Virtual Workers Part 2: Hiring Remote Workers

Hiring is Challenging, Especially for Remote or Virtual Workers

Hiring someone without actually meeting them?  First of all, do you really have to hire remote workers?  If not you may want to reconsider.  It definitely takes more time and effort to manage non-local staff than local staff.  In our experience, it is also harder to retain and get them to reach high-performing status, especially within a team.  All said, if you are considering hiring people who will not work at your location, read on!

This post discusses dos and don’ts when considering hiring people who will not work at your main location.  Part 1 discussed The Age of Remote Workers.

5 Best Practices to Hire Great Non-local Staff

1. Nothing improves relationships more than meeting people in person, having a meal, and making the time for casual conversation.  It gives you so much more information to help hone your pitch to them to work for you and to judge their capabilities and most importantly their cultural fit, and yes, it still matters about your organization’s cultural fit when they are remote.

2. Work with at least two people who do the job you are hiring for, or as similar as possible, to write a real job description that describes in detail what the new hire will be doing.  Then review it with people upstream and downstream from their spot to ensure that it covers everything including their inputs, processes, and outputs.  Make sure it covers if you are concerned about specific hours (hard to police anyway with remote folks) or just throughput, results, or deliverables.

3. Work with a firm that has hired remote workers.  Preferably one whom the principal has actually managed remote workers personally and has hired remote workers.  Ask if they have people in remote locations who can meet candidates in person if possible.  Not all do, the good ones will work their network and offer to have a local person meet with them face to face.

4. Really work their references, seeking to hone in on their self-starter, self-managing, and results-oriented capabilities.  You might also work your contacts for people who worked in the same firm and location.  You may get some candid responses there.

5. Set very short-term goals and have frequent (twice a week to start) meetings with each virtual employee.  Establish a protocol that can be the equivalent of someone stopping by your office or chatting at a break.  It takes effort to forge and continually improve the trusting relationships that can propel staff to high-performance.

4 Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring Remote Virtual Staff

1. The first mistake is really a category.  If you or your associates have hired remote staff in the past, what was not optimal?  What went wrong last time?  This one is the most powerful as it relates directly to your culture.

2. Not meeting your candidates face to face.  If at all possible, bring them to you so they can meet you and your local co-workers, and see the culture in practice real-time.  We try to budget at last one in-person meeting a year, with you or a trusted colleague.  The travel cost is more than offset by the increased productivity, communication, and reduced attrition.

3. Assuming all remote workers need the same sort of, frequency, and depth of communication.  I just met a woman who believes she is more productive when she does not have to talk to people at all.  I feel she is mistaken, she has just not found a group with the same type of communication needs.  Everyone outside of purely clerical work is going to want to have their voice heard, or else they do not have that all-important gene of continuous improvement.

4. Not setting clear goals for deliverables, work hours, meeting attendance, notice when unavailable, and who is their backup and vice versa.  Unless people know what they are supposed to do, at least partially how to do it, and the expectations around culture, they will forge their own way.

Hiring Remote Employees – Your Thoughts?

Thoughts on how you can best hire remote workers that we did not touch on?  Good luck and keep your eye out for ways to improve, guide, and enjoy your hiring process!

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