The manner in which you manage remote teams or employees will have long-term impact for your business and its growth potential. On the off chance, if you do a terrible job, then your productivity and morale both will get hampered. Whereas, if you are successful, the remote employees can deliver loyalty and will boost engagement as well.

As a matter of fact, now the remote working culture is going to stay, so why not exercise it to the fullest and retain the best talent from all over the globe. Thus, it is the major responsibility of the management to manage remote teams appropriately to scoop out the best results and efforts from these remote employees.

Apart from that, the managers also need to consider that in remote working an employee is working individually and a lot of pressure could make him feel isolated among team members. Therefore, here are the following tips to manage remote teams effectively. But, before that learn about why remote working is actually important in 2021 and after that too.

The Importance of Remote Working

Remote working is a process in which employees don’t have to report or work in the actual office site. They actually work their ordinary hours, but it is from their respective homes. For quite a long time, many organizations opposed allowing their employees to work from home. Probably apprehensive that their employees would invest their energy in doing laundry, watching TV or dealing with household tasks. Entrepreneurs and managers also feared that collaboration would tumble to the wayside and productivity would decline.

Nonetheless, a significant number of those worries ended up being unwarranted. Evidently, it’s been more than a year since the huge shift to remote work produced by COVID-19 and still it’s going smoothly in remote working. Before the pandemic, only 1 of every 30 organizations had somewhat half of their staff working remotely, as per research from HR consulting firm Mercer. Whereas, in August 2020, it was 1 of every 3. Interestingly, 94% of businesses said productivity has continued as before or increased since employees started working remotely.

Tips To Manage Remote Teams Effectively

1. Set Targets Early And Often

Defining guidelines, setting limits and reviewing the basics are among the main steps to take when setting out on your project. Thus, be available and give clearness on priority, achievements, performance objectives and more. Outline each remote team member’s accessibility and guarantee you can contact them when required.

Furthermore, similarly as in the workplace, the managers should keep remote employees updated on policy and staffing changes, organizations success and tips for working at home. They also should show conduct around the hours representatives work, for example, setting up expectations and responding to any after-work work email or messages. 

This aides’ employees to keep a healthy work/life balance, and keeps them from wearing out. However, without the actual separation from home and the workplace, it can be more normal when working from home.

2. Emphasize Communication

It’s urgent that managers communicate with their remote staff, on the grounds that it keeps workers appraisals of deadlines, available assets, business related challenges and managers expectations, including work plans.

Likewise, consider which specialized instrument best fits the group’s way of life—email, messages, calls, video talks, an intranet channel—and track down that sensitive harmony between continually pinging workers with messages and email and radio quiet. The recurrence of correspondence might contrast among workers.

“The best technique is to ask remote employees how they need to be managed while working remotely. That way, managers can keep an eye on what every employee should be productive while working from home.

And keeping in mind that it’s significant that managers track metrics that are valuable for the organization and check in with employees.

3. Build Connection And Be Available For Your Team

Many workers feel separated and confused in this new work reality. That is the reason it is important to build associations with employees. Share positive feedback, open an interesting communication channel, or attempt to ‘get espresso’ together. Whatever keeps a feeling of normality/solidarity and reminds everybody they’re not an island working alone.

To manage remote teams, they exceed all expectations to keep an open-door policy for remote employees, making themselves available across numerous time-zones and through different means for technology. Thus, remote employees can generally rely on their manager to respond to squeezing concerns.

4. Identify And Provide Right Tools

A significant aspect to effectively manage remote teams is to make all important tools that are easily available as needed. To address that issue, leaders and teams might need to puzzle through what ought to be set up to facilitate and manage remote teams effectively.

To manage remote teams it requires similar access to things used by on location employees, which might incorporate:

• Strategy and Procedure Manuals 
• Template Presentations and Supplies
• Mail Supplies and Stationary Material 
• Software Programming Programs
• Corporate Credit Card

5. Remote Teams Doesn’t Mean Cheap

The budget planning plays a significant role when we are looking to hire and manage remote teams. Some business owners might accept that organizing remote working and cutting office space by half is equivalent to a half reduction in the cost of housing employees in a traditional office site.

However, this isn’t that straightforward. Indeed, your organization will presumably save on actual office space, yet those savings are probably going to be spent somewhere else, depending upon the remote teams and work that is required to be done.

For example, your travel expenses might increase if the remote employees are in different states and need to head out to the onsite office once a quarter or more. Or, you might have to spend more on new resources or software upgradation or extra hardware/equipment, like headsets, to appropriately furnish your remote employees.

Manage Remote teams accurately and they can be just as productive, if not more than in-office employees. You simply need to lay out the groundwork for them.

6. Trust That Your Remote Team Is On The Task

You will not be able to have a complete watch over your remote employees, as you could in case they were in the workplace. Yet that doesn’t mean they aren’t taking care of business or not doing their tasks with responsibility. In the event that you can’t trust them, wonder why you employed them in any case for sure or what happened that made you lose trust in them.

You must trench trust issues. Assuming you don’t, you begin to turn into a remote insecure boss or will fail to manage remote teams effectively.

7. Be Sensitive To Overworking And Overloading

This is about both i.e., good administration and good self-administration. 

As a manager, you ought to be careful so as not to allocate a lot of work or to force too close deadlines. Be open for conversation with your remote teams. On the off chance that they feel like they’re under an excessive amount of pressure then, be ready to change work to make things (somewhat) simpler for them. 

