Hiring Remote Developers by Developing Good Planning and Team Relationships
When you think about starting or improving your projects, one of the first key points is to find allies to work with like remote developers. Nowadays, with a pandemic, remote working is not only a common modality but also a necessity. As we need to adapt to this new reality, we can perform these related roles in a better starting position. We just need to develop good planning and team relations. Knowing this, you should be able to bring your projects to fruition in an easy, less stressful way.
How to Develop Good Planning?
Being clear on what do you want to do and accomplish, gives you the activities and resources that you need to meet your needs. In this case, remote developers will play a key part in both scenarios. As such, there are certain project management skills to fulfill as a leader and IT management services that you will need to implement for software quality assurance.
Plan and Communicate Objective Requirements
Thinking and planning the project before hiring is vital to ensure proper implementation of the objectives. But beyond that, having written all the roles that your new developer should take to work will mark the difference between actions and expectations.
To achieve this, you must establish and track measurable and realistic goals. In addition, you must emphasize what you expect from the remote developer and the project. Not only clear communication is important, but also a brief of applications for the teamwork. This should include the objectives and dimensions of its work in terms of requirements, descriptions, context, and deadlines.
Try to not start the conversation by imposing the content of the brief into the work; instead, you should communicate it by asking the .net developers what it thinks about it. Then, with either party, you can set the definitive conditions for the project. Using this approach, the developer might be more interested in collaborating with you and your team.
By considering the feedback of the developer in this first stage, you can also discover gaps. This can be considered on what is expected and what you are communicating regarding the job offer. In the best of cases, the conversation could lead to new insights and ideas for the project. So take every contact with the developer as an opportunity. In this sense, you can develop and improve the project itself, and future related experiences.
Considerate the Time Zones
A major concern related to remote modality involves time zones. Time differences can affect email messages, replies, work meetings, and deadlines. Thus, it is important to touch on this matter during the hiring process and work related. In this sense, you can evaluate the benefits and the halfway point to carry the project forward.
The Internet and globalization have reduced the gap between time and place. Therefore, establishing workable hours for both time zones works better than constantly changing the time. This is more highlighted when the team sends messages, holds meetings, and delivers requests.
Remote modality also presents other challenges like multitasking. You should also keep in mind that your developer may be working on other projects. Obviously, if this is not specified in the contract. For this, again, asking and not just setting certain hours will ensure or, at the very least, will give you more opportunities to develop an accurate work relationship. Therefore, you will meet the quality of the software during deadlines.
Talk about the Deadlines
Delving into the briefing will help you understand the costs and future issues regarding project details. With this in mind, you should know how your remote developer manages your needs, tasks, and delivery times, and how to manage your remote server needs.
The crucial thing here is to negotiate instead of just setting conditions. This will involve more of the network developers in your regular team, and therefore, meet real goals. The negotiation should include time-lapses and benefits to find a middle point between you and the net developers for a win-win and committed working relationship.
A Harvard Business Review (2018) on deadlines found that people tend to do “urgent tasks” rather than “important tasks” because we prioritize time over attention inversion. These findings show that some “important tasks” never get done. This given they are low on the list. So people try to cross the largest number of items to feel more in control. In fact, the Harvard Business Review suggests a “proactive approach” for managers and employees. This consists of a weekly planning session to produce a list of “urgent” and “important” tasks. So you can fill hours with “important” tasks for the “urgent” ones to focus on before doing them.
Having regular meetings is another management practice when it comes to checking deliveries. With this approach, you can also prevent issues in real-time and consolidate the teamwork flow of the entire team. As a plus, you should take into consideration an open-minded vision to use tools that simplify the work conditions (and impulse control) of a quick and effective workflow.
An Additional Note
Do not let email communication and Internet platforms based on task setting modalities be your only means of communication. You must humanize these processes to create effective working relationships and to achieve better performance results. This given the human contact factor is currently not on the table, as we regularly discover.
How to Develop Good Team Relations?
Besides the technical aspects of IT management services and working with a remote developer, there are some needs to meet to ensure the software quality assurance and the project progress. It is important to remember that the process of planning from its beginning to its ending is not static and challenges and problems can appear at any moment because there are factors that you cannot control.
The action field, then, is to reduce the uncertainty with strong communications skills before these scenarios occur. According to SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management), soft skills are as important as hard ones in work. In a recent SHRM’s survey (2020), 46% of new employees fail within 18 months and of these, 89% fail because of a lack of soft skills.
