Hi, Habr. I’m the editor at Ratio, we’ve been building custom-made web development, and since the beginning of 2018, all of our employees have been working remotely. From Tallinn to Komsomolsk-on-Amur, seven time zones.

Our developers have always worked from home, but there was also an office in Moscow in which some managers sat. We set up business processes so that it was convenient to work on the remote site, so over time the office became empty by itself - closed it without problems with discipline and deadlines.
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Now there are 20 people in the team and there are no big difficulties with management. In the article I will tell you what myths about remote employees we destroyed.

Myth 1: Remote employees are harder to control.

At a distance, the employer is afraid of losing control: it seems that the entire team will move to the tropics, managers will stop answering calls, and developers will abandon projects and surf. Around us appears controlling tinsel: webcams, screenshots of the screen and other joys of Big Brother.

This scheme seemed to us difficult and slightly inhuman. Of course, we conduct tasks in YouTrack, but it’s more for management accounting to count the cost of projects and see when a team is stuck. So we recognize our weak points, so that later we can help our employees to pump over competencies that they lack.

If a person in a small firm is frankly self-serving, this is obvious, therefore we are not afraid to give people freedom. Does this mean that remote employees are not suitable for large companies? Depends on how the interaction is configured departments. If chaos in matters of a minimum, and the company can be represented as a set of independent teams - there should be no problems.

Myth 2: Remote controllers are impermanent and not available when they are needed.

We are rescued by a simple rule: from 11:00 to 17:00 Moscow time, you need to be in touch in the corporate chat. At this time, it is not necessary to engage in work tasks, the main thing is to respond to messages within 15 minutes.

So we make communication predictable - most of the discussions take place in these six hours. If you need to go offline, the employee warns the others in the general chat channel.

Regarding impermanence: let's be honest, nothing prevents an office employee from taking one day and not coming to work. The only question is how quickly you will notice the loss of a person on the remote.

To be confident in the team, all the agreements need to be made on the TC and make communication between employees organized. But about this in the analysis of the next myth.

Myth 3: telecommuting makes communication difficult

It becomes more difficult to communicate and the truth, but not because communication becomes more complicated - it just ceases to be unconscious. In the office, there is always the opportunity to ask a question to a more experienced colleague or to hurry a friend if he delays the work. On the remote you have to invent special tools.

1. Most conversations go through Rocket.Chat deployed on our servers. They made channels for departments and projects in it, they screwed up an informal fludilka - everything is as it should be.
2. Company news can be found in Notion , where the director once a month writes a detailed report: what did you do good, what clients are on the way and are there any problems with current projects. In the same place we collect the knowledge base of the company, regulations and project documentation.
3. To make employees feel the presence of the team, we have a mandatory scheduling in Google Meet . For managers and designers once a week, for developers - three. If necessary, employees call in addition to discuss a specific project.

This is enough to cope with the feeling of loneliness, about which the remote controllers tell. But sometimes it is worthwhile to warm up informal discussions in the chat.



The other day, our developers made the first joint programming session: those who wanted worked in front of the webcams and talked as if they were in the same office. The first experience turned out to be successful - in parallel with the work, minor issues are solved that would be permanently stuck in the task tracker.

Now we always have a general call to Hangouts. People connect at will if they want to feel part of a team.

Myth 4: It’s harder to control data leaks

The truth is that you still will not be able to control leaks without a corporate security department, and in small firms it is usually not. If someone really wants to steal company data, he will do it sooner or later - it doesn't matter if he works at a remote location or in an office.

The main thing - to protect the team from accidents. Configure two-factor authentication, choose passwords more difficult. In general, the standard rules of Internet security.

A company should have a single information loop: access to services through corporate mail, documents for third parties are opened only by managers, and all passwords are stored in 1Password.

Myth 5: Remote Sensing People Sleep Before Dinner

The obvious advantage of remote work - finally, you can sleep and start the day when you are comfortable. But recently we conducted a survey among employees and the results surprised us.

60% of respondents start work in the period from 08:00 to 10:00 - the same as in a regular office. Who said that good code is not written in the morning? It is written, and how.

Before 08:00 start the day 10%, and from 10:00 to 12:00 only 30% sit at the monitor.



In this case, the peak of productivity for all comes in different ways. 30% work best from 09:00 to 12:00, the other 30% from 12:00 to 15:00. Early in the morning they prefer to work 20%, and the rest of the votes are equally divided between evening and late evening.

Myth 6: Remote workers work in fragments and spend paid time on entertainment

60% of respondents really wrote that they are working on sprints. Here are just a long sprint, for 2-3 hours each. 20% work for 7-8 hours without a break - this concentration can only be envied.

The remaining 20% ​​distributes the time according to the classical scheme with small variations: 4 hours - lunch - 4 hours.



Even those who work intermittently are rarely distracted by hobbies and entertainment. Most of the staff during the day devote time to everyday affairs: pick up the child from school, draw up documents, go to the hospital. Bytovuha, no romance.

Perhaps the fact is that our team is small. It's hard to get lost, so every person works conscientiously.

Myth 7: remote employees unevenly distribute the load during the week and process for the sake of an extra day off

There is always the temptation to free half of Friday, lingering at work on Wednesday or Thursday. We are not against it, but the survey showed that only 30% of employees use this advantage. The remaining 70% adhere to the office schedule and work about the same number of hours every day.

Apparently, it is easier for people to keep themselves in good shape - they know when working time and when to rest.

The problems that we actually faced

Some customers do not trust contractors who do not have an address on the site . It is important to mention more often that all employees work in the state - customers confuse remoteers with freelancers, and the reputation of developers in freelance is so-so.

Not everyone is comfortable working from home . Once we even paid coworking for an employee, but in the end he realized that remote work didn’t suit him at all.

It is difficult to make a photo team . If you need a photo for an article or a new section on the corporate site, you simply can’t get it anywhere. Employee meetings are held every six months and they are not all.

Udalenka contributes to the processing and fading . Employers are afraid that the distributed team will be baklushi, but in fact the opposite is true: when the boundaries of the day are blurred, employees get used to the overwork. You have to remind you of rest and keep track of your work schedule - otherwise fatigue, health problems and a drop in productivity.