Intro
Want to open your hiring up to the biggest network of job applicants? Employ remote staff. Even if, throughout the time, this was once a classy perk, it’s currently become a requirement.
97% of modern employees want some level of remote freedom, and 58% of respondents to a FlexJobs survey aforementioned that they’d leave their current job if remote work were not a choice. Another pure gold of staff divulged that they’d agree to a 10-20% salary cut for a far-off gig.
To say that there is a desire to work remotely would be to say too little.
However, learning how to hire people remotely is not intuitive enough. To assemble a top-notch team, you’ll have to switch up your processes and even modify your ideal applicant criteria. For this you’ll need a small initial investment, no worries, you’ll get more information about this very soon —with our support, of course.
In this brief guide, we are going to mention everything you need to understand in order to learn how to find and hire remote employees in 2023.
The first thing to be mentioned is the top qualities that your applicants should possess, and then we’ll discover more deeply the options that you have. At the end, you will learn how to create a well-written remote job post and best practices to apply during the hiring process.
Are you ready to find and hire the brilliant minds of the remote industry? Let’s do it!
3 Top Qualities of a Grade-A Remote Worker
Not every applicant fits a remote position. While the pandemic imposed on most businesses a work-from-home world, several offices across the country are reopening their doors, and we must say that some employees are simply not suitable for remote work.
Let’s be honest, that’s just the way it is.
A big part of people get even more energetic from in-person collaboration, while others can’t do their best from the cozy comfort of their couches.
However, there are also employees who are very productive while working from home. They appreciate and love the new work-life balance, they note a massive increase in productivity and often tend to work longer, even beyond their schedule. These are the types of employees you want in your remote team.
Find below the qualities you need to look for in a first-class remote employee:
1. Independent
The employees that work remotely need to know how to work independently. It is very important to understand that they won’t always have someone to hold their hand and give them some instructions. Once the first task is done, they need to find the next task rather than waiting for their manager to guide them.
Independent workers identify problems and provide solutions without being asked for. They don’t need to wait for their weekly 1:1 with their manager to report on their progress, and they’ll be quick to come to you if a big problem is keeping them from finishing a task or a project.
2. Trustworthy
Don’t recruit a remote worker you can’t trust. You won’t be able to monitor them all the time (nor should you), and the puzzle of what they’re doing will keep you up in the dead of night.
At the same time, this is often a double-sided trait—you additionally have to possess the mastery to trust. And you also need to understand what measures you need to apply.
Does it matter if your worker sleeps on Friday when he or she is making better progress than the rest of the team? Is it a problem if this worker takes a 2-hour lunch break when he or she has never missed a deadline?
3. Talker
It is not mandatory for the workers to be complete extroverts (or anything close to that), but your remote employees do need to have communication skills. This includes the capacity to write professional emails and Slack messages, and it also involves expressing in a clear way their ideas during the meetings.
To always double-guess the employee’s tone, intention, or thought will drive you crazy. In this context, you should understand that it is a waste of time if you don’t get what they’re trying to express without sending you a lot of follow-up emails.
Our advice is to use the recruitment period to understand the worker’s communication skills. To role-play or to analyse some examples during the interview is not enough. Analyse email conversations and LinkedIn messages. You will be able to get the level of this quality relatively quickly.
Your Remote Team: What should it be like?
Remote workers hiring doesn’t mean just throwing caution to the wind and hiring everybody from anywhere – there are still a couple of factors to be considered.
Take hiring one employee in London, for example, when the rest of your remote team is in New York? Though technically the whole team is remote, this will lead to some unnecessary logistical difficulties.
The following are the factors to consider when establishing a remote team:
- Time zones: In case your team needs to collaborate frequently, it will be difficult to do so if time zone differences interfere. If real-time collaboration is not a priority, however, time zones won’t be a big problem.
- Diversity: Remember diversity when hiring a remote team. You still need different ages, genders, beliefs, attitudes, backgrounds and beliefs to create a well-balanced team – not just a few office workers mixed in with a number of remote workers. This is not diversity.
- Remote duration: Will this position be completely remote or do you expect employees to come to the office from time to time? Some companies are embracing hybrid home-based policies that expect employees to come to the office at least once a week – is that what is in your mind?
Get your candidates filtered with a well-written recruitment post
At the very beginning, make your work easier by taking the time to create a properly written remote job. With the wrong type of candidates, you will consume the recruiters’ valuable time and yours of course.
What makes a good remote job posting?
It starts with the proper expectations. Will it be a fully remote job, or will it be partially office-based? Well, if it’s fully remote, how often do you expect the team to have in-person meetings? Do you expect the position to be always remote or will it eventually return to the office?