In remote working modalities, these skills are vital to solving doubts and meet deadlines within a set time or negotiating to guarantee the quality of the deliveries and the final product.
Communicate the “Why” of the Project
Involving people with enough commitment to your project is as important as having qualified professionals working alongside you. Simon Synek explains in his Golden circle methodology that knowing “why”, “how”, and “what” a product is developed can connect more people with your ideas. This can also be transferred to your work relationship with your remote developer.
To work with a developer who will be aligned to the team’s development process on your software, you must consider talking to them about the scope, vision, and benefits of the project. Through this approach, you can even determine the level of interest and commitment of the .Net developers you want to work with and have more information to hire or to negotiate with.
Focus on Clear Communication
While work arrangements are important, the success of projects relies on effective communication skills according to a Harvard Business School paper that cited a report from the Economic Intelligence Unit. If this was an important factor in 2019, imagine a more challenging world in which remote working is the new normality.
More than being an effective leader in the communications field, you should ensure effective and clear communications as a business practice. These include active listening, providing and implementing feedback, approaching disagreements in a solution-finding, asking open-ended questions to understand your team, being emphatic, and adapting your communication style according to your listener and the situation.
By communicating clearly, you will not only ensure a positive impact in the work environment, but you can also prevent difficult scenarios. For example, if an employee does not have enough trust in you and commitment to the project, it could avoid letting you know about personal issues that could affect its performance as a remote developer. Furthermore, this could affect meeting deadlines, asking questions, taking responsibilities, and other aspects of the project.
Taking into account this practice could reduce or avoid misunderstandings, communication shortcomings, and poor performances both in work duties and team relations.
The mentioned project performance includes leadership, strategic thinking, communication, and negotiation as key concerns, according to Harvard’s Professional Development. As a manager, you must extrapolate these areas of expertise to the teamwork flow of the software development for having both good planning and good team relations.
Other Key Concerns regarding the Remote Developer
As we already mentioned, to carry out your project and the software quality assurance in the best possible scenario you should be aware and act on the factors that could impact your project. These are some aspects that will help you build a good hiring process and improve the performance of your developers.
Have You Considered NDAs or Non-Disclosure Agreement?
The development field is full of codes, algorithms, and databases, and so it goes. When it comes to your software, certain permissions and information must be granted. This is when confidentiality takes on new importance.
In the worst case, vital data about your business, specific project employees, or customers could be publicly released or sold to a private entity. To prevent any of these situations, you must be aware of how you can protect these assets.
A Non-Disclosure Agreement or NDAs is a contract in which, at the very least, both parties have confidential responsibility. This means that they are legally binding on not disclosing the information covered by the signed agreement. This legal tool may also be considered if your developer is working on another project at the same time. Human resources and legal advisory are decisive in the starting point of the project, although these can be overlooked.
Is It Effective to Apply Tests to Hire a Remote Developer?
A resource that you can use to hire a developer is implementing a test. This could be focused on programming skills or coding tests (technical screening) to check the cognitive level, performance, and experience of the candidate. The design of these tests includes coding challenges and questions that will give you important information about your .net developers and the software quality assurance that can be delivered to your software.
To minimize the risk associated with your project, it is important to hire a developer that really suits your objectives, requests, and teamwork culture. In contrast, an incorrect remote developer selection in any of these matters could negatively affect the accomplishment of the plan and mean financial loss.
Is It Important to Have an Advisory Expert?
Having third opinions on hiring, developing a project, improving performance, and facing challenges will always represent an opportunity. From recruitment support to project consulting, having an advisory expert as an ally will give you insights and different perspectives on your project management skills and project success.
More and more, the world is demanding innovative ways of meeting our information needs. From start-ups to large companies, both data focus and remote work are increasingly seen as effective ways to meet customer needs and cost reductions. According to Forbes (2020), citing a FlexJobs survey, every remote worker could reduce company costs even by $22,000 per year. A more revealing finding of the State of Remote Work report made by Owl Labs (2019) is that 74% of employees said that a remote work option would make them “less likely” to leave their current company.
Remote Developers in a Nutshell
Nowadays, investing in great partners like remote developers is beyond physical limits. The remote modality could also offer your business savings in a shared workspace. It could also provide you with more opportunities for investing in your team’s talent. While this reality comes with new challenges, you must be ready to assume and overcome them. Are you ready? Advancio offers not only a platform to develop software, but also a software quality assurance and IT management service. If you want to hire a backend engineer or remote developer to provide additional support for your project, you can count on us.
