For entrepreneurs, working with a remote company is the best way to add necessary skills without considering the geographical boundaries.
The idea of collaborating with a remote development firm is considered as a game-changer because it is highly cost-saving.
Read: Offshore Development
The dedicated remote team owns another major benefit; the ability to choose developers from a diverse talent pool.
This helps in broadening the search for qualified candidates beyond their location.
While working remotely, the happiness of the employees’ increases and attrition decreases.
A study has been conducted of 8000 global employees across the globe where 3 out of every 4 companies have adopted a remote work model.
Do you think remote work is the next trend within the startup culture? Is working remotely the best business move? Before moving ahead you should ask yourself a few questions.
Will the Remote Model Suit Your Business?
You can hire remote developers when you are running a business related to information technology, marketing, customer service, and mobile app development services.It is a fact that a remote team model isn’t for every business.
There are many components of a business that can take advantage of remote work.
Consider the following:
Most businesses, including yours, may have at least one service that can be outsourced.No matter how good you are at providing core services to the customers, your workers may not handle multiple tasks and are efficient in all. It is always good to outsource a task or more to a remote company so that you get top-notch work.
Adapting component to the remote work model help save time, money and resources
What is the best solution in this case? Won’t it be great if you take the help of a remote development team located in a different geographical area?
As the business manager of a company, below are points that you should keep in mind before making any decision.
Having a remote team for an established firm is a bit challenging as compared to a startup
This is because shifting from routine tasks to the new process takes time and a lot of effort.
The in-house team has to make adjustments
Adapting to the remote work culture like daily or weekly meetings via video conferencing is not challenging.Your in-house team has to make the remote tea comfortable so that they both are on the same page and the development process has a faster pace.
Here is what goes into the remote team success
Proper planning, detailed documentation, making them understand business objectives and vision, choosing the right communication remote tools, efficient management, and work process transparency.Also, you should set a particular meeting time that is feasible for all living in different time zones. Small accomplishments should be cherished and the culture of every country should be respected.
How to decide which tasks will be outsourced and what will be completed in-house?
If you haven’t mapped the processes, you are missing on various productive insights.
When you outline the tasks of your organization, you get a clear picture of how to move ahead.
Before taking the final decision of hiring remote developers, you have to decide what tasks are excelled by your in-house team.
The ones that they excel should remain within the company. And rest should be handed over to the remote team.
Know Requirements
Once the processes are broken into individual steps, it is important to determine the needs and requirements.For example, if a process is to create a user interface, but the remote web designer isn’t familiar with the accessibility protocol, it is going to take a lot of time.
However, if you have hired developers from a good remote development company, this will reduce the research time and they will directly focus on designing.
Detailing
It is important to know the details of the processes in order to eliminate useless tasks.For this, you may have to dig deep into the processes and then consider the intention behind them.
Once that is clear, it will be easy to determine which one is worth working inside.
Next, you have to understand your requirements and examine roles so that you can hire developers accordingly.
Urgent vs. Important
Urgent
Tasks that have an immediate effect should be solved by the remote company.Important
Tasks that have a long-term achievement of goals are termed as important. They lead towards the business objectives.Assign roles
Properly assign roles and responsibilities to everyone so that coordination between both the teams is hassle-free. Once everything is properly laid on the table, things will be clearer.Therefore, hiring remote programmers is an optimal solution for tasks that may be draining too many valuable resources as they can be approached with a defined approach.
Identifying the useful tasks and then focusing on them helps in boosting productivity and results in meaningful work.
How to start working with the remote team?
Keep in mind that your new remote team is the extension of your already existing staff.So, you have to treat them the same way as you treat your in-house team.
What challenge some of you may face is acclimating to new deadlines, tracking quality standards and regular meetings.
Take the following steps to navigate the process
1) Begin with small tasks and virtual meetings
This will help your already existing staff and in-house team to coordinate better, making them useful for working together virtually.
2) Communicate frequently and use simple language
Communication and coordination are hassle-free when you are working with your in-house team but what about remote teams?
You should make it a habit to communicate with the remote developers frequently with the help of collaborative tools like Slack, Skype, etc. to ensure the process is smooth. There should be no confusion despite the large distance.
Try and keep the language as simple as possible. Always cross-check whether the team has completely understood what you have explained.
