How to best work with remote colleagues, especially if in another timezone | Hacker News Reader

How to best work with remote colleagues, especially if in another timezone

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36 pointsala10 comments

I agree with making sure the work is split so one team can work while the other team sleeps. It's nice waking up in the morning and seeing that someone else committed changes that set you up for fast progress today, or that they verified the code you committed before going to bed.

>Turn some part of your regular scheduled meeting to cover some fun parts. We do this regularly within our department. We do virtual team-building activities like a virtual tour of What is in your fridge using a Miro board.

I'm disheartened by this suggestion. I think at least half of my top performers would be looking for new jobs within 30 minutes of me asking them to install the "Miro app" on their phone so they can livestream their refrigerator to the corporation. Or whatever this thing is supposed to be.

My team is geographically spread and nearly all the formally organized team building since covid started has been cringe-inducing. Really cheesy quizzes and games that haven't been really thought through for a virtual setting. I mostly tune out.

What has been highly successful is informal, free-form time. We have a recurring weekly 1/2 hr virtual coffee break that is optional to join and there are only 2 rules: no work-related discussion and keep the content reasonably safe for work. It's a great chance to stay in touch with everyone (and get to know new members).

Having the coffee break as specifically scheduled time and optional as opposed to tack on time after completing the team meeting agenda makes a huge difference. Appending 'fun' to existing meetings feels like a chore, whereas choosing to join a call to hang out keeps it light and refreshing.

Agreed, this is exactly what my team does. We have a daily optional “coffee call” to just hang out and chat - no expectation or agenda.

Yup same. The top performers I know want to work on really hard stuff, crush it and go home. The most they like doing is going to a party where they can hold a drink and chat about a topic. But as soon as cutesy like refrigerator boards or dress like a cuckoo starts happening, they will look elsewhere.

Hard agree. IME this type of stuff is almost always the extrovert types getting carried away and failing to realise not everyone comfortable with such things.

A key part to this, IMO, is "you need to meet in person at least once a year". Spending some time with a person seems to be critical for developing proper relationships, in my anecdotal experience.

Yup - it's the magic ingredient. I would up it to at least 3x a year.

I have fond memories of a remote job where the team met in person every quarter. We shipped software on a quarterly cycle; we'd meet up each time, to celebrate the latest release, and spend a week planning out the next one.

Even as someone that's vehemently against office working, I agree with this. Close contact with the team a few times a year just to get together for a couple of days of food and drink is great for team building. Any more than that and I'd go nuts.

Shocking as it might seem, pieces of this approach are still missing from some work environments. I've seen it first hand. Heck, I even asked a former colleague who is now at Zoom, "You're helping power the remote first experience. How is remote onboarding going, how's the culture of remote-only?" And it wasn't something they had nailed. I think it's a hard problem to solve. But shouldn't the people problems be the FIRST problems you solve?

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