Remote Work Tips from JTC's Engineering Team

Since the coronavirus pandemic, JTC’s software team and the rest of the company have been working remotely. The shift from working in the office to complete work from home was a significant adjustment, but we learned to do it right in a short period. JTC’s team figured out how to stay productive, creative, inspired, and live up to all of the expectations that we’ve set for ourselves.

As a fully distributed company, we have a few tricks up our sleeves for remote work beginners.

1. Daily Standup: Daily standups are now a part of our daily routine. In tough times, people can feel isolated and miss the coffee machine talks. Our daily standups are meant to make employees feel a bit connected as a team.
   
   These recurring meetings play a very important part in our day. The daily standup meeting helps our team to have a shared understanding of the goals. In these meetings, we share problems and improvements of the current tasks. We get to know the status of everyone’s work if anything is holding them back and which way we can help each other.
   
2. Effective Team Communication: Working remotely as a team has been a success for us because of effective team communication. You can choose the right tools for your company, for us we have been using Slack and for video conferencing, we use Google Meet.
   
   We also make sure to keep our Videos ON because it helps to build better relations and nobody likes to talk to a blank screen! Effective team communication helps us to bring clarity and set expectations for the team, and point out something when it isn't working. This has helped us to eliminate confusion so far.
   
3. All Hands Meeting: When a team works in an office, everyone has a clear understanding of what's happening with the other departments and how we are growing with each other. For recruits, remotely joining a company can have some drawbacks.
   
   While working remotely, we are not meeting other teams and we don’t know what’s happening in real-time with people we don’t share the same goals.
   
   So, for this, we have an all-hands meeting every month’s first Friday for every Department to share their experiences, their ideas, and anything they did that they wanted to share in the previous month. This brings a sense of togetherness and also helps the recruits to understand every bit of the company.
   
4. Quarterly Pulse Reviews: Since the team has been working remotely, but to keep check with everyone’s expectations and the feeling of satisfaction within the company, we came up with some review questions and asked the JTC’s team members to put their thoughts anonymously.
   
   This review system keeps check with the team members, if they are happy or not with the current work-life balance and if they want something from the company, they can send their suggestions.
   
5. Flexible Timing: For some people, working from home can be a boon, while for others it can be just the opposite. People with kids at home have more challenging tasks because the children need more attention and time from their parents. We promote the idea of flexible timing and taking breaks while working remotely. It helps to keep everyone productive and satisfied during work hours.
   
   Our company has been working remotely for 1 year now and we don’t know when we will be back at the office, but it’s good to see the team thriving while working from home and adjusting well to the new normal. We are trying to work as a team in these difficult times and getting better every day.