For remote team management, there are a few things you can do: 

• Put forth a time limit on how long you work without a break. Hence, it will encourage your association to proactively block times on their schedules, and consider themselves responsible.
• Keep away from obscuring your work-life limits. Have a reasonable partition of work and “play”. Therefore, apply a people first approach—before we are like robots, because at the end we all are humans.
• Take regular exercise. This could be just about as simple as taking the dog for a walk twice a day (if no canine, then why not go on walk with friends or neighbors, or try to make friends on your way/park).

In No Time, You’ll Be A Pro To Manage Remote Teams Effectively

You might be stressed over moving to manage remote teams. But, there truly isn’t any need to be.

With such countless extraordinary apps and tools like Slack, DeskTime, Google Suite, etc. are out there to make remote work simpler. You’ll see that management and communication just became simpler, like your team is in the workplace with you. From sharing work related documents to simply having some good times as face-to-face communications and normal phone calls. It is feasible to hold many of the best parts of the in-office activities as a remote team or workers.

Regardless of whether you’ve to manage remote teams of 10 or a whole organization moving to remote or hybrid work. There’s a method to make your home office less isolated or lonely—while ensuring it’s just as productive as it was in the office premises.

So, if you are also looking to build a remote team or learning to manage remote teams, then you can reach out to us. EngineerBabu is a team of expert and qualified remote workers who deliver their work with sheer precision while maintaining the quality too.

The post Tips To Manage Remote Teams Effectively appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

We at EngineerBabu, are committed to helping enterprises of every scale hire remote engineering teams and manage them seamlessly and at an affordable cost. Over the years, we have gathered some really useful tips under our sleeves that can make hiring remote engineering teams and managing them easy. In this article, we will share some of the most important tips on the subject, read on.

Why Hire a Remote Engineering Team?

While remote working has become the new normal, the cost of hiring, managing, and maintaining an in-house remote team has gone up. According to a Forbes article, the cloud costs for enterprises rose by 30% in 2020 compared to last year. Apart from the cost factor, there is a major time factor involved. Hiring a full-time engineer can take anything in between 3-6 months. Extrapolate this to hiring an entire engineering team, the effort and time will be immense. Additionally, the cost of maintaining and training the team – to keep up with the evolving technologies, can make the entire process time and cost-intensive. At EngineerBabu, our mission is to help enterprises hire remote engineering teams at affordable costs across domains and technologies. 

Over the years we have worked with 5000+ founders, 484+ clients, and delivered almost 1000 projects. Working with remote engineering teams can be different from having a full-time in-house team. Especially for enterprises that haven’t done this before. In the subsequent section of this article, we will share the best practices of hiring and managing remote engineering teams.

Best Practices to Hire Remote Engineering Teams

1. Plan Ahead

The world of software engineering is going Agile and iterative. But the same principles may not help while hiring a remote engineering team. If you are building a team from scratch for product development, you must plan ahead. Making a note of the below pointers, before you embark on the journey of hiring a remote engineering team can be helpful.

• Plan the major milestones you would want to achieve and create a roadmap.
• Plan for the technical skills that you would need in the team to achieve your product goal. Not just in the current scenario, but in the future too.
• The number of team members you would need – and the seniority.
• Plan for the skills gap – in case you are augmenting your current team – see the skills gaps that you have in the existing team and then plan to hire a remote engineering team accordingly.

2. Choose the Right Outsourcing Partner

Hiring remote engineering teams is becoming the new normal and so is the proliferation of outsourcing partners. Here are some things to consider while choosing an outsourcing partner:

a. Long-term Partnership

Once you hire a remote engineering team, they will work with you for months and maybe years altogether. It will be important to choose a service provider who can provide long-term product support, helps you plan, and is ready for contingencies. Precisely why, it will be important to look for a partner and not just a provider. Your service provider’s job doesn’t end at building a remote engineering team for your enterprise but seeing the project through.

b. Expertise

While hiring a remote engineering team, it will be important to partner with a service provider that isn’t a one-stop shop for all kinds of remote workers, rather has expertise in helping enterprises hire remote engineering teams across domains and technologies.

c. Compatibility

It will be critical to answer this question – does your outsourcing partner understand your goals and objectives and is passionate about delivering them? It is important that your outsourcing partner is aligned with your enterprise’s objectives, for them to help you hire an engineering remote team. At EngineerBabu, our skilled engineers believe in aligning with your company’s goals to provide expertise for a perfect synergy.

d. Accountability

Other important factors to assess will be – How do they vet the teams, what is their selection process, how do they plan to keep up should you want to augment the team with evolving technology skills, etc.? At EngineerBabu, our engineers are carefully handpicked after a rigorous selection process. Every engineer that we have in our team has two attributes in common. These are, passion for engineering and dedication to deliver on time.

e. Time, Cost, and Effort Required

The choice of the outsourcing partner to hire a remote engineering team will also depend on how soon you want to get started. That will also mean choosing a partner who is fast but does not compromise with quality. For instance, our team has engineers who are Crème de la crème engineers, and our swift process can help you hire a remote engineering team and get started with your project within a week. Another important factor will be to consider the cost of hiring an outsourcing partner. Needless to say, it makes sense partner with an affordable service provider for your enterprise in the long run.

Managing a Remote Engineering Team

Hiring a remote engineering team is just half the battle won, for the success of your project it will be important to manage them efficiently as well. One of the most important aspects to remember while managing a remote engineering team is that a remote engineering team is an extension of your in-house team, whether they are or aren’t on your payroll. Hence, the way you work with a remote engineering team should be similar to how you work with in-house team. It will help build team spirit and strengthen their dedication. Some tips to consider to successfully manage remote engineering are –

1. Communicate

Treating and communicating with your remote engineering team as you would do with a full-time team is important. More often, project managers end up under-communicating with remote teams. It can lead to the team not feeling a part of the bigger goal. Therefore, keeping the remote engineering teams involved in the bigger picture by sharing with them the product roadmap, important milestones that you want to achieve, and most importantly the bigger mission of your product or enterprise will make a great deal of difference. Use a channel like Slack to continuously be in touch.

