necessary even in a hybrid setting, to avoid an unintended hierarchy where remote workers feel disconnected and forgotten about.
Remote-first environments can also blur the lines between work and home life in ways that can be challenging. It’s critical that employers recognize the risk of burnout this can create and develop the sort of norms which enable employees to disconnect and recharge
EITN: How the openness of a company in hiring remotely plays a role in aligning with the post-pandemic convention of work.
- How open are companies currently?
Christopher McNamara: If Remote’s growth is an indication, they are becoming more open by the day. More and more companies are recognizing that remote work is not a temporary solution, but rather a new way of operating that carries significant advantages. One of those primary advantages is being able to build a team without being constrained by geography.
Working remotely does require some new ways of doing things. Often, the biggest challenges arise when we try to take the old office-centric methods of managing aspects of the work experience – like culture, communication, inclusion, data protection, performance management, and more – and expect them to work just as well in a remote setting. We need to employ different strategies and think about them in a remote-first way in order to succeed.
Our customers are companies from all over the world who have all decided to hire remotely but have hit the same barrier: the cost, risk, and red tape of employing someone who lives in a different country. We make that process as easy as possible for them so that they can focus on attracting and retaining the best talent. The number of employers, employees and contractors on our platform continues to grow rapidly – in fact, employment through Remote in Asia-Pacific countries increased 8X within the past year.
EITN: How do they overcome complexities of hiring remotely – trust in employees to be managed, cross border payments (is this a consideration for both parties?)
Christopher McNamara: These complexities absolutely should be considerations for both parties, and there are more, including tax and compliance issues that could end up becoming expensive problems if left unaddressed. Remote’s role is to help businesses navigate these complexities so that they can onboard people living in other countries, provide best-in-class local benefits, offer stock options, and pay wages in local currency.
We can do this because we have done the hard work of establishing legal entities in 66 countries (and counting) and have taken the time to fully understand their tax, compliance, and financial systems, and what amazing benefits and perks look like in that country. We then act as the employer on paper on the company’s behalf, take on the legal responsibility for the employees, and handle HR tasks related to employment. Companies can also use the Remote platform to manage and pay contractors in 170+ countries in a streamlined and easy way.
EITN: What is the impact upon Job security (How receptive are potential workers to being hired by an organisation halfway around the world? What can they do to protect themselves?)
Christopher McNamara: Just as more and more employers are discovering the benefits of remote work, there is a growing preference and expectation among employees that companies make remote work a possibility. This preference is reflected in jobs data from platforms like LinkedIn, which indicate that remote job listings now account for over 50% of applications, though they represent roughly 10-20% of advertised roles.
As the employer of record in each country, Remote takes on all of the responsibilities, obligations and tasks for our clients’ employees who are based there, including making sure they are paid reliably and work in compliance with local regulations and labor laws.
Something that differentiates Remote is that we go beyond the basics and make sure companies can provide a first-class experience to their globally distributed employees and contractors. Just like someone in the employer’s home country, their international employees expect to feel valued and included, to be paid in their local currency, get local benefits, and work in accordance with the local labor laws. Getting these things right is essential to build trust with top remote talent.