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THE REMOTE WORK GUIDE

A comprehensive handbook to building and managing remote teams

Introduction

The past couple of years have driven a rapid—and in many cases, unplanned—shift to remote work worldwide. Organizations are struggling to rent office space and recruit great talent. Additionally, employees want more flexibility in their work. They want to be near family and bring down their commute to a minimum. The rising costs, hiring pressures, and the growth of cloud-based tools, have made remote work an excellent choice for many companies.

But remote work is more than just a one-time switch. It is an ongoing process with significant implications for employers and employees. Several blockers related to hiring, onboarding, communication, and collaboration across time zones can make remote work challenging. However, organizations can navigate this complex landscape with ease with the correct practices in place.

Guide Outlook

This guide breaks down the benefits of working remotely, shares tips to overcome the most prevalent remote work challenges, and outlines practical strategies for managing distributed teams. Simply put, it aims to help readers make the most of their remote work experience.

The remote work guide has something to offer for everybody!

• Employees and newly remote teams can find popular tips and tricks for adapting to the distributed way of working.
• Organizations looking to enhance their existing remote processes can pick up new ideas here.
• For managers, we’ve listed the best practices for building a high-performing team in a remote as well as a hybrid setup.

Table of Contents

Part One
Foundation

• Remote Work Benefits
• Remote Work Challenges and How to Overcome Them
• Major Remote Trends
• Remote Work Misconceptions, Busted

Part Two

Transitioning, Onboarding, and Training

• Making the Transition to Remote
• Best Practices for Onboarding Remote Teams
• Best Practices for Training Remote Workforces

Part Three

Management

• Which Type of Remote Team Are You?
• Managing Remote Teams
• Managing Hybrid Teams

Part Four

Employee Engagement and Wellbeing

• Mastering the Art of Virtual Meetings
• Keeping Employees Engaged in the Remote Space
• Mental Health in the Time of Remote Work

Part Five

The Boundaryless Landscape

• Boundaryless Companies We Admire
• Why Divogue Loves Boundaryless Work
• Divogue’s Boundaryless Work Values

Part Six

The Remote Work Glossary

• A-Z of Remote Work

• PART ONE
• FOUNDATION

Why Go Remote?

Top Remote Work Benefits Companies Should Know

Studies show that cost-saving, increased productivity and innovation, better hiring competitiveness, and less attrition are some of the principal benefits of remote work.

Here’s more:

Remote work leads to increased productivity and innovation

According to Global Workplace Analytics, remote workers are 35-40 percent more productive than in-office employees and deliver an output increase of at least 4.4 percent. Top companies have experienced the productivity benefits of remote work:

• Remote workers at Compaq and JD Edwards were respectively 20-25 percent and 15-45 percent more productive than their office counterparts
• A famous remote work experiment at the Chinese company Ctrip resulted in a 13 percent increase in productivity
• American Express workers produced 43 percent more than their office-based counterparts
• Qualcomm and Lenovo experienced higher productivity and innovation, with Qualcomm filing more patents during the pandemic than before
• Sun Microsystem employees dedicated 60 percent of their commuting time to work for the firm

Remote work helps companies save on operational costs

Six in 10 employers cite cost savings as a critical benefit of going remote. Global Workplace Analytics revealed that businesses lose $600 billion a year to workplace distractions. On the other hand, allowing employees to work from home just half of the time can save employers approximately $11,000 per employee. Moreover, companies that allow full-time remote work can witness average real estate savings of $10,000+ per employee. Remote work allowed several companies to reduce operational costs considerably:

• Google saved an annualized amount of $1 billion on travel, promotional, and entertainment cost
• IBM and McKesson saved $50 million and $2 million respectively on real estate expenditures
• Nortel saved $100K on relocation expenses per employee
• Sun Microsystems identified savings of $68 million a year in its real estate costs

Retaining remote talent is easier

Talent retention is crucial to operational success. Global Workplace Analytics reports that the cost of losing a valued employee can be between $10,000 to $30,000. Firms with some form of remote work policy experience 25 percent less turnover than firms with no WFH policies. Additionally, remote employees are 13 percent more likely than their in-office counterparts to say they will remain with their present job for the next five years. This increased retention applies not only to full-time remote workers but also to employees who occasionally work from home; they report higher job satisfaction levels, too.

Hire competitively from global pools of talent

The cost of hiring a single employee can range between $4K to $7K (or more, depending on the technical specialization of the role) and can take above two months. A fully remote company has access to a larger pool of talent and more possibilities, thus reducing the cost and time of hiring a particular candidate. Fully remote companies can take 33 percent less time—approximately 4.5 weeks vs. seven weeks—to recruit a new employee.

What’s more, almost two-thirds of employees claim that telecommuting ability is a “somewhat-to-extremely important” factor in their job selection process. As a result, companies wanting to stay competitive in the hiring process will gravitate toward remote work.

The Challenges of Remote Work

and How to Overcome Them

Despite having several benefits, remote work can prove challenging; employees often cite   meeting fatigue, burnout, and loneliness as the cons of working remotely.

Here are some common remote work complaints and strategies to mitigate them:

Meeting fatigue

Studies have found that meetings capture a significant portion of employee hours. Sixty-three percent of remote workers participate in more meetings online than they would have in the office, with 30 percent spending two to three hours daily meeting on camera. Yet, in another survey, eight in 10 employees would like a day without meetings every week.

Solutions to meeting fatigue:

• Aabhas Sharma, Head of Engineering at Found, offered a solution at the Divogue Boundaryless: #ScalingPostPandemic Conference: his team prescribes a fixed set of meeting hours for employees across time zones while allowing them to work flexibly outside those hours.
• Kintan Brahmbhatt, GM, Amazon, said his team practices “no-meeting days or times,” wherein employees don’t schedule any meets on fixed days of the week or month.
• Aditya Modi, Senior Engineering Manager at LinkedIn, suggested consolidating as many meetings as possible and including only relevant team members. He also recommended periodic breaks between back-to-back meetings.

Burnout

In a Buffer survey, burnout emerged as the most common challenge remote employee’s encounter. Sixty-nine percent of remote workers have experienced burnout symptoms, whereas 27 percent found it difficult to unplug from work. A Microsoft study reported that remote employees worked longer hours remotely than in-office.

Solutions to burnout:

• Heather McKelvey, VP of Engineering, LinkedIn, offered a solution her company had developed: LinkedIn shuts shop twice a week each year. This year, when LinkedIn realized employees weren’t using paid time off due to the shift to remote, they closed for an extra week in April.
• McKelvey’s method for setting boundaries between work and play includes going offline for at least two 30-minute slots a day. Other colleagues, she mentioned, limit their working hours to just six a day. “Working six hours as a high-performer is better than working ten hours while feeling 50 percent,” she said.
• Paid time off, specially designated “mental health days,” and employee engagement activities like meditation sessions, healthy eating courses, and virtual workout sessions can also improve an employee’s mental wellbeing.

Loneliness

The Buffer survey also reveals that loneliness is a common challenge remote workers face, with 16 percent of employees experiencing it. In addition, research from Gallup suggests that loneliness can affect employees’ personal and professional well-being.

Solutions to employee loneliness:

• Hetal Shah, SVP of Operations, Cleo, highlighted the importance of periodic in-person interactions to engage remote teams. He offered his experience at eBay as an example: His distributed team held off sites at the beginning of every quarter. These meetings brought the team together to discuss critical strategies and exchange crucial feedback.
• Virtual coffee breaks, Slack channels dedicated to water cooler conversations, and similar casual bonding activities can help mitigate employee loneliness.

• Note: Read more in Mastering the Art of Virtual Meetings and Mental Health in the Time of Remote Work.

Remote Work Trends

Organizations worldwide have presented their employees with the option to continue working remotely indefinitely as the global sentiment shifts in favor of remote

• A recent study revealed that 76 percent of workers would be more willing to stay with their current employer if they could work flexible hours.

• Employees consider hybrid work arrangements a perk worth about six percent of wages.
• Moreover, 86 percent of workers agree that working from home is less stressful.

• Employers have been enjoying increased productivity of about 15 percent – 45 percent from remote workforces.

• U.S. companies that allow remote work have a 25     percent lower employee turnover rate.

• Seventy-three percent of teams will have remote workers by 2028.