2. Scrums and Daily Stand-ups

Like any engineering project, scrums and daily stand-ups are important to track the progress of projects, discuss challenges and further steps. Usually, PMs tend to delegate a portion of the project to the remote engineering teams and take weekly updates. It can be counterproductive since any issues or delays will come up only during the weekly updates. Additionally, since the remote engineering team will work hand-in-hand with your full-time team, a daily scrum/stand-up will help them collaborate better.

3. Make the Best Use of Project Management Tools

Use project management tools like JIRA or Hive to plan, manage and track projects. Project management tools can go a long way in planning and to prepare for contingencies as well.

4. Be Agile

Be flexible and Agile enough to tackle any unexpected issues coming your way. The tech world is evolving, so are your product ideas. From idea to implementation, the product will improve as your plan changes. Thus, it will be crucial to consider when you hire a remote engineering team to ensure that team gets communicated with any required modification. Likewise, choosing the right outsourcing partner will become crucial. They will help you adapt to evolving needs by augmenting the team with engineers. Along with the required skill-sets or quickly increasing the team size when needed.

Wrapping Up

Remote work has become the new normal. Many companies plan to shift to a remote working model even post-pandemic. Team augmentation by hiring remote engineers was already being adopted by the IT industry and tech startups. The need and benefits of hiring a remote engineering team have become even more evident in a post-pandemic world. Hiring a remote engineering team can mean – higher productivity with huge time and cost savings. We hope this article will help you in hiring and managing a remote engineering team. However, at EngineerBabu, we partner with enterprises across domains and scale. We help them to build best-in-class engineering teams for crafting a successful product. If you are looking to hire a remote engineering team and want to know more about our services – connect with us.

The post Tips To Manage & Hire Remote Engineering Team appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

Remote Working Interview Questions

1. Do you have any experience working remotely?

Answer:  I’ve had a lot of experience working remotely. A lot of companies are moving in that direction because it liberates an employee to work. The employee can easily work on different projects for multiple employers without being tied to any specific location. It enables an abundance of flexibility, not only with their time but also with finding jobs (or taking jobs) from any part of the globe.

One important thing for the employer and the employee is to have agreements about what type of work can be done remotely. Apart from that, how it should be communicated if there’s an issue or a question (platforms, like Skype, faxes, phone calls), and what guidelines need to be followed as far as accounting. In order for this model to succeed–and make sure you get your best people working.

2. What are your thoughts on the best way to find coworkers for a remote position?

Answer: Get personal recommendations from people who have experience with the position, as well as those who have done remote work before.

The best way to find coworkers for a remote position is by getting recommendations from someone you know personally; if not, then look for the experience he has for the position you are hiring. Apart from that, you can also try connecting with people on LinkedIn or Twitter and ask them for advice and their thoughts on the best way to find coworkers for a remote position in your field of choice.

3. What productivity apps do you use most often when working remotely?

Answer: The apps I use most often are Trello, Slack, and Skype.

Using these three apps allows me to stay connected and well informed about my team member’s activity. It avoids frequent interruptions or conversations which can be carried out at a more appropriate time.

I also find that these three apps allow me to motivate and encourage peers who are far away!

4. How do you stay social while working from home/the office regularly? 

Answer: Remain connected and be active.

The first thing you can do is to connect with others online or in the office by using a Skype video call or join a conference call if the phone no longer suffices. However, you can also join social networks like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram where many people share photos and posts within their networks. 

Another option for being social is to find a virtual co-working environment that provides day/night offices and virtual meeting rooms. Here, you’ll have access to others who are working from home too. These options will help keep you plugged into what’s going on around you without having to completely disconnect from work just because of geography. This way it won’t feel like your peers are “gone” when they’re not working under the same roof.

5. How do you manage your time with work and family obligations when remote working is part of the job expectation?

Answer: Remote work is awesome, and you can opt for a remote working lifestyle (or not) based on what’s best for your personal life.

Neither working in the office nor being in one place at all times is better than the other. It just depends on which arrangement best suits your needs – maybe it’s an afternoon off here or there, or more time to work during evenings and weekends. Take into account what’s important to you–your family, your own sanity, and productivity when deciding how much flexibility you want with this arrangement!

More often than not, people tolerate burnout in their job because they feel they don’t have any other options while their partner manages childcare responsibilities from home. Some manage splitting days between childcare and work responsibilities.

6. What do you see as the best part of remote work? 

Answer: Aside from the ability to work without a boss breathing down your neck, there are other benefits. 

The freedom and flexibility of remote work lets you explore aspects of your business that might have been impossible in a more constrained environment. Being able to thrive at home is easier than ever with things like high-speed internet that enables video calls. 

People who follow the remote route will become experts in what they do by necessity. Because they are required to rely on themselves for support and logistics management 99% of the time. Whereas an office dweller could live their whole life without ever being exposed to any responsibility outside their own immediate function or specialty. Thus developing stronger skills and more personal responsibility as a result.

7. If you had the choice, would you rather work in a traditional office environment or at home full time in front of your laptop? 

Answer: You will need more discipline in a traditional office environment, so if you’re reluctant to work without supervision it’s better for you.

