Back in the fall we posted a list of remote work conferences... as is everything else in this space, things are always changing and there are more and more opportunities for connecting with other remote professionals! Here are three events that are coming up this summer. 

Rebel + Connect Remote Work Summit 

Dates: May 31-June 4, 2018 

Location: Lake Atitlan, Guatemala 

Audience: Remote leaders 

Website: http://www.rebelandconnect.co/remote-work-summit-2018/ 

Remote Work Summit is a leadership conference that addresses the specific needs of business leaders who oversee distributed teams. Hear insights from and connect with leaders from speakers from Dell, Microsoft, Buffer, Automattic, and many many more. 

The programming, sessions, and cultural and nature excursions will give you a well-rounded experience. 

Running Remote 

Dates: June 23-24, 2018 

Location: Bali,...

Let's talk networking events. You know that building a network is important to getting a job and moving up in your career, so you attend them, or at least, you've attended them in the past. 

You take your business card and you head over, ready to work the room and meet new connections. Sometimes it pans out, sometimes not. Sometimes, you have to explain what working remotely is all about. And sometimes, it's just a complete wash. 

Now tell me this: have you ever wondered why all these events are still done in person? Think about the time it takes to attend traditional networking events: getting ready, traveling to the place, and then the actual event itself, then traveling back. It seems silly to use all that extra commuting time when there are so many tools that are at our disposal now that make simulating face-to-face interactions so much easier. 

Well, now there is an event that uses these tools to network virtually. 

And you're...

If you've ever gone through the process of hiring a new team member, you know it can be one of the hardest things you have to do in business. How do you know if someone is the right person? How can you make sure you have the best remote employees on your team? 

While there is no one equation to find the perfect fit for an open position (and one might even argue that there is no such thing as a perfect fit) there are some attributes that make an individual a good fit for a remote position. Here are just some adjectives that describe ideal remote employees.

Traits of the Best Remote Employees

Curious

Since remote workers often have to do a lot of digging to get a solid understanding of work structure and expectations, curiosity is a key trait to look for. Does the candidate ask questions? How do they solve problems? Are they invested in their own learning and growth? What are they learning right now, or plan to learn in the near future?

Communicative

Communication is the...

As I write to you from Madrid, Spain, and checking things off my work to-do list, it occurred to me that I haven't spent much time on this blog discussing one of the best perks of working remotely: being able to travel while working. If you take this perk to the extreme, you're in a group of professionals called digital nomads.

People have been traveling for work since... well, forever. Hunting, gathering, sailing, exploring, sales...plenty of work-related activities have long involved leaving the home for a certain amount of time.

So what's so special about being a digital nomad?

If you're a digital nomad:

• All you need to complete your work is a computer and internet connection
• You can work from literally anywhere in the world — and you do!
• Your livelihood doesn't depend on you staying in just one place
• You use various tools to communicate with your team and customers, like email, video chat, Slack, phone, or other tools
• You have a flexible schedule

The...

At some point in our careers, we have all had those moments we can call crossroads, where we need to make a decision about whether to stay in a job or take other opportunities.

This moment could be the result of a job offer, a burning desire to strike off on your own, or it could be the result of your current position not being the best place for you at this moment in your career.

The Remote Career Crossroads

"Should I stay or should I go?"

Before you can answer this BIG question, ask yourself the following series of smaller questions.

What does your ideal job look like?

Describe what you really want to be doing on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis. What kind of projects are you working on? What are you learning? What do you want to accomplish? And finally, how do these responses differ from what you experience in your current position?

Is your ideal job possible in your current organization?

If you can see real examples of people moving up in the way that you would like to...

There are only 480 minutes in a typical 8-hour workday. That's not much time at all.

Especially when you think of the number of minutes that you spend:

• In meetings
• Clarifying misunderstandings
• Writing emails
• Trying to find documents/emails/etc.
• Creating or adjusting processes
• Scheduling meetings
• In meetings

If your job description includes nothing but meetings... then, great!

But for the rest of us, this is a real problem. How do you protect your time when you work online?

We Spend Much of Our Workday on Anything But Work

How much time do you actually get to spend on your work?

The ugly truth is that a lot of our workday is wasted. That's true for traditional workplaces and it's also true for distributed teams. Here are the four biggest time sucks in remote workplaces:

1. Meetings

There is a tendency in remote teams to think that because the team is distributed, you need more meetings. This is a big mistake—more meetings simply lead to more wasted time....

By Christina Lewellen, MBA, CAE

Any opinions expressed within the blog are those of the author and not necessarily held by Workplaceless itself.

Like many career-minded individuals, I had professional development and advancement goals for climbing the corporate ladder long before I had heard of the concept of “telework.” As my career has unfolded, I’ve had several opportunities to work virtually but I never lost sight of the trajectory I envisioned for myself. As it turns out, you can have the best of both worlds—but it does take planning, focus, and a willingness to pedal a little bit faster than everyone else.

VIRTUAL STRENGTH TRAINING

I started my career in journalism, working for daily newspapers, television, and magazines. Looking back, I now realize that these jobs were my virtual employee strength training program. I worked when the stories broke, but the deadlines were firm and constant. I experienced a boot camp, of sorts—I had...

Published April 2018  |  Updated November 2020

With remote work becoming more and more common, it comes as no surprise that there are now several podcasts about the topic. If you're interested in remote work and/or the future of work, and like to hear about all the cool things that people are doing while location independent, have a listen to these great shows.

The Remote Show - brought to you by We Work Remotely,  The Remote Show is an interview style podcast devoted to all things remote work. "We discuss tips, applications, tools, management concepts and much more in order to help today's remote worker be more productive and fulfilled in work and in life."

Yonder advocates for remote work and helps create distributed companies. Founder Jeff Robbins interviews other remote work advocates and experts on the Yonder podcast. The conversations on this podcast are fascinating to listen to, since Robbins interviews...

One of the biggest issues in all teams—virtual and not—is communication. While this issue is prevalent in all teams, it can seem that the problem is exacerbated in virtual teams. 

Why is communication in remote teams especially challenging? 

1. There are few (or no) existing opportunities for informal connections, which can be a good space for people to establish rapport and confirm understanding of situations or expectations.

2. A lot of virtual communication takes place with email or chat—which means messages are often misinterpreted. Not everyone is great at conveying or reading accurate tone when writing.

3. If your work day does not include collaboration, you might be working on your own for most of the day. You might ride the momentum of your work bubble, and not stop to clarify or confirm understanding of expectations.

No matter the reason for your team's challenges, there are some concrete steps that you can take to improve how your team...

Guest post by Natasha Bowman JD, SPHR, aka the Workplace Doctor, founder and CEO of Performance Renew and the author of You Can't Do That at Work: 100 Legal Mistakes Managers Make in the Workplace.

Employing a remote workforce can bring enormous benefits to an organization, like expanding attracting top talent and saving on overhead expenses that usually accompany a location-dependent workforce. But employing remote workers also comes with its own set of legal implications that remote leaders need to consider. Each of these legal issues could be a potential liability for your company. 

Make sure that you work through the proper channels to ensure that each issue is properly and adequately addressed in your:

• HR policies
• Employee handbook
• Hiring process
• Onboarding process
• Organizational structure
• Procedures
• Additional organizational policies

Legal Issues with Remote Teams

Privacy and Security

With a remote workforce, all communication takes place in a...