• Hybrid work environments – armed with several collaborative solutions – are rapidly taking center stage.

Remote Work Misconceptions, Busted

A record number of companies announced their switch to remote in 2020. According to a survey, the percentage of employees working from home will double in 2022. But despite the popularity of remote work, myths persist.

Here are five remote work myths to leave behind in 2022:

Questions

Are office workers more productive than remote workers?

Contrary to popular belief, several studies reveal that remote employees are more productive than traditional office workers. Many remote employees even say that they work longer hours than regular office goers. Although remote workers don’t have their managers monitoring their work throughout the day, they still get their job done because they’re motivated to perform their best.

Does remote work ruin company culture?

Company culture is a set of values, goals, and behaviors that characterize an organization. Many believe that culture is developed through employees spending time together at the office. However, that is not true. Remote organizations take extra efforts to create virtual environments that help employees bond over shared ideals. Regular all-hands meetings, virtual coffee chats, and annual retreats are great cultural contributors for remote companies. And so, remote work does not hamper company culture.

Questions

Does remote work threaten data privacy?

Organizations often worry that remote work jeopardizes sensitive information and leads to data breaches. Several cybersecurity strategies and software are available today that effectively prevent such cyber threats. Educating employees about the best data practices to adopt while working from home is a great way to ensure digital security and data privacy.

Does remote work mean poor communication and collaboration?

Most organizations establish clear communication standards for their remote teams. Remote workers are likely to be well connected with their team members thanks to apps that break down communication barriers and promote collaboration. And so, companies can ensure effective communication and avoid silos with the right processes and tools in place.

PART TWO

TRANSITIONING, ONBOARDING, AND TRAINING

Making the Transition to Remote

Transitioning to remote can be tricky without a carefully formulated strategy.

Here are a few points to accelerate the transition to remote:

Discuss, define, and document remote   work policies

Start with your employees first. Discuss how comfortable they are working remotely and address their concerns. Next, identify what tools and technology will best support their transition to remote work. Then, develop a realistic and adaptable policy based on the feedback.

Create guidelines for employee attendance and reachability, including working hours, how and when employees should communicate, and how long they have to respond to important messages. Define essential and low-priority communication. Highlight employee expectations and the rules remote employees need to follow. It becomes easier for team members to understand how to conduct themselves with a clear and definite remote work policy in place.

Darren Murph, Head of Remote, GitLab, adds a few more pointers for first-time remote organizations. “So step one would be to pressure test any of your company’s workflows and cultural underpinnings to make sure that they are resilient and work outside of the office. By default, a lot of workflows are office-first. If you have something you rely on, you should audit that and convert it to a remote-first workflow,” he explains.

Build trust and transparency

Model trust and accountability by answering questions truthfully. Emphasize the importance of being open by encouraging team members to share their wins and challenges through real-time meetings or asynchronous forums. Promoting transparency also includes offering autonomy to remote employees, trusting their decisions, improving transparency through better communication skills, and holding them accountable for their output. Remote team members and managers must put their confidence in one another and stand together for a seamless shift to remote.

Start using communication and collaboration tools

No high-performing remote team is complete without excellent communication and collaboration tools. Opt for remote-specific communication tools that offer real-time messaging, video call options, and categorize conversations by channel, project, or topic. Set up a cloud-based project management tool that allows remote employees equal access to data, organize projects between different teams, and set timelines. Similarly, look for tools to enhance productivity, manage and maintain timesheets, and efficiently communicate across various time zones. Start using these tools before the transition phase to adapt to the new workspace seamlessly and achieve optimal productivity.

Secure company data

Data security is a significant concern for remote organizations. Employees may use home networks and personal devices to access business applications and platforms, making the organization vulnerable to cyber attacks. Organizations should develop a cybersecurity policy to inform employees of what’s expected of them when working remotely. Implement protocols to limit or contain the impact of potential cybersecurity attacks. This policy involves controlling access to digital and physical assets. They should also develop a response plan to restore any capabilities or services affected by cybersecurity incidents.

Best Practices for Onboarding Remote    Teams

Effective onboarding practices are essential to integrate new joiners into the company. Research has shown that around 69 percent of employees will stay with a company longer-term if they had a good onboarding experience.

Remember, documentation is an integral part of organizational onboarding. Second, making tools accessible to new joiners empowers them. Third, social onboarding helps create a feeling of belonging in the new employees.

And thus, you can divide the onboarding process in three parts:

• Organizational onboarding

• Technical onboarding

• Social onboarding

Documentation is vital for organizational onboarding

A company’s primary responsibility in an all-remote setup is to get new employees acquainted with the company and its core values.

Your new hires should know the answers to these questions after the onboarding process:

• What are my primary roles and responsibilities?
• Who can help me get started with them?
• What is the organizational hierarchy like?
• What processes should I follow?
•  

Remote companies need to streamline resources and make information easily accessible for smooth onboarding.    Maintaining a live, comprehensive handbook that helps new joiners answer the above questions is vital in organizational onboarding.

At Divogue’s Boundaryless: #ScalingPostPandemic conference, remote leaders stressed the importance of documentation in the onboarding process. Aabhas Sharma, Head of Engineering at Found, pointed out that synchronous onboarding sessions can be difficult for teammates located in different time zones. Kintan Brahmbhatt, GM, of Amazon, added: “Increased documentation makes it easier for new employees to understand the organization’s rhythm.”

Darren Murph, Head of Remote, GitLab, agreed: “It’s important that organizations document early, create a company handbook, and create a single source of truth. So, it’s not enough to just say we value collaboration at our company. You have to write down how collaboration looks. It’s easiest to start this when you have a small team. By systematically documenting things, you would need fewer check-ins at each other’s desks to get a status update. These principles make the transition seem less daunting,”

Technical onboarding empowers new employees

Tools are an essential part of technical onboarding. Making tools accessible to new hires not only empowers them but also makes them more productive.

Remote organizations can build training modules with a list of tools for everyday use. Build these modules to familiarize new employees with the company’s culture and encourages them to identify areas of improvement.

Social onboarding helps create a feeling of belonging

New team members may be overwhelmed when joining an all-remote company, especially if transitioning from a traditional in-office setup. To help foster a sense of belonging, companies can create opportunities for engagement and interaction with the rest of the team:

1. Put a communication structure in place: Leaders should design a communication structure that gives ample opportunities to new joiners to know their team members as well as members on the managerial and executive levels. Virtual meetings with relevant stakeholders or introductions on Slack and other asynchronous channels are great ways to get started.
2. The buddy system: Companies can assign a ‘buddy,’ i.e., an old employee, to help new employees settle in. The buddy can act as the new hire’s primary point of contact, help solve any blockers they face, introduce them to other teammates, invite them to virtual hangouts, and make them feel part of the team.

In this manner, an efficient onboarding process should address the organizational, technical, and social processes that drive the company.

Best Practices for Training Remote Workforces

Remote training is a vital part of the remote learning and development process. According to a recent survey, nearly 60 percent of Human Resource managers said they hadn’t offered employees any training on working remotely. On the other hand, LinkedIn found that 94 percent of employees would stick with a company that invested in their training and development.

Critical pointers for training remote employees:

Identify the training needs and goals

Conduct a training needs analysis to assess employees’ knowledge, skills, and abilities and determine what training they need to move the company towards its goals. Then, draft a plan and highlight the short-term and long-term objectives of the training process.

Select a delivery model according to goals and objectives

Synchronous learning: Synchronous or real-time learning happens through various channels such as conference calls or cloud-based, computer-linked sessions. As the name suggests, it is a learning method that allows remote employees to learn in real time and is similar to classroom training.

Asynchronous learning: Asynchronous or self-paced learning enables employees to access learning content at their convenience, participate in activities, and take assessments based on necessary deadlines.

Blended learning: This combination of real-time and self-paced learning allows flexibility for various learners and learning circumstances. It works well for complex training needs.

Pick out the training tools

Investing in the right tools is vital for successful remote training.

• Learning Management Systems: An LMS is an integrated solution for building an engaging, personalized training course and tracking employee attendance and progress.

• Learning Experience Platforms: A learning experience platform is a portal that tracks training progress and administers certification like a management system. It enables trainers to tailor and update learning materials according to training needs. It also gives remote trainees the chance to learn according to their schedule.

