Remote employees, working from home instead of the office, can improve your bottom line considerably. According to a recent Stanford University study, the Chinese travel agency Ctrip "estimated (working remotely) improved productivity by around 25% and saved about $2,000 per year per employee working at home."
Taking on remote workers means you have a larger pool of talent to pick from. If your office is in San Francisco, and you insist that your employees work there, you're limited to Bay Area residents or anyone willing to relocate. Remote workers can be anywhere with a good Internet connection.
But picking the right people can be tricky. You need disciplined people who require minimal supervision and can fix their own IT issues.
You can use the skills you developed hiring local workers when hiring remote, but you're going to have to examine some additional factors.
Consider the worker's location
Think about time zones. If your office is in California, and a prospective employee lives in England, that person will be eight hours ahead of you. If you come into the office at 9:00am, it will be nearing quitting time for them. Chats and videoconferencing will be difficult unless the new hire is willing to work nights.
Also pay attention to language or cultural barriers. If you’re looking for someone to write ad copy, only hire people with a firm grasp of the language and the intended audience. This isn’t an issue with all jobs; a programmer or graphic artist only needs to be able to understand your directions.
Interview them face to face
Don't discount the importance of body language. How a person sits, how they use their arms, and how their face reacts to a difficult question can tell you a lot about them.If they live close enough, have them come in at least once. Otherwise, interview them via video chat. If they don't have the equipment for that at home, they're probably not right for the job.
And even though they’re working remotely, you should still consider how well they'll fit into the company culture. They may be hundreds of miles away, but they'll still need to fit in. In fact, a remote worker may need better social skills than a local one, since they have to meld into a work environment without haven't actually being in the office.
Ask them to friend you on Facebook or other social media sites. This will give you a glimpse into their personality and an idea of how they handle online socializing--what kind of jokes they like, how they handle disagreements, and so on.
Ask the right questions
While interviewing candidates, try to go beyond the usual questions about their experience and qualifications. Ask them how they schedule their workday. How do they handle creative blocks and distractions? Have they had other telecommuting jobs?
Communication and connectivity are essential. What kind of Internet connection do they have? What VOIP and video services are they comfortable with?
A big one: How technically adept are they? Can they install the company's VPN software? Fix their own computer? After all, someone from IT can't simply drop by and fix it for them. A remote control tool such as LogMeIn Rescue will allow IT to help them, but their own tech experience will still be vital.
And ask them about their environment. How many people live with them? Are any of them young children, and if so, is someone else responsible for them during working hours? Having children shouldn’t affect their eligibility, but if they intend to juggle full-time childcare with their job responsibilities, that could warrant further discussion. Also, does the potential employee have a separate room to use as an office? If it doesn’t feel too intrusive, you might even ask them to show you their workspace via webcam.
Minda Zetlin of Inc.com also put together a great list of questions to ask prospective remote employees.
Whether you call them telecommuters, remote workers, or no-collar workers (some, I suspect, may be no-pants workers), they can be a terrific asset. But like any other employees, they're only useful if they're the right people.
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