The 2 Cs Of Working With Remote-based Teams

By: Sorab Ghaswalla

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I’ve had the good fortune of running a firm that delivers content and inbound marketing services 100% remotely. I’ve done so for clients based in the US, Australia, Malaysia, France, the UK; different time zones. It’s been almost a decade now.

Coming from working in real world offices to going straight to a virtual one at a time when remote-working was almost unheard of, I can claim to have seen it all. Once it used to be called ‘telecommuting’ and was almost a bad word. Today, its labelled ‘remote-working’, and is no longer frowned upon. Almost.

There’s only one thing that’s carried me though this journey — technology.

Riding on the Internet and the World Wide Web, the pioneers in this new work environment initially used email and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or IP Telephony to go about their business. One thing is for sure — without the Internet remote working would never have been possible. Even today: take it away, and we will go back to the old way.

Yet, I’ve come across clients who hesitate to hire remote employees even though the talent pool available on the other side of the country may be one to kill for. I can understand certain type of jobs where the executive is required to be in the same room as his team members. Like a car manufacturing shop floor. Yet, tasks such as content, digital marketing or the making of apps can easily be farmed out to remote teams.

I get many “reasons” when I ask managements about their hesitancy. But I’ve concluded that the foremost reason is of trust. Some managements/contractors do harbor the feeling that hiring remote staff/vendors would mean them largely “goofing off”', a waste of time and resources.

To this group, I would like to give a piece of advice — look around you. The whole world seems to be going remote. There are surveys that show that over 95% of the world’s employable force would like to work remotely if possible. Every 4th person you know today is working from a virtual environment. If that’s the way the cookie crumbles, you better get in a bite, right?

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