• Project Management and Communication Tools: These tools are beneficial for tracking progress, collaboration, and assessing t
• he effectiveness of the training.

Prepare and deliver learning material

• Load the training materials into the training platform to create the slide deck. Include surveys or polls at regular intervals to improve participation and engagement. Practice delivering the training material ahead of time. Invite remote employees to sign up in a shared calendar. Create a monthly training schedule so employees can stay ahead of it.

Prepare and orient the employees for the training

Send out a training kit with these essentials:

• A checklist of the key points to be covered in the training session
• A schedule of the speakers
• Essential IT tips on handling audio and visual issues
• Support team contacts in case they face issues
• Details on how they can join the training (user ids and passcodes among others)
• A list of references they need to read prior-training
• A checklist of training etiquette like how to use the chat feature for questions, muting mics when not speaking, and raising a hand to speak

Track results and implement changes as necessary

It’s crucial to track the effectiveness of the remote training as it helps understand whether employees are absorbing the material and determine which courses are most successful and which ones need improvement. Regular one-on-ones, surveys, questionnaires, and post-training quizzes are practical tools for assessing training success.

PART THREE

MANAGEMENT

Which Type of Remote Team Are You?

It is essential to understand and identify the type of remote teams to support the needs of the organization and the employees. Each of the below-mentioned remote teams has different characteristics.

Most common types of remote teams:

The fully remote team

A fully remote team pretty much does what it says on the tin. Everyone on this team works from different locations—whether from home, a cafe, or a co-working space. In other words, a fully remote team has geographically dispersed team members who have the flexibility to travel to and work from different places. These teams often have no centralized headquarters as all the employees work remotely. Better work-life balance, time and money-saving, and environmental sustainability are some of the many benefits of being a part of a fully remote team.

The remote-first team

Remote-first is a strategy that makes remote work the primary option for most or all employees. But unlike fully remote organizations, remote-first teams can work from a physical workplace of some kind. However, most people on remote teams work from home or other locations outside of the corporate office. Employees in a remote-first group have just as much access to information, discussions, and decisions as their in-office peers. Remote-first teams reflect a culture that establishes remote work as the norm rather than something approved only in certain circumstances.

                                                                                           The hybrid team

A hybrid team is a partly distributed workforce. Hybrid teams cater to personal preferences; the members can create a work-from-home schedule at their convenience and have the option to connect with colleagues on their terms. Furthermore, hybrid team members may rotate between working from an office and working elsewhere regularly or semi-regularly, depending on the workload.

Managing Remote Teams

Chris Herd, CEO, Firstbase, shared: “What many companies are doing right now is replicating the office environment remotely, and that’s causing them to miss many of the benefits.” He notes that organizations should look at remote work as a ‘new thing’ and establish guidelines for managing distributed teams effectively.

The following steps can make the process easier:

Have daily check-ins and give regular feedback

Remote work is often associated with a sense of isolation. Asynchronous communication tools, although practical, can only go so far. And so, remote managers should conduct face-to-face check-ins whenever possible. Henrik Hussfelt, Director of Engineering, Proxy, said: “Managing is about people skills and understanding. In a physical office, it’s easy to see someone struggling with something and help them out. When you’re distributed, and you don’t enforce actual Facetime, you have zero interactions with your team. So, in a distributed environment, you need to make sure to engage with your peers naturally. You can do that by having frequent one on ones.”

Sixty-nine percent of employees say that they’d work harder if they were given regular feedback by their employer, whereas 79 percent cite lack of appreciation as their primary reason for quitting their job. In addition, giving timely feedback increases organizational transparency and provides a clear picture of what’s working well in the workplace and what isn’t.

Set clear goals and performance expectations

Emphasize objectives over processes to create clarity for employees. Collaborate at a mutually agreeable time and use virtual tools wherever possible. Equip remote employees with the flexibility to complete their tasks in a way that suits them best. Set boundaries, provide clear guidelines, and review performance for every task undertaken by the remote team. Set realistic and achievable goals to measure success.

Focus on the output instead of the number of hours worked. Allow employees to develop their own plan of execution. This practice boosts employee creativity and ownership. Avoid micromanaging as it is counterproductive. Prioritize mentoring over managing. Set up a detailed work schedule with tasks to be accomplished in a given time frame. Conduct regular one-on-ones with the team to track progress. Encourage innovation and provide safety for potential failures.

Mentor employees, give recognition and celebrate success

To achieve high performance, Heather McKelvey, VP of Engineering, LinkedIn, advised leaders to assemble and consult a board of mentors and sponsors. She explained that a mentor helps you identify your strengths and opportunities, whereas a sponsor promotes you within exclusive circles.

Establish employee recognition as a part of company culture. Embrace new ways of rewarding and recognizing employees to keep them motivated. Recognition helps employees see that their organization values them and their contributions. It allows employees to build a sense of security in their value to the company. It also serves as a strong signal to other employees of behaviors they should emulate.

Nothing encourages a work environment like celebrating wins as a team. Take the time to step back, acknowledge, and appreciate the effort that went into accomplishing goals.

Be mindful of boundaries

A productive, high-performing remote team is all about balance. Kelly Graziadei, Founder and General Partner at f7 Ventures, elaborated: “Everyone needs to feel respected. They should not think that [just that] one team should always have the team meeting at midnight. You need to rotate so that each time zone has to flex and give at different times.”

McKelvey continued: “If you’re going to maintain high performance, you should also maintain the ability to relax and turn off,” she said. “Remote work can cause burnout when team members don’t identify their limits and make them known,” she added. Instead, Heather recommended that managers enquire about their team’s boundaries and respect them. She also shared her method for setting boundaries: two 30-minute slots of going off-grid each day. “Working six hours as a high-performer is better than working ten hours while feeling 50 percent,” she noted.

Managing Hybrid Teams

Having a hybrid team offers plenty of advantages to the employees and organization, but it also presents some challenges. Subsequently, these hybrid setups require leaders to rethink employee engagement and vision for the organization.

Here are a few best practices for hybrid teams that ensure smooth coordination between in-office and remote employees.

Foster an inclusive work culture

An inclusive environment ensures that the employee experience is the same, whether in the office five days a week or entirely remotely. It’s a culture that accommodates all employees irrespective of their workplace and ascertains that in-office and remote employees have access to the same information and resources and are equally involved in decision-making.

Invest in tools that aid cross-team collaboration

The tools that a hybrid team uses have a direct impact on its productivity. Therefore, it’s a good idea to invest in software that allows effective collaboration between remote and on-site employees. In addition, this investment builds an inclusive organizational culture and discourages a ‘we vs. them’ divide.

Maintain personal relationships

Remote employees often feel disconnected from their in-office colleagues. And thus, it is essential to give equal attention and support to all the team members irrespective of where they work. Striking a balance between the needs of individual team members and the team as a whole is equally important. Encouraging casual dialogue between remote and in-office employees can help in fostering healthy relationships.

PART FOUR

ENGAGEMENT      AND WELLBEING

Mastering the Art of Virtual Meetings

Employers should keep three principal points in mind to optimize virtual meetings: Virtual meetings, when conducted in moderation, improve worker retention and innovation. Excessive meetings kill employee productivity. Similarly, technical issues prove challenging to remote efficiency.

Here’s how remote team leaders can make virtual meetings more productive, cost-effective, and engaging:

Excessive meetings cost employers time and money

Remote employers may overcompensate for lack of face-to-face interaction with excessive virtual meetings. Gartner data shows that remote employees attend, on average, one more meeting a day than when they were in the office. However, excessive meetings can hamper employee productivity and efficiency.

Forty-two percent of respondents considered a constant stream of virtual engagements a severe distraction, while more than half wished they spent less time on video calls. More than 35 percent of employees found that they waste 2 to 5 hours daily on meetings and calls, but they achieve nothing to show. Another study showed that ineffective meetings cost up to $70 to $283 billion to the US economy.

Managers should consider themselves stewards of an employee’s time and plan meetings in moderation by implementing the following:

• Ask the question, “Could this meeting have been an email?”
• Go async. Transferring as much synchronous communication to async channels is a defining characteristic of remote teams. Moreover, workers are three times more likely to fulfill tasks assigned in writing.
• Seek feedback from employees.

