10 Companies Let Employs Work From Home

Remote Working Had Become Prevailing, Its Popularity Is Growing Rapidly. For employees, it's a mode of working that clearly has a lot to offer - 

In fact, 70% of millennials have considered leaving a job for another boasting flexible work options.

From lower overheads to access to a much wider talent pool, there are many reasons why increasing numbers of companies are taking a careful look at what remote working can do for them as well as their employees.

The reality is that this way of working can present challenges too: teams working in more than one place, the lack of face-to-face contact and a potentially reduced level of interaction with management could all hamper instilling a company culture and values, and overall engagement.

Here are 10 companies that have succeeded in making remote working a core part of their workforce strategy whilst maintaining, and in some cases increasing, employee engagement.

AUTOMATTIC

Automattic didn't want to only fish from the small pond the silicon valley companies were in; why do that, asks matt, 

when you could fish from the entire ocean? At the heart of working this way is the desire to give people autonomy over how they work:

They can have the corner office they want, with the music playing that they love, with the room at the ideal temperature that suits them all while putting the time that would have been wasted on commuting into things that is more important to them.

What if you haven't set up the company to be distributed - how can you still make remote working work for you? Automattic's tips include documenting everything.

So everyone has access to the decision-making process and a trail to explain what others are thinking about.

Create productive face-to-face time: Automattic chooses to have a grand meet-up once a year, half work, half play, with the basic goal of connecting people, increasing understanding and empathy and ensuring they're aligned.

Automattic provides stipend employees can choose to use to create a workspace that works for them.

MONZO

The company is happy for employees to work from home from time to time including every other Friday.

One of the ways they keep employees up to speed is by recording their all-hands meetings to let remote employees stream them or catch upon them later.

Every fortnight, the whole the company works from home - and around 37% of the company work from home the entire time.

BUFFER

The social media app company “buffer” has a remote team of over 80 employees spread across more than 50 cities on five continents.

Everyone has access to the information they need and the thought processes behind decisions; it's viewed as an important way to build trust and has been key to making remote working successfully for the company.

Steady pacing of the growth of both the remote working infrastructure and the company as a whole have worked for buffer.

As for how large the company could grow in the future, who knows? As Ceo Joel Gascoigne says, he doesn't think there's an upper limit to how large companies can go with remote working - 

it's the future and technology will continue to offer more possibilities to make it more achievable for other companies.

BASECAMP

As it says, why would you want to restrict yourself geographically when it comes to finding the best employees? 

You could say they are advocates of remote working - in fact, they're such advocates, they literally wrote a book about it! In it, they share their experiences as a company with the whole remote working set up.

There are a lot of great examples in there about how remote working has delivered not just for employees but for the company overall - for example, working from home has actually boosted the quality of work people are doing.

One of the biggest challenges they face with managing remote employees are that they work too hard and they need to be reminded to strike a balance.

ATLASSIAN

Australian enterprise software company Atlassian carried out a survey of its 600 employees and one of the big takeaways was the fact that 95% of them wanted to change the way the company worked to enable more remote working.

The company really did its homework before going ahead with remote working.

As a result, this year Atlassian launched its remote worker the program, aiming to address the desire of employees to work from home more often.

It wasn’t only done for the benefit of employees; the company also wanted to increase the available talent pool, particularly software engineers. And it worked resulting in an impressive 25% increase in interest expressed in their available positions.  

The company is happy to admit it has taken a cautious ‘crawl, walk, run’ approach with it all – taking each step with careful consideration to mitigate the risks and maximize the benefits.

GITHUB

Microsoft's software development subsidiary Github is well known for hiring remote employees.

Over 40% of its employees work in us outside its San Francisco headquarters.

The company helps remote employees feel engaged by holding an annual summit plus facilitating opportunities for face to face get-togethers throughout the year too.

It's a company that recognizes the value of accessing talent without boundaries, using remote working to find talent across countries and states.

Some of its core working beliefs center around developing empathy and building trust, creating symbiosis by helping people to do what they’re good at and making the processes easier by writing them all down.

And as this employee interview explains, this kind of work is a brilliant way to create a diverse culture, ensuring a vast range of perspectives.

ZAPIER

American company Zapier has 200 employees and they all work remotely - there are no office buildings.

Transparency of communication and excellent documentation really stand out as factors for ensuring remote working is successful.

To keep remote employees engaged, there's a substantial focus on helping employees connect with one another and build relationships.

They use slack app donut to randomly connect up three employees to have social chats about, basically, anything! With retention rates that are around 95%, it certainly looks like it's an approach that's working for the employees.

The company believes there’s no need to physically be with people to know they’re getting the work done.

Basically, anything! With retention rates that are around 95%, it certainly looks like it’s an approach that’s working for the employees. 

Interested in hearing more from Ceo wade foster? Then listen to his hour-long, the podcast which you can access here.

GITLAB

Open-source software development tool company Gitlab has just one employee working in the head office and that's the Ceo! 

The company does offer to pay for people to access office space, but most of its other 159 people, who are spread out over 37 countries, generally opt to work from home.

Isolation isn't an issue with the company consciously scheduling a time for non-work zoom meetings and social chat.

Keeping everything well documented makes sure the information flow works. Gitlab hadn't particularly set out to run this way.

We don't care about where you choose to work if people are results orientated, they're motivated to do their best work. The manual openly available for the world to understand and even enhance their individual remarks.

MAGELLAN HEALTH

With a focus on offering a healthy 'work-life flow,' it's not surprising that Magellan health is a keen advocate of the benefits of letting employees work from home, something that over half its staff choose to do.

The company recognizes the stress that can be created by the daily commute and instead favors a way of working that lets employees put 100% of their energy and attention to work instead. 

They're keen that employees don't miss out on the moments that matter in their personal lives, and having a calmer working space where they aren't dealing with constant interruptions helps achieve that.

For Magellan health, it's the cornerstone of their whole philosophy and it all comes from this simple question:

‘You fairly have the person waged remotely or the person sitting-down the room from you?’

It all adds up to better productivity and happier customers and employees - which all means greater overall success.

                     

As the company says, with a little give and take and some great technology, everything flows.

PARTNER CENTRIC

Performance marketing agency PartnerCentric grew up around a business model that has remote working at its heart.

It explicitly identifies three pillars that support remote working: culture, transparency, and improvement.

Hard work is expected - but transparency makes sure that people feel comfortable communicating about what they're doing and asking for support when it's needed.

Improvement comes in various forms but notably the "deep work" time every Friday from 10 am to noon.

PartnerCentric makes sure it takes care of its employees with a menu of financial and wellbeing benefits in place – and if employees are saying things like

“They have 100% supposed out in what way to be fruitful as a fully remote workforce”

And its scoring on Glassdoor is [4.9] then you know you’re watching at an enterprise that has remote working pretty much sassed-out.

So, Which company is doing its work best & Which You Doesn't know that it's a remote company. Do comment your answers I'll love to read them all.