However, the trade-off is that your mental agility and innovation will be less at the end of every day. It is so because there are fewer interactions with other professions (colleagues) during multiple hours of desk time and isolation with music or YouTube videos. This reduction can have dire consequences on one’s social life, too. For example, I’ve seen some people sitting up late playing video games while their significant other is sleeping right next to them! So whenever possible we should balance our “at home” and “in an office environment” days so that we maximize our cognition rather than wearing down any one area.

8. What is the number one factor that depends on when it comes to deciding whether or not to take on remote work? 

Answer: The number one factor that manipulates the decision to take remote working or not is location. If you can’t be in a different geographical setting, and it’s financially viable to do so, the answer to the question would assume that geographic location is not an issue.

Many people think there’s no difference between being at home and working remotely because everything they need for their job is online anyway. But much of remote work relies on human interaction and building relationships with people—not just emailing, texting, or video chatting. And if you’re in a noisy environment at home (perhaps with kids), there’s often less focus and productivity on tasks that require deep concentration too—all of which are equaled out when your office is only five minutes away from your front desk.

9. How do you balance everything while remote working?

Answer: Maintain a set work schedule.

You will likely need to adapt your working patterns to you and your circumstances. But as long as you have a workable routine during the day, what you do outside of that very much depends on the daily commitments in your life. For example; cooking, housewifery, fitness routines etc., can easily be adapted to suit this flexible way of working.

Maintaining a set work schedule helps maintain sanity and focus since it’s not harder when we’re working from home. A lot of people find they produce better quality if they stick to their hours each day, and it keeps them motivated and coming back for more.

10. Can seeing people less often lead to feeling out of touch and lonely?

Answer: Yes.

It’s been shown that people need to be seen often by their friends and family in order to maintain a high connection with them. A lack of contact may lead to the feeling of being left out, lonely, or even completely forgotten about. It also makes it harder for you and your friends or family members to communicate the things they care about most too.

What do you think causes this? One possible factor might be that our meaning is fundamentally relational now. The personal is political and there’s an “I’m not me without you” vibe that pervades everything we do, so when we lose touch with someone it feels like losing some part of ourselves.

11. What motivates you?

Answer: Keeping to my values, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and feeling like I’m contributing positively in my own way.

Isn’t it strange how some days we have an endless supply of energy. Like, no excuses in sight for why you can’t make it through that 8 hour workday, or why you don’t feel like staying active when you’re off work? Other days we’re powerless to forces beyond our control that seem stacked against us at every turn. That doesn’t mean the whole day is lost. We just need to find what “powers” us on those tough days so everything doesn’t overwhelm us.

There are a few ways to get going again, and most effective could be, lean on your loved ones and friends close by or back home.

12. What are some of your biggest fears or worries in the workplace? 

Answer: Here are four of my biggest fears/worries in the workplace:

1. I fear that my boss is setting me up for failure (for example, not giving me enough time to do what’s needed or asking too much of me at once)
2. I worry about getting pulled into some drama between co-workers.
3. Often, people who are higher on the food chain will throw politics at us and expect us to just follow suit instead of listening to our gut feeling. 
4. On a personal level, one thing that always makes me nervous is working from home because it takes away a sense of peace and can seem like you’re never “off” work if you have your laptop set up next to your bed.

13. How do you deal with failure and what are your thoughts on risk-taking?

Answer: Around 40% of people fear that they will lose their job. 21% of people are worried about the prospect of getting laid off. Another 20%-25% are afraid that their income level won’t be able to support them and their family, which happens for a variety of reasons like losing the ability to work due to health issues or an injury, being out-competed by advanced technology replacing jobs, or outsourcing in another country.

And then there’s at least 10% who worry about the other 90%. They’re worried that they’ll see someone else get laid off and let down across from management because there will be no one left to replace them if it’s their turn next.

All challenges are risks that have potential rewards. Knowing this helps create perspective and enables you to see how even the most challenging situations often end up turning out better than expected because trial-and-error can lead to many good outcomes as well as bad ones. Choose those tasks with great care, but also coach yourself through them without too much anxious negativity so that you don’t let fear stop you from being who you want to be in life!

14. Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?

Answer: The answer was about a career, but I want this to just be a short-term goal.

I don’t want you to think of me as someone who is set on their goals and bettering themselves for my own sake alone; I could be doing terrible things and you wouldn’t know because I’m too busy working. 

However, some are not as considerate as their carefree attitude allows them to be. They put all this work into their future without thinking about others, like it’s none of your business. 

It may not have been their intention whatsoever when they did it, but the thing is that they simply can’t afford that luxury with such a casual attitude.

15. What motivates you to work remotely? 

Answer: Working remotely is great because it allows you to have flexibility in your life. Take off at noon for an errand or to eat lunch with friends, not worry about staying long after office hours. It also saves the money on gas and wear and tear on your car.

Working remotely also gives you a lot more living space – you can live outside of the city where rent is cheap, or work from home if that’s not available. It cuts down on all the time wasted commuting back and forth, which increases productivity.

In addition, working remotely also lets us spend more time with our loved ones. We no longer have to wake up early so we can make it in before 8am and then watch a movie together over dinner at night.

16. How will remote work achieve your personal career goals?

Answer: Remote work can help you achieve your goals by allowing you to spend more time outside of the office.

Remote jobs lend themselves exceptionally well to entrepreneurs, home workers and freelancers, those who are in search for inspiration and life balance. You’ll be setting your own hours and direction with this type of job. So make sure that it’s an arrangement that is going to work for you in the long run. 

