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Between home and office. How to organize the work of a distributed team

Habr, hello!

Many companies today offered their employees to work from home. However, not everyone has the opportunity to work remotely. Some specialists do not leave their combat posts in office spaces.

The Artezio team decided to figure out how to build work in a “mixed” team, which works both at home and in the office. We wrote this text on the example of how a similar process is built within our company. They also talked about the urgent about the actual: what are the pros and cons in remote work. 

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Our company uses the principle: it does not matter whether those or other employees work remotely or sit in the office, we treat the whole team as if they would work at home in full force.

Simply put, we do not divide our team into those who "sit" at home or work in the office. This is necessary in order to align the capabilities of all team members and provide everyone with the same work tools.

How the work is built


It all starts with planning. It will allow us to clearly represent the time frame when we will get a specific result. In principle, it is always necessary to plan, but it is during the work of a distributed team that everyone needs to clearly understand when and what the result of the work should be.

In order to plan everything correctly, we need to remember a few points.

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So, we got a plan, it can be in any form: an MPP file or plain text. But it must necessarily spell out the sequence of work, the assigned resources and the due dates.

After planning, we reflect the tasks in the team collaboration system. For our company, this is Jira. It goes like this: 

  • the task is assigned in Jira (or using another collaboration tool) to the executor;
  • the contractor is taken to complete the task, logs in Jira the time that he takes to solve the problem;
  • when we created tasks based on our plan, we also indicated the dependencies between tasks in Jira; We can also create new tasks, for example, if we saw that we need to change something or fix a defect found during the testing phase.

Each task has its own life cycle. Usually, we use the following statuses:

  • “New / open task” - for new tasks that have not yet been assigned to anyone;
  • “At work” - a task is assigned to a specific executor, a task is being completed, there is progress on completion and hours are being written off for this task;
  • “Solved / submitted for verification” - the task has been completed by the contractor and is being verified;
  • “Rediscovered” - according to the results of the audit, the task was reopened.
  • “Closed / checked” - a closed task, may be due to the fact that it is checked.

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In order to understand how the tasks are carried out and how our expectations of the intermediate results correspond to the results obtained upon completion of the tasks, we control these works:

  • we follow the source code through pull-request and carry out a code check - after the developer completes the task, the code will be checked by the team leader or architect;
  • we conduct testing - this is an unchanging stage that has long become the standard, also applies to control;
  • regular demonstrations of the results of iterations - are done for product owners, customers, they are needed primarily in order to align the expectations of the team and all persons interested in the product.

The key thing when working with a distributed team is communication. Everyone is in different places, and there is no way to quickly discuss or convey something to everyone, so communications must be planned in advance, thought out and used technical means that will allow them to be implemented reliably.

Here is what is used in our practice.

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Calls must be planned in advance. In urgent cases, of course, you can even call right now, but employees may not be ready. The regularity of the calls is also important, so that all team members feel the rhythm, prepare for a dialogue. It is very important that there is the ability to demonstrate the screen and be sure to transmit voice. The video stream is completely optional. Voice participation is more important. The main thing - do not forget to turn on and off your microphone on time. Yes, do not forget - for communication to be effective, calls must be recorded and recorded.

For communication, we most often use Skype and Telegram, namely group chats for operational communication on working and non-working issues.

Useful web platforms that are used at offline events (to engage participants, show presentations). MyOwnConference or iSpring Learn is fine. Such platforms are also suitable for online employee training. Speakers speak and switch slides from the phone or connect via integrated video.

And another good idea would be to conduct daily joint video conferences in the morning for 10-15 minutes. For employees who are on a remote location, this will allow them to tune in to work, serve as a kind of link between the house and the office.

With proper management, a mixed model can be very effective. For example, it allows you to attract the right specialists no matter where they are. This will save the company money for finding an employee in cities with high personnel competition. 

In addition, the ability to work in comfortable conditions from home can be a way for companies to attract qualified workers, which means it will make this company more expert and competitive in the market.  

Pros and cons of not being in the office


One of the first pictures from Google for perfect home office . Source 

At a minimum, in IT companies, most specialists (there is such a feeling) now work from home. 

As in any other approach to the organization of labor, the "remote" has its own set of pluses and minuses. Some of them may turn out to be a significant obstacle for a number of managers to transfer their employees to remote work mode. For others, it will open up new business opportunities and increase labor productivity.

Among the minuses are the following (if we forgot something, please tell us about it in the comments).

  • Discipline and motivation

It is more difficult to motivate employees on the remote ’, and most importantly to control, than directly in the office. Many employees may experience discipline problems due to the lack of a manager nearby.

  • Control

It is assumed that monitoring the employee’s performance of their duties is significantly complicated with a remote mode of operation. As a result, the original deadline deadlines may be shifted or revised. 

  • home furnishings

It is believed that the home environment is less disciplined than the office environment. In addition to the schedule of other family members, the employee will often be distracted from the task assigned to him or not work at all.

  • Lack of eye contact

The psychological barrier due to the inability to look into the eyes of the employee, to convey directly the required information. The inability to approach the employee personally and discuss the necessary issues may aggravate the situation.

In addition to the list above, there are a number of difficulties that can discourage managers from fully transferring employees to remote work:

  • Business features

Some companies are physically unable to transfer even part of their employees to remote work. As a rule, this is due to the specifics of the business or its technological features. Among the additional factors, one can note the requirements of many clients of companies about personal contacts and direct communications with them.

  • Specialist level

For novice professionals, their training and implementation may be less effective in the framework of remote cooperation. Employers prefer a quick and effective immersion of "beginners" directly on the spot with a fixed experienced curator. The corporate culture of a company may also impose additional restrictions.

  • Security of personal and corporate data

The issue of data security of the company and its employees in the remote work mode is becoming of great importance. The risk of phishing and virus attacks, as well as industrial espionage and data theft, is significantly increased.

  • Personal relationships and communications

Classical office work has formed a natural habit of approaching an employee at any moment of the working day, consulting, explaining something on the fingers, clarifying and resolving the issue right in the work process.

  • Remote work mode imposes its rules on communication. The principle of mutual assistance is very much present in the remote work environment, but you should get used to its features. For example, instead of direct communication in the office, sometimes you need to ask permission from the interlocutor to make a phone call or chat.

But there are pluses to the employee’s remote work (we are really looking forward to your additions in the comments):

  • Operation mode switching

For many psychotypes of the personality of employees, the ability to switch the work mode (or the combination of office and remote work modes) increases their productivity and personal responsibility.  

  • Result oriented

Increasing the role of responsibility for the result of work, and not for the process itself. Transparency of the result. Awareness of what is expected of you "at the exit."

  • Non-financial motivation

An additional opportunity for the employer to motivate or reward the employee.

  • Discipline

Reducing the risks of being late, force majeure related to a traffic situation or weather.

  • Workplace comfort

The absence of extraneous noise, the ability to adjust the microclimate and surroundings to fit your needs.

  • Lower operating costs

For example, rental of premises and expenses for household needs of the office

There is most likely no single and unequivocally correct approach to organizing remote work or debugging the process of working with a distributed team. 

Each leader or business owner in the first really apply this or that approach in his particular case. Where it is possible to be more flexible, without losing at the same time in current indicators, and where it is worth showing restraint and endurance. 

How does your company work with a distributed team and transfer employees to a remote location?

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