Preparing for Growing on the Go

Growing your remote business by expanding your team is a great strategy for a virtual business.

In our first part of this series, we explained all the benefits your business might be able to see by growing your team. Make sure you check it out if you haven’t read it yet! But just a quick refresher, here are just some of the benefits your business could see:

• Increased productivity
• Helps avoid employee burnout
• Improved customer service

And more! For more details and the rest of the benefits, read Growing While on the Go.

If we’ve been able to show you that it’s time to hire a new employee you might be wondering how to find someone to add to a remote team. For a more traditional business or team it might be a more straightforward hiring process. But for a remote team, there are some additional things to consider when looking for a new team member.

We wanted to focus this installment of our series on what you should be doing before the job listing is even posted. By preparing more on the front end, you will be doing your existing team and new hire a huge favor. You will be able to go into the hiring process with a clear vision of what you are looking for, helping you identify the right team member for the role and your business as a whole.

Here are three things to consider before you start looking to hire a new remote employee.

1. Determine your priorities

Your hiring priorities will guide the rest of this process. When looking at remote team members, there are various traits you could prioritize. Consider the following to get an idea of how to get started:

• Being in the same time zone/having the same working hours
• The most qualified candidate regardless of their location
• Prior remote working or flexible working experience
• Prior industry or other relevant work experience

When it comes to these priorities there is no right or wrong answer, but taking the time to determine what’s most important to you will help assist you during the hiring process.

2. Define what a “good fit” looks like for your team

Each remote team will look different, so it’s important to understand what would be a good fit for your team. For some teams, it’s important to have constant and consistent communication. For others, it’s better to have more independent workers who are able to check in when necessary, but work on their own without a lot of communication. It can lead to frustrations felt by the whole team and a new hire if there isn’t a good fit. Define what a good fit looks like for your team to ensure that your newest employee will be set up to succeed within your team.

3. Create a set of guidelines and boundaries

Whether a new hire has worked remotely before or not, it’s important for your team to create a set of remote working guidelines. This could include setting recurring check-in meetings, best practices for reaching team members with questions or concerns, and workday expectations. Having these written out before onboarding new hires will help you convey expectations more effectively during the interview process, and can even be a good reminder for current team members.

Set yourself up for success by taking the time to consider those three points.

They can help you tailor your job posting to align with what will work well for your team, which can lead you to finding the perfect new addition to your business.

Our next installment of this series will focus on strategies for remote teams to focus on when they are actively looking for a new team member. Stay tuned for that article, as well as remote team onboarding processes which will be featured in future blog posts.