A near-majority of remote workers want more engaging meetings

Forty-seven percent of employees surveyed by Slido consider virtual meetings unengaging. Nearly half of all respondents claimed they left meetings without speaking their minds. One in every three such employees considered a job change after exiting meetings.

Unengaging meetings threaten staff retention and  kill ideas.   Employees described the key characteristics of what they considered engaging meetings:

• Well-prepared organizers  
• A meeting agenda
• Clear communication
• Decision-oriented discussions
• Thoughtful use of time

Strategies for improvement could include:

Employ the 50/50 rule, whereby managers speak for no more than 50 percent of the meeting (at the most) and reserve 50 percent solely for discussion and conversation among team members.

Use visual anchors, such as slide shows, project briefs, task trackers for project meetings.

Organize interactive tasks like gathering questions before the meeting, actively seeking feedback, and conducting polls, quizzes, and surveys.

Outlining well-defined action items for each team member.

Technical issues are prevalent in virtual meetings

Seventy-three percent of employees identified technical issues as the most   pervasive challenge with video calls. During meetings, more than half of     remote workers reported facing audio quality (57 percent) and video  quality (56 percent) challenges. Fifty percent also experienced frequent issues with  internet connectivity. Potential solutions could include:

• Organizing live training for using video tools and resolving common    issues
• Maintaining a suite of online resources to explain and troubleshoot    problems
• Having a tested backup plan ready
• Designating a dedicated tech support team
• Preparing to continue on a different platform

Keeping Employees Engaged in the Remote Workplace

Employee engagement is the emotional commitment an employee has towards their organization and its goals. A recent study reveals that remote work   positively impacts employee engagement. Additionally, most remote workers have a stronger sense of belonging than their in-office colleagues. Despite this, remote organizations have a lot of opportunities to step up their game and   boost employee engagement.

Tips to boost employee engagement in the remote workplace:

Send thoughtful care packages

A remote work care package is an assortment of gifted items to make remote employees  feel appreciated.  The       components can vary widely based on the theme of the box. Care packages boost employee morale and keep them     motivated. They also help maintain relationships over long  distances and start new ones with employees that are     onboarding remotely.

Ensure remote employees take regular breaks

Remote workers often find ‘switching off’ after work challenging. This inability to unplug can make them work too hard for too long, leading to physical and mental burnout. Ensure that employees take regular breaks from work. Providing access to health resources or wellbeing activities can also be an excellent way to promote positive employee engagement.

Recognize employee contributions

Remote employees put in more hours than their in-office   counterparts, but they often don’t feel seen. Establishing employee recognition as a regular practice can help overcome  this challenge. In addition, studies have shown that acknowledging employee contributions leads to greater employee   engagement. One way can be to set up a dedicated online platform to give employees recognition in real-time. This recognition will help them feel valued and connected to the organization.

Show empathy

Remote employees feel more committed to the company and their role if they feel appreciated as employees and as people. And thus, managers should show empathy towards the personal circumstances of their team members and extend support wherever possible, especially with new hires. This empathy builds trust and transparency, which leads to greater employee engagement.

Mental Health in the Time of Remote Work

Despite its many benefits, unstructured and unchecked remote work can cause or intensify mental health struggles like loneliness, burnout, and demotivation. Here are the top mental health risk factors for remote employees and tips to tackle them:

Virtual breaks can reduce chronic loneliness and burnout

A survey by Buffer observed that 20 percent of remote employee’s report feeling lonely. A Flexjobs survey indicated that two-thirds of workers have experienced burnout, with 40 percent experiencing burnout specifically during the pandemic. Yet another study showed that nearly a quarter of employees considered unplugging after work their most significant challenge while working remotely.

Frequent breaks, self-compassion, and positive social relationships with co-workers can help in eliminating the loneliness of working remotely.

• GitLab suggests holding “virtual coffee breaks” during work hours to create a more relaxed work atmosphere.
• Revelry encourages frequent break-time conversation over a designated “watercooler” channel.
• Proxy recommends creating open channels in which team members can talk about their mental health issues and get help.

PART FIVE

BECOMING BOUNDARYLESS

The Boundaryless Landscape of Companies

The Boundaryless Landscape maps the numerous applications that populate the online enterprise collaboration industry. It’s like an actual map – a map that allows you to navigate the expansive landscape of applications based on their purpose, i.e., the unique function they hold in the remote employment life cycle.

Let’s take a look at the different segments of the Boundaryless Landscape:

Sourcing

Organizations rank sourcing as one of their greatest concerns. For example, an Indeed survey revealed that 86 percent of tech recruiters consider it highly difficult to hire technical talent today. However, platforms like Divogue, AngelList, Upwork, Fiverr, WWR (We Work Remotely) make sourcing competent candidates simpler and faster.

Community

The absence of a community in remote work environments negatively impacts remote happiness. Community-building platforms like Council.Club, Grow Remote, and Remotive help workers find and interact with like-minded people and collaborate on projects together.

Teaching and Training

As per research, an overwhelming number of employees express keen interest in gaining knowledge of the soft and hard skills crucial to remote work. Below are a couple of teaching and training tools that help with just that: Remote-How, Workplaceless, Pluralsight.

Events

Real-time feedback, data-driven analytics, flexibility, time, and cost-effectiveness are just some of the many benefits of virtual event platforms like Airmeet. Apart from this, organizations like Nomad City and Remote Afterworks conduct events that put together resources and highlight actionable strategies for remote teams.

Vetting

Hiring efficient talent is a challenging process. However, vetting platforms like Divogue, Hacker Rank, Hired, etc., are standing up to this challenge by rigorously screening job-seekers so that employers can hire skilled remote talent effortlessly.

Messaging and Communication

Every high-performing remote team needs high-performing communication tools. Virtual communication tools like Quip, Slack, Yac, Google Hangouts, Yammer, etc., help remote employees stay connected and work productively.

Project Management

Implementing a remote work strategy in project management can  be challenging. And so, having the right project management tools, such as Notion, Basecamp, Asana, Jira, Trello, is essential for the timely completion of projects when working remotely.

Video Conferencing

Nine out of 10 employees state that video conferences make them feel more connected to their colleagues. In addition, easy-to-use apps like Skype, Blue Jeans, Zoom, Go to Meeting, and Google Meet offer sustained benefits over traditional conferences like reduced costs, elimination of travel time, and greater flexibility.

Coworking

Virtual coworking tools like WeWork, Workfrom, Calendly, Tandem, and Croissant bring together the perks of physical coworking spaces and remote work while fostering a sense of community.

Code Collab

Code collaboration tools allow two or more people to work on the same file in real-time. Code collaboration tools like GitLab, Bitbucket, Ngrok, Glitch, and GitHub help remote developers work closely with their teams in real-time, irrespective of their locations.

Team Management

A GitLab survey revealed that barely a third of remote employees felt their managers adequately aligned work across projects. Team management apps like 15Five, Pivotal, and Firstbaseio make it easier for managers to stay in sync with their teams and conclude tasks effectively.

HR Benefits and Payroll

Whether onboarding an employee, tracking attendance and leaves or running payroll reports, apps like Deel, Carrom, SheildGeo, Lattice, and Boundless enable organizations to carry all HR-related tasks smoothly.

Services and Support

Forty-five percent of respondents in a survey stated company–provided or subsidized technology, including hardware, collaboration platforms, high-bandwidth Wi-Fi, or office furniture, helped them successfully transition to remote work. Remote workspace management tools like Firstbasehq and GroWrk help organizations supply and manage equipment for remote teams.

Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing

A Deloitte study showed that almost 40 percent of executives considered digital collaboration platforms the most crucial factor for building a sustainable work culture. Several apps are effectively connecting remote employees and promoting employee engagement. Here are a few: Loom, Dropbox, Cledara, Workplace by Meta.

Security

Inadequate precautions and weak security infrastructure can expose remote workers to cybersecurity risks. As a result, cybercrimes have increased by 600 percent during the pandemic. Thus, it’s essential to have sophisticated cybersecurity programs like NordVPN and McAfee to protect organizations from cyber threats.

Legal and Compliance

Remote employers face a unique set of legal, regulatory, and security challenges. GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) and IRM (Integrated Risk Management) tools help companies oversee compliance standards, bridge security gaps, and automate regulatory workflows. Apps like StandardFusion, Logicgate, and Reciprocity provide great information security solutions for efficient compliance management.

