How Can HR Adapt to a Fully Remote Workforce Long-Term?

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Hello

With remote work becoming more permanent in many organizations, I’m facing challenges in adapting HR processes to a fully distributed team. While some companies have embraced hybrid models, others (including mine) are shifting toward fully remote setups. :upside_down_face:

This brings up concerns about engagement, culture, and performance management in the long run. :innocent:

Traditional HR methods like in-person check-ins, team-building events, and office culture don’t translate directly into remote settings. :thinking:

How do we ensure employees feel connected, supported, and valued when they rarely (or never) meet in person? What are the best ways to handle conflict resolution, onboarding, and career growth remotely? :thinking: I have checked radical HR topics with other communityAWS Online Training guide related to this and found it quite informative.

Has anyone successfully transitioned to a long-term remote-first HR strategy? What tools, policies, or approaches have worked best for your team? Would love to hear insights from others navigating this shift!

Thank you !! :slightly_smiling_face:

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The places I have worked with the best cultures have been fully remote because they were disabled people’s organisations. It was remote work or no work and being around other people in the same boat through discrimination elsewhere meant we had shared values. Values is what makes culture, not whether you can go out socially, very often things like that exclude a lot of people anyway. Making time for non-work chat in meetings is helpful. A 5 minute moan about non work life, or a shared tea break at 3pm where you sit down and have a ‘no work talk’ rule.

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Hi there,

Someone asked a similar question on a mailing list I’m on, I’ll copy-paste most of the response here, hopefully somewhat helpful :).

We (at Gastivists) have been remote from the start and are developing policies as we go.

This document we created a long time ago and spread a bit more when covid started, to support people who were then going online. It’s a bit old, but might have some inspiration: ⚡Facilitating online meetings & trainings⚡ - Google Docs.

I’m thinking of some practices that have helped us / that I’ve read about and that might be helpful:

  • we have regular 1-on-1s: we are a team of 11, and we all have one or two buddies, with whom we try to meet weekly or bi-weekly to go through our (upcoming) week together and/or any struggles/challenges we’re facing with work (or life in general). Depending on the needs of the duo/trio, the buddy/buddies help prioritize tasks, serve as a listening ear or mental support. We have a template with standard questions the duo/trio can follow, but they can totally adapt it to their needs/wishes.

  • we have a “care team”, which has on its mandate to “Monitor the overall health of the collective”. This can mean two things that can sometimes be conflicting: (1) taking care of an individual/individuals and (2) taking care of the collective as a whole. It means we’ll be a second resource for people to come to when they’re struggling with something ‘bigger’ and we (the care team, sometimes together with the rest of the collective) will find ways to accommodate this person’s need, finding ways to support them. Sometimes this conflicts with what the collective as a whole needs (for example if a person needs to take time off, and then the rest of the collective has even more work to do). We try to find creative ways to support everyone as much as possible.

  • we have weekly collective calls, where we make collective decisions; in this call there is space for mourning, sharing about personal/global context. Every 3 months we have a ‘governance call’ (sociocracy style) where we focus more on roles and mandates.

  • I’ve been reading/listening about “maintenance meetings” (more here) and “how to work with me” documents, I’ll copy-paste some resources on this below.

Resources

I’d also have some ideas about the other questions you posted, but maybe it makes more sense to discuss this during a RadHR lunch meet or so? It feels like a lot to start listing, and I also feel a lot might depend on your team, the kind of work you do, how you work together, where people are based, what do they need, etc…

In any case good luck! :slight_smile:

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