A distributed workforce is arguably the most effective way to build a company. The key is to approach it consciously.

The term “distributed” means personnel is dispersed geographically over a wide area – domestically or internationally. This dispersal works to your company’s advantage because talent and intelligence are equally distributed throughout the world – but opportunity isn’t.

In Silicon Valley, you have the big tech companies fish from essentially the same pond or bay. By making the company distributed, you can fish from the entire ocean.

Instead of hiring someone who grew up in Hong Kong but now lives in San Francisco, you can gain someone who lives, works, wakes up, and goes to sleep wherever they are in the world. They bring a different understanding of that culture, and a different lived experience day to day.

‘Distributed’ changes the workplace

With the decision to go distributed, there’s a desire to give people autonomy over how they work. This allows people to:

• Make their own schedule (unless it’s a role where specific hours are important),
• Have their own corner office.
• Choose the food they want to eat.
• Decide when there’s music and when there’s silence.
• Change the room’s temperature.
• Choose to save the time they’d spend commuting every day and put it into other things that are more important to them.

How to be more distributed

A distributed workforce is ideal for a technology business, but would it work for everyone else? If you already have an office, there are a few things you can do to build distributed capability:

Document everything

In an office, it’s easy to decide in the moment (e.g. in the pantry, in the hallway). But if people work remotely and some members of the team are having those conversations that others don’t have access to, they’ll see these decisions being made without understanding the why.

Always leave a trail of where you were and what you were thinking about. This allows others to pick up where you left off. It allows people in different time zones to interact.

It’s also great to think about as an organisation evolves, as people leave and come aboard.

Move communications online

Along those same lines, try to have as much communication as possible online. When everything is shared and public, it allows new people to read through and catch up quickly.

Find the right tools

There are so many apps and services that help with day-to-day communication, video conferencing, project management. In fact, if you look around the office for things that changed how you work, they’re probably aren’t objects anymore – they’re things you access through your computer.

So experiment with different tools that enable collaboration, and see what works.

Create productive face-to-face time

In a traditional office, you’re in the same place about 48 weeks out of the year, and you might have 3 or 4 weeks where you’re not together. Distributed workforces try to flip that by meeting together for short, intense bursts.

It’s common for such companies to do a major face-to-face meetup where everyone gets together for several days. The primary goal of this is event is to connect people.

If being distributed is something you want to do, make sure the event empowers everyone to be on the same page. It’s essential to have deeper connections with each other when you leave.

When you work together the rest of the year, you can bring together that understanding and empathy.

Help people create their ideal space

Give your people an allowance to invest in the right chair, monitor, and desk setup so that they can put together the most productive environment for them.

The returns will be good for your organisation in the long run.

Partner with us

If you’re interested in tapping into global talent and forming a distributed workforce, team up with Remote Workmate. Unlike freelancing marketplaces where you do everything yourself, we handle all the heavy lifting for you, including processes like screening, recruitment, and payroll.

Finding the ideal talent has become so much easier.

You can actually choose from our pool of top candidates right away. Simply click the button below to browse a wide range of profiles on our Hotlist page.