Boundaryless Companies We Admire

The last one and a half years have proven that employees can be more productive when working remotely. In this light, more than half of the employees have said that, if given the option, they would like to work from home – pandemic or no pandemic.

Subsequently, many companies have announced that they will allow employees to work remotely permanently.

Here is a list of companies that have embraced remote working as a permanent solution:

Twitter                    

Twitter was one of the first companies to allow its 5000+ employees to work remotely. The San Francisco-based micro-blogging site announced that all employees—except those in jobs requiring a physical presence—would be allowed to work from home forever early in May 2020.

Coinbase

The cryptocurrency exchange platform announced that it would go ‘remote-first in May 2020, with a vast majority of employees having the option to work from home. The company CEO shared that, though social distancing requirements made them switch to remote, employees found it a welcome change.

Atlassian

The Australian software company informed its employees that they could work from home forever in August 2020. According to its internal blog, the organization took this decision, based on the distributed work revolution in the post-COVID world. In addition, Atlassian stated that going remote could help reach out to “amazing, diverse talent unbounded by the physical footprint of our offices.”

Dropbox

The California-based file hosting service went ‘Virtual First’ in October 2020, explaining, “remote work will be the primary experience for all employees, with in-person gatherings for team collaboration (once it’s safe to do so).” The organization also added that it would be adopting “non–linear workdays,” which would allow its employees to structure their work schedules.

Shopify

The Canadian e-commerce company, headquartered in Ottawa, declared its switch to remote and a “digital by default” mindset in May  2020. The company’s CEO tweeted, “We will keep our offices closed until 2021 so that we can rework them for this new reality. And after that, most will permanently work remotely. Office centricity is over.”

Slack

The business communication platform, Slack, announced that it would become a much more distributed company through an internal blog in June 2020. The San Francisco-based organization also shared that it will increasingly hire permanently remote employees as a part of its new model.

Quora

The American Q&A website became a “remote–first company” in June 2020 after 60 percent of its employees chose to work from home even after the pandemic. The company also shared that it will convert its California office into a co-working space for employees who want to work away from their home.

Spotify

The Swedish audio streaming company announced its “Work From Anywhere“ policy in February 2020. It also introduced a flexible working scheme for its employees. “Through this distributed-first mentality, we are allowing employees to elect a Work Mode—whether they’d prefer to work mostly at home or in the office—as well as their geographic location,” explained the company’s blog.

Why Divogue Loves Boundaryless Work

AI entrepreneurs Jonathan Siddharth and Vijay Krishnan founded content discovery app Rover straight out of Stanford. While scaling Rover, the duo experienced first-hand the challenges of sourcing excellent engineering talent in Silicon Valley.

The demand for top talent in Silicon Valley is exceptionally high, while the supply of local talent falls short. The pair found it difficult to compete with tech giants like Google and Facebook and learned that balancing quality hiring with cost-effectiveness is hard.

Moreover, the founders realized that retaining engineers in Silicon Valley can be just as challenging. Companies typically retain the average Silicon Valley engineer for just 13 months.

And hence, the duo decided to change their approach to hiring.

While the rest of Silicon Valley swore by on-premise workforces, Jonathan and Vijay thought differently: Why hire within a 30-mile radius from your HQ when you could hire from anywhere? Why hire the best person for the job locally when you could find the ideal candidate globally?

So, the pair-built Rover around a boundaryless team of the best engineers worldwide. Rover was acquired by Revcontent, a content recommendation platform that competes against Taboola and Outbrain.

Jonathan and Vijay’s success with distributed teams at Rover led them to believe that remote work is the future of work. The duo started Divogue with one key goal in mind: to solve the tech talent shortage problem. To do so, Divogue enables companies to hire from a large talent pool of over 1.5 million experienced, pre-vetted remote developers. With Divogue, companies can hire Silicon Valley-caliber talent at half the cost.

Why Divogue Substitutes the    Term ‘Boundaryless’ for ‘Remote’

Divogue prefers the term ‘boundaryless work’ to ‘remote work.’

Here’s why: the term ‘remote work’ sounds distant; it conveys an absence of something. It gives the impression that workers are far from the company’s main base and aren’t a dedicated part of the team.

On the other hand, boundaryless means abundance and opportunities without limits. Divogue aims to make opportunity as universal as talent, and the term ‘boundaryless work’ perfectly captures that. Where remote work sounds exclusive, boundaryless is inclusive.

While remote work conveys that employees work outside traditional office boundaries, boundaryless work eliminates those boundaries.

So, boundaryless essentially means freedom. By going boundaryless, companies have the freedom to choose the best people for the job globally, not the best people who happen to live near their offices. Similarly, boundaryless enables people to work with the best organizations in the world, irrespective of where they live.

The Values That Drive Boundaryless Work

Company culture and values can be vital in recruiting and retaining talented employees. More than 50 percent of executives claim that corporate culture influences growth rates, productivity, creativity, and profitability.

Divogue considers three core values central to its work culture:

Continuous improvement

Divogue believes in a culture of continuous growth of the self, team, and the firm as a whole. The company encourages employees to continually learn from their co-workers’ diverse experiences and apply those learnings to their work ethic.

Speed

Divogue believes in moving fast. The company emphasizes hyper-growth to help teams relentlessly focus and organize and steadily improve their performance.

Focus on long-term success

Divogue is dedicated to achieving long-term success for its customers and developers. It aims to help companies scale effortlessly with its giant talent pool of 1.5M+ software developers. Similarly, Divogue seeks to help developers find long-term stability with full-time, long-lasting engagements.

PART SIX

THE REMOTE WORK GLOSSARY

A

All remote

All remote refers to organizations that do not have physical offices for their employees. Instead, employees work from their homes or co-working facilities. All-remote organizations may function across different time zones and countries.

Asynchronous communication

Asynchronous communication lets remote workers reply to messages when it’s best for them. In globally distributed teams, work doesn’t happen simultaneously for all employees. Async communication frees remote employees from the worry of keeping someone waiting for a response.

B

Boundaryless Landscape

The Boundaryless Landscape maps the numerous applications that populate the online enterprise collaboration industry. It’s like an actual map that allows you to navigate the expansive landscape of applications based on their purpose, i.e., the unique function they hold in the remote employment life cycle.

Brick-and-mortar business

A brick-and-mortar business has a physical office where customers and employees can visit and work in person.

C

Cloud storage

Cloud storage is a computing model that enables users to store digital data on remote servers or ‘clouds,’ accessible from the Internet. Cloud storage makes remote work more efficient and enables teams to collaborate on the same documents.

Co-working

Co-working is an arrangement that involves individuals working independently or collaboratively in a shared office space.

D

Deep Jobs Platform

A deep jobs platform, like Divogue, goes deep into the hiring process and addresses the various stages associated with it. It offers a higher value proposition to interested employers and job seekers by providing customized products and services. Furthermore, a deep jobs platform, like Divogue, creates highly enriched candidate profiles with the right indicators for recruiters and managers.

A deep jobs platform also offers support across critical stages of the employment journey like vetting, onboarding, payments, etc. Post-match, it may even offer support services like time tracking, performance monitoring, and communication tools, among others, to ensure high productivity and transparency for customers and employees.

E

eWork

eWork refers to working on an online office network.

Explicit communication

Messages that are communicated clearly and with apparent details, leaving no room for error in interpretation.

F

Flextime

Flextime allows employees to choose their work hours instead of working on a strict 9 am to 5 pm schedule, leading to greater overall flexibility.

Freelance work

A short-term work arrangement in which an organization hires an independent contractor for a single project or role.

Future of work

A term focusing on trends determining how, when, and from where people will work in the future.

G

Global employer

A global employer, like Divogue, is an organization that operates or hires across various countries.

Gig economy

This term refers to the modern economic shift away from permanent employment to short-term contracts and freelance work.

H

Hybrid teams

Hybrid teams consist of both co-located and remote employees with varying office attendance patterns.

Home office

A home office is a workspace based out of a domestic dwelling for long-term work.

I

Implicit communication

Implicit communication comprises messages that are communicated vaguely or implied, leaving some room for interpretation.

In-person meeting

A meeting that takes place at a common physical location instead of a virtual platform.

