remote work isn't new anymore, but building a remote team that actually functions well is still hard. we've placed hundreds of people into distributed teams over the past few years, and we've seen what works and what doesn't.
the biggest mistake companies make is treating remote teams like office teams that just happen to work from home. they're not the same. remote teams need different structures, different communication patterns, and different expectations.
first thing: communication can't be casual anymore. in an office, you overhear things. you catch people at their desk. you bump into someone at lunch. remote work removes all of that. everything has to be intentional now. that means documenting decisions, over-communicating updates, and being clear about who needs to know what.
we've seen teams struggle when they try to recreate office culture with endless video calls. video fatigue is real. not every conversation needs to be face-to-face. sometimes a quick message works better than a 30-minute meeting. the key is knowing which format fits which situation.
time zones are another challenge. when your team spans multiple continents, synchronous work becomes difficult. the best remote teams build in asynchronous workflows. they don't wait for everyone to be online at once. they document their work, share updates proactively, and design processes that don't require real-time collaboration for everything.
then there's the hiring part. remote hiring opens up your talent pool, but it also makes assessment harder. you can't just have someone come into the office for a day to see how they work. you need structured interviews, clear evaluation criteria, and often trial projects to really understand someone's capabilities.
one thing we always tell clients: hire for communication skills even more than you would for office roles. a brilliant engineer who can't communicate clearly in writing will struggle on a remote team. being able to explain your work, ask good questions, and give useful feedback in text form matters a lot when you're not sitting next to each other.
culture is harder to build remotely, but it's not impossible. it just can't happen by accident. you need deliberate efforts to help people connect. some teams do virtual coffee chats. others have dedicated slack channels for non-work stuff. whatever you choose, it needs to be consistent and encouraged from the top.
trust becomes more important when you can't see people working. managers who need to watch their team all day will struggle with remote work. the focus has to shift from time spent to work delivered. that means setting clear goals, defining what success looks like, and giving people autonomy to figure out how to get there.
we've also noticed that remote onboarding needs more structure than office onboarding. new hires can't just shadow someone or ask quick questions throughout the day. everything needs to be planned out: who they'll meet with, what documentation they need, how they'll learn the codebase or processes. leaving someone to figure it out on their own doesn't work remotely.
the tools matter too. slack, zoom, github, notion - there are lots of options. but having the right tools isn't enough. teams need to agree on how they'll use them. which conversations go in slack versus email? when do you schedule a call versus sending a message? these norms need to be explicit.
remote work isn't going away. companies that figure out how to build effective distributed teams will have access to better talent and more flexibility. but it requires rethinking how work gets done, not just moving office work online. the teams that understand this difference are the ones that succeed.