3) Give the team time to acclimatize to the new normal
Every individual has a different learning level. So, give some time to the hired developers so that they can understand the process and then start working on it.
4) Be patient and observe everything
You should have a clear understanding of what works better for the project and what requires improvisation.
5) Utilize the overlapping hours
Managing remote employees is challenging due to the time zone difference. Utilize the overlapping hours in order to mitigate this challenge.
The best way to do this is to change the shift timings of both the teams.
When your in-house team is sleeping, the remote team having a different time zone is working. This gives a lot of advantages.
6) Make use of the Agile methodology
Every software development company requires a high level of interaction and iteration. So, adopting agile methodology helps in increasing efficiency.
According to the 12th State of Agile Survey, 97% of the companies practice agile methodology. Well, this is a huge percentage
Agile methodology is basically breaking the project into short iterations termed as sprints.
There are various factors involved in deciding the sprint length that includes project complexity and technology stack.
This methodology helps in delivering high-quality software on time.
Should you hire freelancers or a dedicated remote development team?
Before understanding the difference between freelancers and remote workers, it is important for you to know what skills they should have.Here are some of them
- Excellent communication skills
- Powerful collaboration skills
- Great organizational skills
- Good time management skills
- Self-discipline
- Accountability
Unless the remote employee has these, there is no use to partner with the company.
Because without these they’d inevitably be a bad fit. This evaluation is important because they may have great technical skills but you can’t just upskill or train your candidates on the aforementioned skills. They should have them inbuilt.
Now let’s find out the difference between freelancers and remote companies.
At the ground level, the primary difference between is freelancer is an individual and remote company has a complete team.
Let’s understand the difference between both.
The remote team offers
1) CostRemote development teams are budget-friendly as they have different engagement models from which you can choose as per your requirements.
Plus, when you outsource your work to a good outsourcing destination or country that has less labor cost, you will be spending less.
For example, US developers cost $80/hour on average whereas Indian developers cost $15/hour.
2) Project Requirements
The team has already worked on a diverse range of projects so they are aware of different situations that startups and established firms face.
How a short time agreement for a single project has to be completed on time that too with high quality.
When you hire a remote team, you save hiring resources, effort and time. Plus, you can build a long term relationship.
Freelancers offer
1) FlexibilityFreelancers are not restricted to working time. They spend countless hours on the project.
Because of this benefit, you can get your work done in the adequate time that too more efficiently.
2) Expertise
Another important feature is that they are masters in their respective fields. Most of them are certified professionals having the caliber to deliver outstanding results.
When both freelancers and remote developers have benefits, then how will you be able to decide which one to choose and why?
Most companies whether startups or established organizations prefer the best remote companies. Here is why they take this decision:
3) Freelancers can leave anytime
There are a lot of possibilities that freelancers can leave the project midway without finishing it.
Chances are more that they will depart when they feel their work quality is degrading or they are unable to meet the deadline.
4) Risk is high
The authenticity while working with a freelancer is less. With the GDPR and various other policies in place, your company’s survival is dependent on the secrecy.
Even after signing a non-disclosure agreement, you can’t be sure how the freelancer will deal with confidential information and sensitive data.
This may harm your brand, its reputation while causing confidential breach penalties.
The final decision should be hiring remote developers.
This is because when you have hired developers from a remote firm, it is easy to track their work as they have well-organized processes.
The company cares about its reputation and customer review so that you get a high level of services as per requirements.
Also, the competitiveness between the top remote companies is immense.
This is one of the reasons why they stay updated with the latest trend offering clients the best technology stack.
These companies help you to hire Java developers, mobile app developers, Flutter developers, etc as per your requirements.
They always have project estimation in place and know how much time is needed for particular features to be developed.
Remember, whenever you work with the remote agency, it guarantees that your project will see the light of the world in the decided timeframe.
Enter into the Competitive Market with More Power
Deciding to work with a remote team is a big leap for any business as everything has to be conducted with care. One critical thing is the plan of action.You have to carefully set up everything starting from the management of a remote team to tracking their performance.
Building a remote team is not the same as hiring in-house employees.
But when you follow the aforementioned steps and consider them, it will help you partner with the best partner and make the relationship successful.
