Ever since businesses were forced to discontinue in-office operations, ‘Remote Work’ has been trending. Remote work, often known as Telework or Telecommuting, is a flexible work arrangement that can be a win-win for employees and employers. While the employees are provided the option to pursue their careers from the comfort of their homes; access to an international talent pool, a cut on costs, and a more productive workforce are the perks it has to offer to business owners. Nonetheless, hiring and retaining remote workers come with their own set of challenges.

In this blog, we will discuss everything employers have to know about the first aspect, i.e. hiring remote employees.

Prerequisites for Remote Hiring

If you’re hiring remotely, you will be on the hunt for the right combination of skills and personality. The first thing you need to make sure of is to have a strong digital presence as the candidates may highly rely on it to learn about your company.

Experts warn business owners to double-check if their online presence demonstrates trustworthiness, clearly illustrates the company culture and helps candidates envisage themselves as members of the organization. To make this possible, informative careers pages and attractive social media accounts have to be created describing your work culture simply and effectively.

You may ask your existing remote employees for testimonials of why they chose to work remotely and what makes them stick to your company. This could serve as an inspiration for the candidates who apply for your job positions.

If you want to hire right, you have to define your ideal candidate. Any job listing requires a description of who’d make an ideal candidate, whether it’s for in-office work or remote work. It’s slightly complex in the case of remote working as you’ll have to look for specific traits in the candidates. If you think a certain personality type will work the best for a certain remote role, you may include a personality questionnaire and mention the desired personality trait in the job description.

You can reach out to your existing employees for referrals when hiring remotely. Let them know the skills you’re looking for and clarify that location is not a barrier.

If your company hosts annual/ quarterly All-Hands Meetings, conducts webinars, or if your teams occasionally gather for any events, the photos or videos captured during these occasions can be a part of your website or your social media handles. This helps exhibit your organizational culture, and thereby, helps you attract people who share the same values.

Traits of Great Remote Workers

Employers often look for good communication skills and collaboration abilities in potential candidates. Strong organizational skills, self-discipline, accountability, and excellent time management also top the chart of looked-for qualities. While some of these are applicable irrespective of the work location, there are a few aspects that you will have to seek in remote workers. Take a look at these points:

• Ensure that they are intrinsically motivated to operate with a high degree of productivity and professionalism. Since there exists a positive connection between employee engagement and employee productivity, you should also make sure that the candidate’s interest or career growth plan matches with your business goals.

• Working in isolation is one of the characteristics of a remote job. So, the candidate should have the capability to work on their own with minimal guidance. The ability to work independently is one of the traits of a good remote employee.

• You may prefer candidates with a proven track record of successful remote working experience. If they don't have remote work experience, ask them about projects they've managed independently to get an idea of their ability.

• Since all sorts of communication happen virtually, make sure that the candidate is technically sound to connect with the teams through various digital platforms- Zoom, Microsoft, Google, etc. whatever medium is used.

• Assess their comfort level with audiovisual conversations as a lot of the meetings and workplace collaboration in remote teams happens via video calls. Also, make sure that they are aware of the project management tools that you use, such as Asana, Click Up, Trello, etc. If they are not, you can ask them to explore these platforms.

• Adaptability is the key to remote working. Since they need to balance work and personal life, remote workers have to ensure a flexible work environment. They will have to adapt to and be productive in whatever location they find themselves in, whether it is a co-working space, a coffee shop, or a home office.

• See if their personality is fit for your company. The most important thing when assessing a person’s culture fit is to understand the person by:

              * Communicating personally and directly

             * Asking relevant questions

How do the Right Interview Questions Help?

Your interview questions should examine most of the qualities mentioned above, including their independent working habits, behaviors under a deadline, etc. so that they help you understand their motivations for working remotely. To facilitate this, we have put together a few questions:

1. What is your remote work experience?

2. How do you tackle big projects when you’re not based out of a physical office?

3. How do you stay focused and on-task when working from home?

4. How do you stay engaged and motivated over long periods without in-person interaction with coworkers?

5. What tools/ platforms have you used to complete and manage remote projects, or to collaborate with off-site colleagues?

6. What do you do to minimize miscommunication in emails and instant messages?

7. What are the three qualities that make you an effective remote worker?

8. What are the greatest challenges of working off-site?

9. What is your approach to work-life balance when your job is remote?

10. Do you have a go-to WFH productivity hack that helps you stay focused while working remotely?

Final Thoughts

Research has found that fifty-eight percent of employees working remotely over the past year said they would look for a new job if they weren’t allowed to continue working from home in their current position, and 65% want to work remotely full-time post-pandemic.

While tech giants and business experts affirm that remote work is here to stay, you have to look for ways to redefine your hiring and recruitment.  The process of hiring remote workers is different from what you may have done in the past to hire on-site team members. Hiring the right people with the perfect skills and personality mix is the key to having a successful remote team.

If you’re planning to work remotely in the long term, you need to look for candidates who can thrive in a remote working environment, regardless of their resume and experience. You will need to adjust your onboarding process for these workers despite your hiring goals being the same. Learn how OnBlick can help you manage the onboarding of your remote hires.

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