Building a remote team? Look for workers with these 4 traits

Are you building a team of remote developers? Or maybe you’re hiring new team members and top talents happen to be located on the other side of the globe?

You’re probably wondering:

What kinds of workers thrive in that type of setting? Which personality traits point to the right individuals for my project?

When it comes to remote work, we consider ourselves real pros. The core of our team works in a single location, but many of us are dispersed all over the world. In the past, we managed development projects that involved a client in Los Angeles and a team of developers in Central Europe and Japan!

So let’s get one thing clear: Not all talented developers are great remote workers.

But our experience in hiring and managing remote developers taught us that these 4 personality traits sometimes matter more than other qualifications candidates have.

Integrity

Remote cooperation is based on trust. A remote worker is given a massive credit of trust right from day one, and they need to do their best to maintain the trust of their employer. It's very easy to lose that trust, and smart remote devs know it.

An excellent remote worker will have a responsible and mature approach to work.

He or she knows that just because they’re not working at the office, it doesn't mean they can work ‘wherever’ and produce ‘whatever’ quality.Remoteness should never compromise productivity.

At Sunscrapers, we always look for remote workers who are aware of that and can create workspaces that help them maintain a high level of productivity throughout the entire project.

Self-reliance and getting-things-done approach

A good remote worker has to be self-reliant. He or she needs to able to deal with problems or at least know how and where to look for help. Junior developers who are not as self-reliant as senior team members often find that part quite tricky.

Smart remote workers also know how to make up for the lack of human contact that is part of office life. They're not going to become depressed just because they're always working alone from home. Efficient remote workers use coworking spaces or organize their time in a way that helps them spend time with people.

Finally, our best remote workers are driven and result-oriented. Why? Because this is the only way, they can build their value when working remotely.

Communication

We can't emphasize that point enough. Well-organized, timely, and accurate communication is essential for making remote work for teams.

Great remote workers can manage expectations and be predictable. That means that the team and the client know when they’re available. Only irresponsible remote workers disappear without letting anyone know what they’re up to.

At Sunscrapers, we care a lot about the transparency of internal communications and organize weekly catch-up sessions for the entire team to make sure everyone is on the same page.

We also have processes and tools that help us ensure that everyone is informed the absences of team members. That's why we let others know that we will be absent as soon as we can - and we have an internal tool for that.

In our team, we like to keep everyone updated on Slack. We tell others when we begin and finish work, but also when we have our lunch break or other longer breaks. It actually works great for keeping the team close because we feel as if we were working next to one another.

Another way to improve communication is enabling team members with access to project information. At Sunscrapers, team members can easily monitor and track the progress of projects in real time, and access to retrospectives and project summaries to see what worked best and what didn't for further improvement.

Finally, we also bet on integrating our team because team building is the first step to effective communication. We organize regular events that help us get to know each other better. We do that because it simply improves team communication later on.

Development-oriented

Finally, we always look for remote workers who are motivated and engaged in self-improvement. We hire people who love what they do and want to get better at it. By investing in their development, they inspire us to build an environment that fosters everyone’s improvement.

Moreover, our clients are informed about the performance of individual team members and their motivation. That’s how we make sure that particular members are assigned to projects that match their aspirations.

• Read about what questions should you ask before hiring a development team.

These 4 traits are essential if you want to build a successful team of remote developers who will take your project to the next level.

If you need some more advice on building a great dev team, have a look at a previous article written by our co-founder and CTO, Przemek, where he summarizes what we learned about building teams throughout the years.

Would you like to set up a dedicated developer team but you’re still not sure about hiring remote workers? Reach out to us at hello@sunscrapers.com; we’re always happy to share our best practices that ensure a smooth collaboration and project success.