Carl Smith runs nGen Works, a design and development studio that is fully distributed. He’s also a co-host on one of my favorite podcasts, BizCraft.
In this article from Net Mag / Creative Bloq, Carl talks about some key traits for successful remote workers, and also talks about how to support remote workers as managers.
One of my favorite points he makes was on the importance of thinking of the company in the sense of having a multi-local presence, versus a location-less presence:
Don’t think of a distributed company as location-less: think of it as having many locations. Celebrate being multi-local by letting remote workers create or sponsor events. Provide a budget for this to empower them to grow their own communities. As well as helping team members feel connected, this will establish a bigger presence for your company.
The article is full of more tips like this that are good for remote workers and managers to check out. And even if you’re not remote, we should all agree that the first point (Don’t be an asshole) should be true for all of us, not just remote workers.