Emily Parsons, associate workplace manager of Slack’s London office, shares her team’s approach for keeping employees engaged while telecommuting

As technology continues to evolve and establish a powerful influence over the market, many are questioning the productivity of office-based workplaces. According to a recent Future Workforce Study of Dell and Intel, technology advancements are shaping the workforce to be future-oriented. So, what does that mean? Each year, more employees are working remotely, or to simply put – from the comfort of their homes.

As engineering teams grow, obvious difficulties arise. It’s simple math. You can’t keep up with everyone, and everything, in the same way as you did when the team was small. To maintain the high level of impact you’ve always had, your ways of working need to change.

Remote work has become a normal practice for millions of businesses in different industries. However, the whole process can be tiresome without the appropriate approach, as the majority of workers tend to lose productivity over time. Even though many would say that they are productive from home, after some time passes, a loss of motivation and productivity inevitably occurs. Luckily, there are steps that can be taken to ensure that your remote team is going to stay motivated.

“Wait. I don’t remember telling you the name of my hometown,” I said with an eyebrow cocked. “No, but I’m an intel analyst. So I know.” Truth be told, I was surprised the conversation hadn’t included more moments like this. I’m sitting in a tavern a few klicks down the road from the FBI’s training academy in Quantico, VA.

Gone are the days when employers and employees had to be in the same physical location in order to be able to work effectively and achieve all of their goals. Today, more and more organizations are allowing their employees to work remotely, not to mention that they hire entire international teams, with employees spread all around the world. There are a lot of studies showing that allowing employees to work remotely can lead to much higher levels of efficiency and productivity.

Building a successful remote team takes time, thought and planning, but it certainly yields huge benefits. Flexible work hours are no longer reserved for tech startups – in today’s age of global connectivity, entrepreneurs are able to hire the smartest, most competent people regardless of where they live. Without further ado, here’s how to choose, hire and motivate remote professionals and create a brain trust that delivers every time, everywhere.

To stop micromanaging, and give your team more autonomy, you could just follow the advice of William McKnight, the founder and one-time president of 3M: “Hire good people and leave them alone.” Unfortunately, it’s not quite so easy in practice, so in this article we’ll cover...

Motivation is obviously essential for your team’s performance and happiness. And if your company needs any kind of creativity to survive then a certain type of motivation is more effective (spoiler: it’s the intrinsic one). For this reason, most forward-thinking companies are moving away from traditional, extrinsic forms of motivation. But does this mean that "carrot and stick" is officially dead? Not quite.

One-on-one meetings are one of the best ways for managers to build a strong rapport with their teams and create a culture of trust. Unlike standups, status reports, and other types of meetings, one-on-ones are more flexible and create dedicated space for a manager to address an employee’s growth, long term plans and give personalized feedback. In our team, one-on-ones happen every week and last for an hour.