In addition, you have to adapt your job description for remote employees. If you advertise your gym, on-site catered lunches, ping pong table, or snack selection, you won’t impress a remote employee – except that it will probably cause them a fear of missing out (FOMO).
Advertise your company to remote employees. What benefits will attract them? Think beyond benefits like paternity leave, sick leave, health care, and 401(k) plans – they’d get them no matter what. Precisely what do they get as remote workers?
Then consider benefits like flexible work schedules, remote-friendly software tools, home office allowances, travel budget to visit the team, a wellbeing program, and occasional SWAG box deliveries.
This is now starting to look like a good remote job.
7 Best Practices for Hiring Remote Staff
By now you know which applicants to look for and how to write a job post, it’s time to learn how to hire remote workers. Here are some great best practices that will help you find, attract, and recruit the best remote employees.
1. Hire your remote worker remotely online
Doing this might sound like a no-brainer, but in fact we know of a lot of businesses that make remote employees go through the same loops as office employees. If you employ a remote worker for a job, you don’t have to fly across the country to interview them in person – and they don’t have to travel for a 5-day onboarding session.
Consider the reasons why your employees might be remote. They might have small kids or try to save money. They will be remote workers, so treat them like this from the beginning.
2. Roll out the online ‘red carpet’
Many new remote workers start their new job in silence and confusion. They get a general vague email from an HR person, and the manager may make a brief introduction.That’s all.
Make new remote employees part of your team and your business, as comfortable working in the office. Introduce them via email, Slack or video to everyone they absolutely need to know. Get a goody bag sent out and put it on their door to be opened on their very first day of work.
Ensure their computer hardware and software are installed, updated and ready to work. There is nothing that kills enthusiasm more than not being able to get your work done in the first week, especially remotely.
3. Use recruitment tools to facilitate the process
Set up a connected online journey for your new potential remote worker. Just a LinkedIn recruiting message followed by a quick phone call, with a 30-minute Zoom meeting later added, can be a confusing experience.
Set your applicant straightforward expectations and over-communicate – so you don’t want them to lie in bed wondering if you forgot about them. Keep them up to date with the whole process through regular emails. Use apps like TalentWall or Greenhouse to make follow-up, collaboration, and communication smooth.
That or a very sophisticated set of IFTTT scripts.
4. Have the right questions
A good question sounds like this: “How do you stay engaged and inspired when working from your home office?”. On the other hand: “What are your major weaknesses?” might not be very revealing.
Consider what questions you might ask a remote worker to determine if they have the skills we mentioned earlier. Here are some examples of remote hiring questions you can use:
- How long have you worked from home?
- What made you want to choose a remote job instead of an office job?
- What are your favourite tools you use for remote team collaboration?
- What is your communication style when working online?
- What challenges can be the most challenging when working from home?
5. Background reference check
If the applicant declares that he or she has experience of working at a distance, ask for references who may have worked with before. This could be a manager, teammate, or colleague.
A talk with one of these people will be much more informative than a talk with a manager he or she had had in an office situation 3 years ago. Ask the reference person what it is like to work with this specific applicant. In case if they can’t tell you much about the applicant, your potential remote worker may not have the autonomy or communication skills we mentioned in this article.
6. Pay attention to warning signs
The time it take your applicant to respond to emails or voicemails? Did he or she have trouble joining the introductory meeting or had trouble getting the audio or video system to play? How is his or her Internet connection?
Any of these indicators aren’t reason enough to put off a potential candidate, but they are warning signs to be aware of. Even if these aren’t tell-tale signs, they could point to some weaknesses that aren’t ideal for remote workers.
7. Build a remote culture
If you plan to hire remote employees in your team, you need to create a culture that will allow them to succeed. Imagine if they join a Discord meeting and notice Lara Jones is absent – “Oh, she left last week. Haven’t you heard?”
What a remote-first culture doesn’t do is punish employees for not being in the office. It accepts the pros and cons of working remotely and does its best to empower this part of the team. In this example, a simple email or Discord message from your manager explaining the situation would feel more supportive, instead of letting the remote employee be the last to find it out.
Get your remote workforce in the loop
At times, you might find the near-perfect applicant, but he or she lacks a bit of know-how. Don’t cut them out of your recruitment list just yet – they can probably learn everything they need to know to get on track with a quick (and free) course.
We have a complete training catalog of exclusive courses to teach your staff the basics of everything they need to know. Content marketing, verified. Copywriting checked. Facebook ads, check.