Intelligent Talent Cloud

Divogue’s Intelligent Talent Cloud matches companies with qualified software engineers within three days. The AI-driven sourcing, vetting, matching, and managing process provides the fastest hiring and onboarding of elite software engineers in the industry.

Intelligent vetting

Divogue’s intelligent vetting assesses seniority similar to engineering ladders used by Silicon Valley companies. The system identifies expertise in specific technologies, computer science, and systems design.

K

Knowledge worker

A worker who interacts with information to complete problem-solving and strategic tasks.

L

Location independent

Being location-independent means not being bound to a particular geographic location. Remote work allows employees to be location independent and live and work from anywhere in the world.

O

Off-site meeting

An off-site, in-person meeting at a co-working facility, hotel, or rented conference room.

On-site meeting

Unlike off-site meetings, on-site meetings usually happen in a co-located setting, such as at a company’s headquarters or the client’s offices.

One-on-one

A scheduled meeting between two parties that does not require them to be in the same location. One-on-ones help managers to build rapport and trust with employees in remote setups.

R

Remote-first

Remote-first organizations may operate from a physical workplace. However, remote work is the norm irrespective of the workplace. And thus, workflows and communication in these organizations are primarily asynchronous, guaranteeing all workers equal opportunities.

Remote-friendly

Remote-friendly organizations may offer flexible work schedules for certain employees. However, most workflow and communication are synchronous, and in-office work is the norm.

Retreat

Retreats are annual, semi-annual, or quarterly events where all team members of a distributed company travel to the same destination to interact and work together.

S

Scrum meeting

A brief meeting (usually held daily) associated with agile management in which team members answer three questions: What did I accomplish yesterday? What do I plan to accomplish today? Do I see any blockers that might prevent me from achieving my goal?

Synchronous meeting

Synchronous or real-time communication requires all participants to be available simultaneously, even if they aren’t in the same location. This form of communication can be particularly constraining for remote teams.

T

Telecommuting

Telecommuting or telework refers to completing work assignments from a location other than a central office using modern telecommunications technology.

V

Video conferencing

Video conferencing is an online meeting where two or more people engage in a live audio-visual call. It enables participants to collaborate in real-time, thereby mimicking a face-to-face experience.

Virtual assistant

A VA or virtual assistant provides administrative assistance to clients from a home office or remote location.

Virtual hangout

A virtual hangout provides a space for people to interact via video and audio. Virtual hangouts can often be a viable alternative to in-person meetings when a remote team is distributed across borders and geographies.

Virtual private network

VPNs establish an encrypted connection to another network. VPNs encrypt internet traffic and disguise the users’ online identity. They also improve cybersecurity by allowing sensitive data to be sent and received across networks.

W

Work from home

An arrangement in which the employee primarily works from a home office instead of the company’s office.

Work from anywhere

This arrangement enables employees to choose when and also where they would like to work.

Work-life balance

Work-life balance refers to the equilibrium between personal and professional life. Remote work enables employees to maintain a healthy balance between work and life, reducing stress and preventing burnout.

Workcation

A trip in which work and leisure blend together. Worcations usually mean engaging in remote work while traveling, sightseeing, or unwinding in an exotic location.

Join Divogue to unleash the world’s untapped human potential

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Freddie@divogue.net

Skilling for success: How demand for development skills is changing

There are hundreds of thousands of Silicon Valley caliber developers around the world. And as we all know, demand for great technical talent remains strong.

Unfortunately, many of these talented coders miss out on incredible opportunities. Sometimes both developers and companies lack information about the best match for their skills or needs.

Divogue uses AI to eliminate talent sourcing, vetting, and matching work so clients can build and manage remote engineering teams to innovate fast and stay competitive. Under the hood, our advanced vetting engine builds a deep, dynamic profile for every developer to make that perfect connection between client and developer. Those developers enjoy lifetime vetting and matching with long-term, full-time jobs, meaning they avoid the endless series of individual technical interviews and instead get to concentrate on solving complex engineering challenges and growing their career.

While crafting this comprehensive marketplace, we’ve built up a huge dataset that can help developers identify the most in-demand skills and technologies and understand how best to develop their careers.

This article will look at our data to help identify what skills companies need, the gaps between what’s out there and those needs, and how AI could help you advance your engineering career.

What are the high demand skills right now?

When it comes to skills and experience, there are two categories to think about: technical skills and broader project skills.

From a project perspective, we see a high demand for developers with skills and expertise in mobile development, DevOps, and digital transformation. Companies are increasingly building their practices around those used by hyperscalers, so having experience with those workflows is valuable.

On the technical side, there are plenty of in-demand skills, but we see some clear winners. JavaScript, React, and Python are consistently among the most demanded technical skills worldwide. React in particular is highly sought after as part of a developer’s stack.

The graphs below are based on data collected by Divogue. We see developers hired for a much broader range of skills than are highlighted here, so it’s not that other skills are unimportant. However, if you’re considering which skills will help further your career, it’s easy to see where the highest demand is.

Top languages and technologies of developers who were hired for roles

Top stacks of developers who were hired for roles

How has skill demand changed since the pandemic?

With so many companies allowing employees to work from home, it’s no surprise that we’ve seen those same companies start moving their tech stacks into cloud computing services. That’s the number one change that we’ve seen over the past two years, and I only expect that trend to accelerate. As a developer, if you have cloud certifications, you’ll have an advantage. 

In the last three to five years, we’ve seen the golden era of many new programming languages and tech stacks. On one hand, this has given developers and companies more freedom in choosing the right tools for each project. However, as we head into the second half of 2022 and 2023, the changes we see in macroeconomic conditions will inevitably drive companies to look at their spending. There are still more job openings than developers, but a number of the largest tech firms have announced layoffs or hiring freezes in the first half of 2022.

Along with trimming headcount or slowing hiring, companies are trying to consolidate the tech stacks they work with. Today’s biggest headache for a head of engineering or a CTO is the number of technologies used in their products or engineering programs. It’s not sustainable in the long run to rely on so many different languages—it’s too expensive and cumbersome to maintain and hire for. The age of the polyglot developer is passing, and companies prioritize hiring developers who specialize in the technologies most important to their goals.

What does that mean for developers? The most in-demand developers are agnostic to programming languages and see them more as a tool and less as something that defines them. Developers willing to invest in learning and working with new in-demand stacks and languages will always thrive.

Is experience the only route to advancement?

Right now, we’re going through a generation shift.

The 1990s saw a rush of developers enter the market, excited by the possibilities of the rapidly evolving internet. Hiring managers often looked at indicators like undergraduate degrees and years of experience to choose the right candidates. Our data indicates that they still do. In the last three to five years, however, we’ve seen a generation of developers emerge who treat writing code not as an academic pursuit, but as a trade they learned online. Hiring managers are confused about what to look for—so they fall back on simple factors like years of experience.

When we launched the Divogue platform, companies were still hell-bent on hiring candidates with X number of years of experience. But the data we’ve gathered from vetting and placing developers shows that years of project experience doesn’t always correlate to a developer’s ability. That sounds obvious, but when hiring for many roles, it’s easy to use years as a proxy for what you really want—in this case, to judge an applicant’s ability level.

Once a developer has three years of experience, it’s much more about the quality of their work. That’s where our technical exam comes in. When you have the data to present to a company, it’s easy to show that the most suitable candidates for their roles aren’t necessarily those with the longest experience but those with specific traits and accomplishments that closely match their needs.

There’s no getting away from needing some experience under your belt. Most high-demand candidates have a minimum of three years of experience. After that, it becomes less important, but it’s hard for a developer to gain valuable experience and an in-demand skill set without a few years in the industry.

High-demand candidates generally have real-world project experience in two areas: building new products and features and supporting production systems.  In the last year, we’ve made some progress in better measuring actual skill levels and changing that mindset for most of our customers.

Lots of engineers want to be part of new development projects but aren’t so interested in supporting production systems. I can’t stress this enough. Companies double down on candidates with experience in new feature development AND supporting a high-volume, high-throughput system in production. Not every project will be building new applications and features; plenty of companies will need you to support their existing codebase. If you can build expertise in both, you’ll be in high demand and set yourself apart from other candidates.

How do we fill the gap between supply and demand?

