Webinar recap part 2 – Key learnings from building remote teams

This is the second of 3 recap blogs for our recent webinar, “How to expand your IT organization with top remote developers“. 

In this webinar, Søren Rosenmeier, CEO of Right People Group, and Allan Noer, Chief Technology Officer of Agreena discussed: 

• Remote work organization models
• Needs of remote development teams
• Key learnings from building remote teams
• Implementing remote teams

Part 1 covered remote work organization models and the needs of remote development teams. 

In Part 2, we cover Allan Noer’s sharing of the key learnings from building remote teams. 

In Part 3, Soren discusses the 3-step implementation plan for building remote teams. 

Webinar recap – Part 2

Alan’s background

Allan Noer is the CTO of Agreena, an agritech/fintech company based in Denmark. Agreena has about 100 people and is still growing. They work on a remote hybrid setup, where a third of their team works in their HQ in Copenhagen, and the rest work remotely and may come into the office a few times a month.

In the past 15 years, Allan has been helping to establish remote or cross-border teams, and has set up different models of remote teams, ranging from nearshoring, offshoring, outsourcing remote hubs, and more recently, fully remote teams. 

The importance of trust

To succeed at remote work, you need to be motivated for the right reasons. A remote setup is not for you if you prefer to see your employees sitting at a desk with laptops, or plan to monitor them with a surveillance system. It will lead to unhappy employees and a decrease in performance and quality. Additionally, your employees will likely leave as soon as something else becomes available. 

Is your motivation to save costs?

According to Allan, you shouldn’t place a great deal of emphasis on saving recruitment costs. He has found that saving money usually results in spending it elsewhere, such as establishing an interest in working for your company. 

There is no doubt that remote work has become more prevalent, and recruiting has become much more difficult since COVID-19. You are no longer competing with local companies for top talent, but with global companies like Facebook and Google, for example. 

In general, however, you will find very talented and motivated people out there, especially if you find those who share your mission. As remote work evolved, this has become the motivation, although it was not the case at the beginning. 

Access to diversity

In an environment where one nationality dominates, that nationality tends to dictate the decisions that are made, and that isn’t always a good thing. By hiring from a global network, you gain different perspectives, which leads to better discussions and solutions. 

Recruitment

Unfortunately, you can’t expect to receive applications as soon as your job is posted. Remote recruiting is just as hard as traditional recruitment – you just have a wider reach. 

There’s a lot of preparation involved in remote recruitment. Take these things into account when creating a remote recruitment strategy: 

• The recruitment platforms used in different countries
• Languages you want to support
• If you want to limit time zones for easier collaboration
• Compliance and other legal constraints
• Remote payroll services

Operational setup

When implementing a remote setup, you should consider the following: 

• Access to online tools with secure logins
• Hardware and equipment logistics
• A comprehensive strategy for leading, supporting, and managing remote operations
• Fully integrating your remote and in-office teams

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Read part 3 of the webinar recap, where Soren returns with a 3-step approach to implementing a remote teams model.  

Get the full story by watching the recording.