Remote work can help you and your team grow without needing any physical infrastructure. That is, if your personal goal is to “grow”, remote work allows for dramatic expansion of both skill sets and capacity without intense resource commitment. In doing so the business becomes truly like a virtual company – not just because people might not ever meet each other but also because turnover rates will likely drop drastically too!

17. What are your thoughts on managing the balance between professional and personal lives while working from home/abroad on a regular basis?

Answer: As long as you enjoy your work, have a strong personal network, and are mindful of the time difference then the living-at-home lifestyle shouldn’t be too much of a problem. You’ll want to start by identifying what’s going on in your life that is causing the chaos – usually some kind of major change (moving to a new area or state, break up, death in family).

Think about stress points. What makes you feel stressed out at home? Can you do something to mitigate those stresses? Get an apartment with friends instead of getting a house alone if household chores make you feel bad. It could be something seemingly small like being able to stop cooking for yourself after coming home from work.

18. Are you able to successfully separate professional and social media lives while living comfortably in one location or more for extended periods of time?

Answer: Yes.

Living comfortably requires a person to separate their professional and social media lives, especially in the age of Facebook (professional) & Pinterest (social). What I mean is that you should use Twitter for what it’s designed for- short status messages about your day. Most people who spend all day on Twitter post about five times a day, but if you’re not posting more than 15 statuses a day then don’t make it your only form of communication with friends. Remember to keep some boundaries between what you do at work and who you are outside of work, too!

Others may like the overlap as they find it thrilling to see how they interact differently in both domains based on their level of comfort or skill.

19. What are your thoughts on the future of remote work?

Answer: Virtual collaboration has been steadily on the rise in recent years, and it’s poised to become an integral part of working life. In a decade or so, the distinction between remote work and normal work may be obsolete.

The number of people who telecommute is growing at 3 times the rate as those traveling for business trips. As more jobs become more mobile-friendly (ex: clerk positions) we’ll see even higher levels of telecommuting. In addition, given that practically all forms of communication are portable now. Wi-Fi enabled digital theater lobbies to show first-run films; Facebook can be accessed without any form of connectivity while you’re on an airplane; Skype is used by millions worldwide to video conference with loved ones.

20. Have you ever felt as if you were being treated differently for interviewing with a company over Skype? 

Answer: Yes, but when you’ve got a positive attitude and focus on the interview in front of you, it won’t matter.

21. If given the opportunity, how do you think employers and employees would communicate in a fully remote workforce world?

Answer: Based on industry norms and word-of-mouth, the most common communication patterns for remotely located employees include things like weekly check ins, bi-weekly standups, open door policy for walkups & calls. But these are just conventions that may or may not work well with your specific profession. 

However, it’s best to discuss any communication preferences you have both before the start of employment as well as during periods of job searching and negotiation. The key is finding something that works for everyone so there’s equity in what they’re contributing to one another.

Be sure to explicitly address a few more tangible remote working policies in your contract such as setting out hours of operation (e.g., 9am – 5pm IST).

22. Is it ok to do conference calls for job interviews while at work?

Answer: Of course not!

It’s often frowned upon for candidates to wear overly casual attire for job interviews, so it should be assumed that the same logic extends to your mood and attitude. If you’re on a call with potential employers, they’ll communicate better with you. If they can hear that you are alert and engaged on the call. And if you’re busy dealing with a customer crisis while talking to them, they won’t see you as someone who is as committed or reliable.

23. Which companies have the most remote friendly work environment? 

Answer: This is a difficult question to answer. There are many factors one has to take into consideration when deciding on the best remote friendly company to work for. It can be even more difficult if you have multiple priorities. However, to list some names as remote friendly work environment, I would say following names;

1. Automattic– The company has more than 1700 employees with only 95 working in an office setting.
2. Atlassian– All of this company’s engineers and half of their customer service staff work remotely.
3. Cisco Systems Foundation– All the executives for this non-profit organization work from home 15% of the time. In addition, the core development team is also split between contractors and remote workers with 75% of them being remote staff members.
4. Microsoft Offices–Some Microsoft employees are lucky enough to have a flexible environment in their offices that practically lets them work from home if they feel like it or just get over there once a week.

24. Would you be scared to accept a remote position since you wouldn’t have the immediate support of an office space or other workers nearby and would only be in contact with those workers through phone, email and chat apps if needed? 

Answer: There’s a sense of independence here that you might not want to give up. The truth is, remote work means more responsibility—you’re your own grownup (or parent), and there’s no one to tell you what to do! You’ll have to make new relationships with clients and co-workers over the phone or Skype, learn how this all works on your own.

Do it for the experience. One of the greatest benefits of being a remote worker is that if things go wrong, you’re in total control. 

25. What is a specific challenge you’ve experienced while remote working?

Answer: One of the challenges I’ve experienced is that as a remote worker, I’m disconnected from physical office spaces. This makes it difficult to be invited to meetings, go out for lunch with coworkers, or attend happy hours.

We need space where we can gather and talk about the day before we start our workday in the morning. We also want people of all expertise levels and roles to be present when meeting with peers who are newer or different outside a specific field you might know more about (we might not know anything outside this area). Lastly, we want people from all around so there’s some socialization since you’ll always interact mainly just with those in your company if working remotely.

26. Do you currently prefer remote working? Why or why not?

Answer: It helps me get more work accomplished for two reasons:

1) There’s less environmental distractions, and

2) I’m not tempted to browse Facebook, chat with friends or pet the dog.