Developers are in huge demand. But the skills that developers want to learn and what companies want to hire aren’t always the same. Developers in general love learning about new technologies. But companies, especially established companies, need to fill roles for more traditional languages like Java and .NET. If you show expertise in one or more of these languages, you’ll likely find a company who needs you to work on their existing codebase. 

That said, technology never sleeps. As I mentioned above, this is a golden age for new technologies, and over the next 18 months, you’ll see interest in them increase, both from companies shifting their tech stack and engineers’ skilling up on new languages and frameworks. 

Naturally, it’s not always easy for companies to secure the talent they need, particularly when working with niche languages and technologies.

To fill this gap, companies need to consider developers from a broader geographic area. Remote work has proved a success, especially in our field, and part of what we do at Divogue is matching companies with developers regardless of location. This gives both parties access to a broader range of opportunities and will help fill the gap between supply and demand.

What does the future hold?

Predicting the future of technology can be difficult because it changes so quickly. However, from a developer’s perspective, you can think strategically about the next 12-18 months. With the right data, it’s easy to see which skills will be the most valuable for your career within that period.

We see two main drivers of demand in the foreseeable future.

First, hyperscalers and a few select SaaS companies will continue to drive demand for developers and their skill sets. We’ve already looked at the top skills earlier in this article, and we believe these will remain fairly constant for the foreseeable future. If anything changes, we’ll see it quickly in our data, and that information will be available to our candidates.

Can AI support your career?

Based on our data, I have no doubt that AI can help developers progress their careers, both in terms of identifying the skills they should focus on and the opportunities they have. We monitor hundreds of job boards to give developers real-time signals that can inform their learning and professional development.

Divogue removes a lot of bias and misunderstandings from the hiring process. It doesn’t matter where you’re located or where you went to school—if our vetting of your experience and skills shows you’re a strong candidate, you’ll have a chance to work with top U.S. companies.

If you’re a developer looking for a new career opportunity, test yourself with Divogue. Before you know it, you’ll be applying to full-time, long-term remote software jobs from the comfort of your home.

Best Hiring Platforms for Employers to Hire Remote Developers in 2023

In today’s digital age, remote work has become the new norm, and finding skilled remote developers is crucial for businesses looking to thrive in a competitive market. However, with numerous hiring platforms available, it can be overwhelming to choose the right one that aligns with your specific hiring needs. That’s why we’re here to guide you through the best hiring platforms for employers seeking exceptional remote developers.

In this blog, we will explore the top hiring platforms tailored for employers that offer a pool of talented developers with diverse skill sets, expertise, and experience.

Whether you’re a startup, a small business, or a large enterprise, these hiring platforms will provide you with access to a global talent pool. You will be able to hire the best remote developers who can contribute to your company’s success.

5 Best Hiring Platforms for Employers

Divogue

Divogue is an AI-driven solution that connects you with pre-vetted engineers and ensures a seamless remote hiring experience.

When it comes to trust, Divogue has an impressive track record. Trusted by 24 Unicorns, 20 YC-funded companies, they have established themselves as the go-to platform for top-tier talent.

With Divogue, you gain access to pre-vetted engineers who come with a 100% productivity guarantee, ensuring high-quality work. And to sweeten the deal, they even offer a two-week free trial for select plans. Hence, you can experience expertise firsthand.

But that’s not all. Divogue takes care of every aspect of the hiring process. From sourcing and vetting to background checks, timesheets, ratings, taxes, compliances, agreements, and security. With over 14 years of hiring research and insights from 12,000+ top hiring leaders and CTOs worldwide, they bring unparalleled expertise and experience to the table.

With an extensive talent pool at your fingertips, you can build a robust and innovative team. And for personalized assistance, Divogue provides dedicated account managers and support. Therefore, you receive the guidance you need throughout your hiring journey.

Elevate your hiring game with Divogue, one of the best hiring platforms for employers, and experience a seamless, efficient, and trusted talent solution that drives your business forward.

Toptal is where excellence meets expertise.

At Toptal, joining their network of elite developers is no easy feat. Basically, they have stringent standards, handpicking only the best of the best. With access to a vast database of global talent, your project will be in the capable hands of first-rate remote developers who can simplify your workload and maximize your profitability.

Toptal goes above and beyond to ensure you’re matched with the perfect freelancers for your project, which makes them one of the best job posting sites for employers. Their dedicated team works tirelessly, considering factors such as industry experience, skill level, and availability. From start to finish, Toptal takes care of all the technical details, allowing you to focus on what truly matters: creating an awesome product.

RemoteBase

Remotebase is the ultimate destination for top-class talent.

At Remotebase, they take the responsibility of providing you with the best of the best. They also go the extra mile to ensure quality throughout the development phase. Regular performance reviews are conducted to maintain the highest standards and guarantee your project’s success.

What sets Remotebase apart and makes it one of the best hiring platforms for employers is its rigorous vetting process. Only developers who pass the intense screening make it onto their platform. Additionally, all distributed teams undergo regular training sessions, ensuring you get professionals with exceptional expertise and professionalism. With Remotebase, you can hire software developers with proven success rates across a wide range of technologies.

And here’s the best part: Remotebase offers a risk-free 2-week free trial, allowing you to experience the true potential of their team without any financial commitment.

Turing

Turing is an AI-driven hiring platform revolutionizing the way companies build their dream teams.

At Turing, they practice what they preach. With a team of 600+ remote employees, they understand the power of connecting you with world-class remote software developers. Their extensive network boasts over 2 million developers from 150 countries, ensuring you’ll find the perfect candidate to meet your business needs.

Through Turing, you can effortlessly assemble your team of pre-vetted remote engineers, specializing in eCommerce, healthcare, fintech, education, and more. With a choice of developers from over 100 skills categories, you can create a roster of Silicon Valley-grade remote programmers in as little as 4 days.

But that’s not all which makes Turing one of the best hiring platforms for employers. Turing’s automated controls work tirelessly to maintain peak levels of productivity and efficiency. Hence, you can focus on what truly matters: delivering exceptional results.

Dice

Dice, one of the best job posting sites for employers is the go-to job board that connects employers like you with top-notch talent. With a vast database of 5.1 million resources, Dice ensures you’ll find the perfect fit for your team.

What sets Dice apart is its dedication to quality. They employ cutting-edge artificial intelligence and a vigilant quality assurance team to verify the qualifications and skills of applicants. Rest assured, over 97% of the tech experts on Dice are legit and ready to tackle your everyday development challenges head-on.

When you post a job listing on Dice, it reaches a whopping 1.5 million monthly visitors. But that’s not all! Your listing will also be shared across Dice’s partner network, reaching even more potential candidates. Dice makes your hiring process a breeze. It provides you with handy tools to streamline your job posting and resume reviewing. You can quickly and efficiently contact the best remote candidates.

Conclusion

In today’s digital landscape, hiring remote developers has become essential for businesses aiming to thrive in a competitive market. With an abundance of hiring platforms available, selecting the right one that aligns with your specific needs can be daunting.

Throughout this blog, we have explored the top hiring platforms tailored for employers seeking exceptional remote developers. These platforms offer access to diverse pools of talented developers with a wide range of skills, expertise, and experience.

Whether you’re a startup, a small business, or a large enterprise, these platforms provide the gateway to a global talent pool. Hence enabling you to hire the best remote developers who can contribute to your company’s success.

Toptal, Remotebase, Divogue, Turing, and Dice are among the best job posting sites for employers that offer unique features and advantages. Each platform showcases a commitment to excellence, streamlined hiring processes, and access to pre-vetted professionals.

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, these platforms remain at the forefront of remote hiring, empowering businesses to connect with top-tier talent effortlessly. The future of remote development awaits, and it’s time to make your mark.

At Divogue, we feature pre-vetted experienced remote engineers that can take on any development requirements you may have. To hire top remote talent in a jiff, you can reach out to us.

6 Must-Have Mobile Apps For Businesses

It’s been over 15 years since mobile apps for business began to bloom. And it’s grown to become an essential contributor to global GDP! It’s a true force to be reckoned with for all you tech-savvy folks and advertisers alike.

In fact, in the year 2021 alone, more than $320,000 flowed through app stores every minute, almost a 20% increase from the previous year. 

