One is not a warrior in the field: advantages from working in a company on a remote

At the first conversation to the question “Did you have remote work experience?” Candidates often talk about their freelancing experience. The concepts of "freelancing" and "remote work" are often confused. Even in the dictionary of sections Habr there is no separate entity “remote work”, and, by the way, it is time to add it. Freelancer himself is engaged in marketing and sales of their services. The remote is the rejection of the need to work in the office. It is a freedom that must be balanced by responsibility. According to our estimates, only 20-30% of those who want to work remotely will be able to do it effectively. The rest still need "external motivation" in the form of office walls, "heads of wardens", etc.



In our first publication on Habré, we mentioned the basic principles of building relationships in our team. Now I would like to talk about how we support the working attitude of remote employees.

Our main capital is the people with whom we work. Therefore, at the very beginning we asked ourselves the question: how to make it so that all the employees feel comfortable working with us? The answer immediately suggests itself: a professional team, interesting projects and a decent wage. But these are not all components, are they? You can escape from a good job simply because the open space in the "open space" discourages the desire to go there. You can quit because you have to travel far to work and back. There are many reasons for dismissal from traditional workplaces, and we decided to use them so that the working conditions in our company would be attractive to specialists and would allow them to realize their creative potential better.
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Of course, it was possible to go along a simple path and take the “backbone” of advantages, annoying “buns”, “cookies” from any other company, and invite to your “friendly, professional, young and cheerful team”. But we chose “our own rut”, and this was one of our strong advantages not only in the labor market, but also in working with clients.

The key task we identified is the improvement of working conditions. In order to have something to improve, the workplace first had to be created - this was our first HR program. Despite the fact that many homes have an office or just a place to work, this program is one of the most popular. A comfortable ergonomic chair (we checked and ready to recommend this model ), second monitor, headset, software, upgrade of computer components, purchase of a laptop, etc. - we compensate employees for the cost of these items (within reasonable limits), help with the choice or buy and arrange delivery on their own.

When seated work, and even more so when working remotely, when you do not exercise at peak times in public transport, it is very important to monitor your health and physical development. It’s very simple and to feel 100 at 100. From the refrigerator to the desktop - the distance is small, but the impact on the body is significant. From here came our second program - healthy lifestyles (healthy lifestyle). An employee can use the received amount of funds for the annual subscription to the gym, fitness, swimming pool or football, basketball sections - everything that makes you move more, also sports equipment, uniform or good running shoes for running.

The third program came at the suggestion of one of the employees. We call it "development." This is an opportunity to learn and improve skills. The IT industry is such that you have to learn always, every day. Therefore, we help in training, attending conferences (including as a speaker). Last year we visited Heisenbug , SQA Days , DevOops , Joker , Slush and others.

Remote work gives a lot of advantages, but there are also disadvantages. For example, the lack of live communication with the team. When one hears the surname of one of his colleagues, one cannot be allowed to ask: “who is this and what does he do?”. Unfortunately, such situations are inevitable even when working in an office - different projects, different tasks, many may simply not intersect. In order to solve this problem, in 2017, the first corporate event of the company took place in St. Petersburg, to which the majority of our employees flew. We met personally, and also received pleasant emotions from the event. We hold face-to-face meetings within the project teams in order to strengthen the team spirit and discuss key working points for the near future. We practice the meetings of teams and individual specialists with the client’s staff, which also contributes to the improvement of work efficiency, because the “two companies - one team” paradigm begins to work.

Each person should understand his or her value regardless of the size of the company and the position held, have the right to comfortable working conditions, the opportunity to engage in professional development and to enjoy work.

We will not dwell on what is now. New programs will be added to help build long-term relationships with specialists.

And how did you organize your workplace if you started working remotely? What kind of help would the company expect?

Thanks for the answers and see you at Habré and other places of our presence!

Article author: Julia Rezvykh, Head of HR, Maxilect