I haven’t found anything that satisfies both criteria for me. People might think working from home would be better for productivity because of those two things. However, when I try it, there are a lot more distractions. Plus all the time I save not having to commute back and forth is mostly spent on mindless web surfing or chatting with friends anyway. So if you want to try it out just make sure you find either a really disciplined person or an office environment where somebody will pressure/kick you if you ever divert attention from work for too long.

27. What are your thoughts about workplace design and management in an age where remote work productivity is on the rise?

Answer: I would not recommend offices for remote teams, rather buy tables and laptops at a good price. This will allow you to work from anywhere and is more cost-effective. Plus it’s much better for the environment than having one office with multiple people who are constantly going back and forth between locations (like many Silicon Valley companies). 

What do you think about meeting rooms? I don’t recommend meeting rooms if possible because they quickly make employees tired which slows down their productivity. And if your meetings are too long in a room, the audience may start looking around at everything that’s in there instead of staying focused on what the speaker is saying. The speakers might also try to cover too much material during their lecture because they’re nervous about not leaving any important point untouched. 

28. How do you think that social media has made it easier for people to engage in remote work relationships?

Answer: Absolutely. 

One of the more positive consequences of social media is that it reconnects us with people from our past in a way that makes it easier to maintain long distance friendships, and convenient for former partners to remain friends. It can also be a very fast way to make business connections with people from both your personal and professional lives, which has been said to help facilitate remote working relationships as well.

29. What are your thoughts on the future of remote working hiring process?

Answer: The future of remote working in the hiring process is more and likely sooner than any of us anticipate. It’s not hard to imagine, as we grow into a completely global society- one in which there are hardly any borders between countries, states or even city blocks – that our office life will soon exist without space limitations.

Business leaders on the forefront of this trend have found that removing location restraints not only expands their talent pool but also actively cultivates diverse perspectives and innovative thinking in their creative teams.

Flexible working arrangements such as telecommuting can offer valuable cost savings for companies as well, by reducing operational overhead from rent to furniture purchases while still maintaining contact with creativity-driven people around the globe.

Remote working will soon grab the whole market and working trend around the globe.

30. Can you share an experience where you felt like it was difficult to describe your knowledge, skills, and abilities to a hiring manager?

Answer: Yes. Many times I have felt very nervous when asked “What are your qualifications?” In those moments, I find it difficult to articulate my background at the level of detail. Such as, a potential employer might want to know about. The truth is, in these occasions I’m actually not looking for a job (I am being proactively job seeking). Thus, instead just trying to make connections with various people in different sectors. So I can expand my network and learn more – a way for me to get exposed to new ideas or concepts which will hopefully lead me downtown independently.

Maybe this is why HR people put that question out there? It’s probably their first indicator of someone who has an interest in skills development but doesn’t know how or the right place to do so.

31. If you’ve worked remotely for different employers, is there anything in particular that one does differently than another?

Answer: Yes and no.

Remote working has its challenges, and it also comes with a few inherent benefits. For one thing, I don’t need to live in Austin anymore so I can live somewhere cheaper. Secondly, when the team is sort of scatter-exchanging remote people or getting into an area. Where we really need someone on the ground locally (maybe exploring new technologies), there’s always enough time for us to set up a visit as opposed to sending somebody over for a year full-time. Communication will never be perfect, but we have found ways around it with messengers like Slack and Google Meets.

32. What’s your best experience in a remote work environment? 

Answer: My best work experience in a remote environment was when I was in a co-working space. There were people all around me who were doing similar things and talking about similar topics.

At the time, I didn’t know what co-working spaces were or how they operated. But after trying it out, this has been my favorite way of working remotely so far. If you’ve not had the opportunity to try out co-working yet then I highly recommend that you do. Because having other people around keeps your creative juices going and allows for some good ideas to pop up more naturally. However, if you are sitting alone at home trying to get back into what’s going on at work.

33. How do you think this job would suit your personality type? 

Answer: Perception is the most important thing.

The most important consideration in any job, and any person, for that matter, is perception. For instance, a doer like me might want to be consulting. Because I care about solving problems and being able to come up with creative solutions on the fly. Someone who’s more empathic might enjoy teaching students on some topic of interest. Can might also be doing social work where they’re directly helping people solve their problems. What type of lifestyle are you looking for? A lot of introverts would do well as programmers or sales people these days. Which have largely desk-based workstyles (too much noise from others). You may not want too much contact with other people if your introvert tendencies start messing with your

34. Do you have any questions for me about the company or the role before we continue with the interview process? 

Answer: The following questions can be asked in order to further understand the company and/or role before continuing with remote working interview process.

• What are the typical hours for this position?
• What is the overall company culture like?
• Who does this job work best with on a team and why?
• How would you describe your current role compared to previous roles? What was challenging about it, if anything?
• Is there an industry that’s more applicable than others for this role, or is any background relevant? Why or why not?
• Where would someone typically start out in this type of position and how long does it take to progress from one level to another in terms of compensation and responsibility, on average.

35. Why do you want to work remotely and not in an office setting?

Answer: Remote Working allows me to work on my own terms.

The benefits of working remotely are numerous. I get to choose the hours that suit me. There is no commute time which means I have more time for doing other things during the day. However, distractions from people can be managed better than in an office environment when all types of interruptions can occur at any point, anytime. To give you an idea about how remote the location is. It’s so remote that cell phone service stops at a particular point on a rural road!

Wrap Up:

The remote hiring interview process is vastly different and requires a unique set of skills. Here are some tips for how to ace the job interview when you’re not in person with your interviewer. So that you can succeed from anywhere.  The first tip is to make sure your resume says ‘remote work available’ on it because many companies will only hire someone who does all or part of their job remotely. This way, if they have an opening for which this skill would be helpful, then they know about it already.  Second, prepare questions ahead of time that show off what sets you apart from other candidates. As well as any specific knowledge pertaining to the company before going into the interview.