And guess what? Every minute, more than 435,000 apps are downloaded by consumers. It’s an astonishing figure, according to Data.ai, and it seems things aren’t slowing down anytime soon.

With all this hype surrounding mobile apps, how should you capture the hearts and minds of consumers who are already spending a third of their waking hours glued to their mobile devices, consuming app content in this increasingly mobile-first world?

Therefore, you should keep an eye out for the latest trends and developments in the app world. Ensure you’re up to date with the latest technology, and always watch what your competitors are up to. Because you don’t want to be left in the dust while your competition zooms past you in the fast lane of mobile business app innovation.

So, keep your eyes peeled for the next big thing in mobile apps for small businesses! Who knows, you could create the next viral sensation!

Best Mobile Apps For Your Business 

Work faster, communicate better, achieve KPIs effectively, and track meticulously with these best mobile apps for business: 

InvoChat: For swift and frictionless conversation

InvoChat is a versatile team instant messaging and communication mobile app for small business owners. It enables brainstorming and idea sharing between teams located in different locations. 

With InvoChat, team members can enhance their collaborative productivity and maintain transparency by centralizing all their conversations in one place. This user-friendly app enables efficient communication, improves teamwork, and boosts productivity by allowing team members to share their ideas and opinions instantly. 

Whether you need to collaborate on a project or keep in touch with your remote team members, InvoChat is the perfect tool.

Trello: For managing the tasks

Trello is an innovative mobile app for businesses designed to streamline IT teamwork and boost productivity. It simplifies project management by enabling users to keep to-do lists, assignments, planning details, and more in one convenient location. 

With Trello, you can stay up-to-date on the progress of your project at all times, ensuring that everyone on your team is on the same page. This powerful app helps you to stay organized, prioritize tasks, and collaborate effectively with your team. 

However, we offer bespoke application development services if your business has unique requirements that out-of-the-box solutions cannot address. Our team of experienced developers can create a customized app tailored to your specific needs, ensuring that your business operates at peak efficiency.

Google Workspace: For cloud-based productivity

Another app for small businesses is Google Workspace! It’s got everything you need to stay organized and productive, from professional email addresses that make you look like a fancy-pants CEO to real-time collaboration tools that let you work on stuff with your team like a pro. 

In addition, you can access your files from anywhere, whether you’re at your desk or lounging on a beach sipping margaritas. And speaking of communication, the tools in Google Workspace are so slick you’ll feel like a tech-savvy superhero every time you use them. 

With Gmail, Google Meet, and Google Chat, you can communicate with your team faster than a speeding bullet. And if all that isn’t enough to get your heart racing, just think about the mobile accessibility and advanced security features that come with Google Workspace. 

So small business owners, what are you waiting for? Jump on the Google Workspace bandwagon and get ready to be the productivity king or queen of the office!

InvoDesk: For tracking real-time insights

InvoDesk is one of the most efficient time-tracking mobile apps for your business. It simplifies monitoring the billable hours of your employees and contractors. By logging in to the app, users can effortlessly track and record the time they spend on tasks or projects while the app takes screenshots for reference. 

With InvoDesk, you can gain valuable insights into the time spent on each task, enabling you to make informed staffing decisions and optimize team productivity. 

This best small business app streamlines time tracking, making managing your team’s workload and billable hours easier than ever. Whether you need to track project progress or monitor team productivity, InvoDesk is the perfect tool.

Mailchimp: For managing email campaigns

Engaging in mailing campaigns is an endeavor that transcends the confines of traditional working hours. Fortunately, the MailChimp application is an ideal mobile app for business owners. It provides a convenient solution for managing email campaigns via mobile devices with minimal effort. 

With this tool at your disposal, monitoring campaign progress, editing contact lists, and generating individual activity reports can be accomplished sans the need for computer access.

Moreover, it offers a diverse range of functionalities, including the creation of comprehensive marketing campaigns, advertisement deployment on Instagram and Facebook, and the ability to select target groups and maintain consistent customer communication. 

The application also facilitates the creation of marketing material aligned with the brand’s concept, supplemented by hints that help you make informed decisions in promoting your products and services.

In addition to its myriad features, Mailchimp provides solutions tailored to e-commerce enterprises. Such solutions encompass automatic reminders for customers about products added to their cart, notifications concerning purchase opportunities, and the ability to monitor customer and user preferences. 

Being one of the best small business apps, its capabilities are by no means limited to that context.

WhatsApp Business: For building customer relationships

WhatsApp Business is one of the best free apps for small business owners. It significantly enhances the efficacy of customer communication, ultimately facilitating the expansion of one’s enterprise. 

With WhatsApp Business, users can construct a comprehensive company profile with all necessary contact information to streamline customer engagement. Furthermore, integration with a landline number is made feasible, coupled with setting automatic notices delineating closing hours.

As a matter of course, all fundamental features synonymous with the standard WhatsApp Messenger experience remain accessible in the business iteration of the application.

Benefits of Mobile Apps for Business 

Let’s break down why mobile apps are important for your business: 

Brand awareness 

The advent of technology has brought about a revolution in the way businesses operate. One such development is using custom mobile apps for businesses to promote their products and services. With a simple click, businesses can expand their reach and make their presence known to a vast audience.

The benefits of mobile apps for small businesses extend beyond mere outreach. It allows customers to acquaint themselves with the brand’s offerings and gain insight into their values and ethos. This increased familiarity often translates into customer loyalty and, in turn, a boost in sales.

Improved performance 

Custom mobile apps for business are valuable to customers who prefer fast and easy access. Mobile apps are engagement tools that help to build customer relationships and loyalty. 

Businesses can offer exclusive deals and rewards through app-only campaigns and loyalty programs. A custom mobile app can increase sales, customer satisfaction, and long-term loyalty.

Personalization

Incorporating a custom small business mobile app into your strategy lets you personalize services to cater to your target market. By creating interactive features such as quizzes, you can gather valuable information about customer preferences. This level of personalization cultivates a positive customer experience, increasing the likelihood of customer retention and attracting new users to your app.

Moreover, through in-app analytics, you can gain insights into user behavior that inform your marketing strategies and shed light on your customer base. By leveraging this information, you can make data-driven decisions to enhance the functionality of your app and improve customer satisfaction.

Boosted sales & revenue 

The success of a business largely depends on customer satisfaction, as it directly impacts sales. SalesForce reports that 70% of buying experiences are influenced by how customers feel they’re being treated. When customers are pleased with your product, demand increases, leading to significant returns.

In today’s digital age, a mobile app can be crucial in meeting customer expectations and driving sales. Launching a mobile app in addition to your website can significantly enhance the customer experience, resulting in increased sales.

Build An App or Buy An App?

Mobile apps for small businesses put you on top of the mountain! These apps help you achieve first-year KPIs without making huge investments. As they come with various features, you can easily maximize ROIs and plan for the future. 

Build an app or buy an app, you will always be one step ahead of your competitors. Decide which mobile app development service is ideal for you with our experts for FREE!

Frequently Asked Questions 

How can a mobile app improve your business?

A mobile app can improve your business in several ways. It can increase customer engagement, offer new revenue streams, improve customer service, and enhance brand recognition. By providing a convenient way for customers to access your products or services, a mobile app can increase sales and customer loyalty.

Additionally, the ability to collect data and analytics through the app can help you make informed business decisions and tailor your offerings to meet customer needs better.

How can mobile apps help B2B businesses?

Mobile apps can help B2B businesses in several ways. They can improve communication between team members and clients, streamline workflows, increase productivity, and provide valuable data and analytics. Mobile apps can increase efficiency and productivity by allowing team members to access information and collaborate on projects from anywhere. 

Additionally, mobile apps can provide customized solutions and services to clients, which can help build stronger relationships and increase customer loyalty. Overall, mobile apps can help B2B businesses operate more effectively and competitively in today’s fast-paced business environment.

Is it worthwhile to develop a mobile app for your business?

Whether or not it’s worth building a mobile app for your business depends on your needs and goals. A mobile app can be valuable if it helps you increase customer engagement, streamline workflows, provide new revenue streams, and enhance brand recognition. 

However, it may not be worth the investment if you don’t have a clear strategy for how the app will benefit your business or if your target audience doesn’t use mobile devices frequently. Ultimately, it’s important to carefully evaluate the potential benefits and costs before deciding whether or not to build a mobile app for your business.