Hope you find these tips and above mentioned remote working interview questions valuable to crack your interview and impress the interviewer with your unique answers.

The post Remote Working Interview Questions: How To Ace the Job Interview? appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

A report suggested there are 16% of companies works in a completely remote manner with almost no concrete office, which includes small, medium, large enterprises and big brands like Buffer, Zapier, and Basecamp, etc.

How Remote Companies Work?

Almost 50% of the workforce working remotely, whereas 80-90% of the workforce admitted that they would love to work as a remote employee at least once says Global Workforce Analytics. Unlike the traditional approach, remote teams worked and managed differently. Sometimes it may feel that you have no control over the team. Still, you’ll find some innovative ways to connect and establish a bond with the team.

Here are some exciting ways in which Remote Companies work

Work from Home/ Co-working places: This is the essence of remote working. The employee is free to choose from any of the workplaces. Imagine wearing pajamas, messy hair, a cup of coffee in one hand, and working in your cozy space!!! It is found in a recent survey that the employees who work from home are more productive and happier as compared to in—house employees.

Flexible Working Hours: This is the greatest perk for all. By allowing remote work, both the employees and employers get benefited. When the manager required something urgent, he will not depend on one employee rather than he can ask someone else!

Telecommuting: Have you ever thought about how much time and money we spent over commutation? By working as a remote employee, you will not only save time and money, but also you can focus on your family and health by giving them some extra time.

As an employer, you will save the cost of infrastructure as well as the extra expenditure on the employees.

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Daily Stand-up: It is a kind of scrum meeting in which all the teams are involved through video conferencing and put their thoughts. It is as same as the office huddle but virtually. This an E—meet in which employees can discuss the projects and future possibilities.

Task/Project Management Tools: While sitting on a remote location, it is complicated to track the efficiency of the employees. Any project management tool or task management tool like Basecamp or Asana helps to measure the productivity and work rate of the workforce which eventually helps to get better outputs in the near future.

Future Holds for Remote Companies

Due to the rapid growth in technology, remote-working policies will rival the popularity of fixed office locations by 2025. These imply that the remote culture will overtake the conventional way of doing business. Heading upwards remote work is making office spaces empty. The new era of the workforce has started, and almost 90% of employees are planning to be a remote worker for the rest of their career. Because of this increasingly popular trend, some refuse to accept an onsite position, knowing they can find a more convenient and flexible gig elsewhere.

Build Your Own Remote Company

Whether you are a new-gen entrepreneur or a business tycoon, you need to accept that finding talent is the most laborious task. You can hire someone locally, but have you ever think of the cost you need to pay for them? In the US, it will cost you $90,000 approximately to hire a developer, whereas, in South Asian countries like India, it will cost you much less; in the cost of one US developer, you can run a whole company in India with much better quality.

Remote work has opened the door for every single talent present in the world. There are no restrictions for accessing the talent from the global pool. But where are you going to find them? Well, you can find it on any freelancing site, LinkedIn, or any other source. But going through an agency is always a better option because when you hire a dedicated developer via an agency like EngineerBabu, it will assure you with a 100% guarantee of IT expertise, on-time delivery, proper communication, and milestone distribution. In-short you don’t need to take extra time from your busy schedule to reach out to the remote developer.

Are you an entrepreneur with a fantastic idea, but finding it challenging to implement it? Let’s discuss it now!

Hire developers from EngineerBabu

If you are planning to open an offshore development center in India, you are making the right decision, my friend. Well, India is a vast country with a population of around 125 billion!!!!  Every single Indian is connected to the IT industry directly or indirectly.

The population software engineer in India is appx. 5.2 million Whereas, the U.S. has only 4.75 million. That is a huge difference.

“Over the next couple of decades, India will add about 110 million workers to its labor force, more than the U.S., China, Russia, and Japan combined,” says Goldman Sachs.

So there is no doubt that India is a superpower in terms of I.T. engineering. But the main question is from where to hire? And the answer is Indore! Yes. Though Indore is not a metropolitan city it is no longer behind in terms of technology. With IIT and IIM at opposite corners, the silicon valley of central India is surrounded by substantial I.T. parks, and you know what? It is a traffic-free city and ranks #1 in terms of cleanness fourth time in a row! Keeping all these apart, the working culture of Indore is a bit different from the rest of the I.T. hubs as the developer sustains in one company for a longer duration. If we throw some light in big I.T. hubs say Banglore, there is a tendency of switching jobs every 6 months on an average. That’s a big concern. That’s why many enterprises are looking for Indore to open their next offshore development center.

Recommended Reading: How to Hire Remote Software Engineers with EngineerBabu?

EngineerBabu is one of the leading I.T. outsourcing agencies in Indore. A startup is having 10 years of experience launched by Mayank Singh and Aditi Chaurasia with a dream to provide the best I.T. solutions to small, big, and medium-sized enterprises. Spending a decade in the industry now, the firm gained trust from people like you with a 97% repeat rate. Hire software engineer, dedicated developer, and programmer from EngineerBabu and be relaxed. Here you can check out the reviews.

To know more about the process and pricing drop a message mayank@engineerbabu.in

Do you have a project in mind? Let me know! I can surely help you out.

Also Read:

• Remote Company Cost to build a Website
• Essential Tips for Hiring Remote Employees
• Complete Process for Hiring Remote Developer from India

The post Remote Companies – The Future of Work appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

“India started with an export of $100 million with around 5000 employees in 1990. But now in 2019, India’s IT export is around $80 Billion with 3.2 million employees working.”

Recommended Reading: Top 10 Tech Companies that Allow you to Work Remotely

90% of India’s IT companies are in six cities: Bengaluru, NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, and Chennai, according to Nasscom. The statistics are skewed as they deal with only information technology companies, but the overall trend has been unmistakable in the past decade: startups form in a few big cities in the country.

Away from the metros and India’s Silicon Valley, a quiet revolution is brewing in the country’s tier-II cities. Places like Bhubaneswar, Indore, Ahmadabad, Chennai, and Kochi are setting high-tech technologies centers and giving tough competition to well-settled IT hubs. Among these rising IT cities, Indore is considered as the most favorable destination for any IT outsourcing. What makes Indore so special?

Cleanest city of India 4 times in a row!

Every day, companies are looking to expand their software development team, increase their output, or drive software innovation within their business. I’ve prepared 6 big reasons why going for remote hiring can make it happen. Let’s see some fact which makes Indore a better place to open the offshore center rather than rest of India.

Recommended Reading: Best Way to Hire Developers for Remote Jobs

Commutation: Indore is a small city with a population of around 35 lakh. So the commutation in Indore is easy. Unlike Bangalore or any other metro city where people spent hours on commutation to deliver you the work, Indore goes with an easy lifestyle. An article by The Hindu stated that a Bangalorean commute about 42.5 minutes on an average to reach their work destination and thanks to traffic jams this time is increasing from 3-4 hours!

“The holidify listed Indore on #12 in their article “best places to live and work in India”.

Employee Retention: Employee retention is the biggest problem to run any business. It becomes more challenging for startups to maintain their employees for a longer duration. But Indore is a bit unique in its way! The employees in small cities have a tendency to work for the same company for a longer period. Employees in Indore hardly switch their jobs and stick to the same company for at least 5 years.

Work-life balance: Once Heather Schuck said, “You will never feel truly satisfied by work until you are satisfied by life.” And Indoris took this very seriously. Our profession has nowadays has become a vital part of our lives and while creating a good future we keep integrating work with our personal life which eventually leads to stress.

But the work culture in Indore is quite different as compared to any other city. Because of the friendly environment, people share pain and contemplation

Talent Availability: Big tech companies like TCS and Infosys have recently set up their development center in Indore as Indore is the most promising city in terms of resource availability. Having the country’s first city to have both – IIT and IIM along with first-class B-schools and tech institutions, Indore attracts the students of neighboring states like Gujarat and Rajasthan. This all made Indore enrich in talent where every single person is ambitious about their career.

Talent Quality: As I said earlier, Indore is not the same as it seems to be! The talent hunt requires fresh blood and the city is brimmed of it. Indore is an education hub of central India. People with different cultures centralized in one city thus they made Indore what it is.

In addition to this, MNCs like DXC, Samsung, HotWax, etc. are expanding their business in core India and hiring local talents as they have already predicted the future that what going to happen in the coming days.

 “42% of companies are struggling with quality tech talent”, says ET

Cost: An undeniable advantage of offshoring is cost-effectiveness. By offshoring the IT project to Indian developers you can reduce your IT spends by 20-50% compared to hiring at home.

Recommended Reading: How much does Website Development Cost?

The cost of living in a country like India is significantly lower than in the West and especially in the city like Indore. The ease of commutation and accommodation especially make Indore a budget-friendly city.

Let’s have a glance at what makes Indore the best place to hire the development team for your next IT project?

Not only is the cleanest for the 4th time in a row but Indore is emerging as a new IT center for central India. With all the basic facilities like commutation, accommodation now Indore has open the door for the international market as well. Indore gives direct air facilities to Dubai and other places of the world.

See the cleanest airport of India.

In terms of traffic, Indore is distinct from any other city. Don’t believe me, see this:

Indoris are really amazing at their work!!!

Indore is on its way to being a high-tech city. It is surrounded by two IT parks from the west, 1 from the south and the other from the north of the city. Have a look at these amazing places.

Isn’t it enough to plan your next IT project in Indore?

Let’s discuss if you have any amazing ideas!

How team EngineerBabu is the perfect solution for hiring remote developers?

We have initially set up our office at Bangalore but due to hectic and restless life, we shifted our office in Indore. We are famous for creating “wow”! In the small journey in the technology, we have come across several obstacles but we handled them very easily.

Are you looking for a dedicated team of remote developers or a single geek? EngineerBabu is the best web development agency you could ever found. We have a well-built infrastructure with available resources that are ready to help out at any moment.

EngineerBabu is a superb mix of experienced developers with new and energetic talent. We not only focus on just completing the project but client satisfaction is mandatory for us.

Timely workshops on the latest technologies helped us to sustain in a hasty changing world. All the remote developers of EngineerBabu are professional problem solvers, this what our client said about us.

Testimonial of our previous clients:

And in news too:

“We worked with many startups and helped them build awesome products until they got investments. As a result, we started getting clients from references, and we got the tag of the most startup-friendly IT services company,” shares Aditi (co-founder and CEO, EngineerBabu).

EngineerBabu has built a gigantic network of talents from all over the globe, through various online and offline processes. We are offering IT companies to hire talented engineers with us. To know more about pricing and procedure talk to us or drop a mail to mayank@engineerbabu.com

I will be more than happy to help you!

Also Read:

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• Detailed Guide to Build an Ecommerce App

The post Why Hire Remote Developers from Indore, India? appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.