How to Effectively Hire and Manage Remote Employees: A Comprehensive Guide

Remote work isn't just a fad — it’s a permanent solution for companies in the U.S. and beyond. Take for example that remote hiring is up by as much as 300+% in some Latin American countries.

In essence, knowing how to effectively hire and manage remote employees can unlock the full potential of your teams, resulting in better resource allocation and stronger project outcomes.

Yet, taking advantage of remote hiring requires some forethought. Here we’ll discuss best practices for remote hiring, onboarding and management, so you can implement proven strategies. We’ll also go over common challenges, case studies and future trends to build a thriving virtual workforce.

‍

‍

The Basics of Hiring Remote Employees

Getting started with remote hiring can be tricky. It requires some insider knowledge about where to find top remote talent and attract the right candidates.

For U.S. businesses, Latin America is a go-to spot due to its impressive talent pools, cost-effective rates and shared time zones. Other compelling regions may also include Eastern Europe or Asia/Pacific.

Key Remote Developer Traits

When narrowing down remote candidates from Latin America, you’ll want to look closely at:  

• Technical skills.
• Soft skills.
• Self-starter mindset.
• Time zone compatibility.
• Long-term career plans.

Avoid focusing solely on technical abilities, as virtual teaming success depends greatly on soft skills such as motivation and empathy. In fact, 78% of HR managers are doing more to find tech workers with advanced soft skills.

Don’t miss out on candidates with unconventional backgrounds, either. It’s common for LatAm developers to teach themselves new languages and take specialized courses (instead of a traditional degree program).

Why Hire Remotely With a Partner

Today’s recruitment technologies are better than ever, enabling you to successfully discover, interview and assess candidates remotely. Even so, it’s ideal to work with a local talent partner (like us!) who knows the market inside-out. A partner will support your recruitment efforts by:

• Having local expertise on where to find talent (tech companies, universities, developer networks, etc.).
• Understanding and filtering regional developer resumes.
• Identifying candidates with cultural and company fit.
• Vetting technical and soft skills in advance.
• Scheduling interviews for easy candidate access.
• Designing salary and benefits packages that are locally competitive (but still cost-effective).
• Advising on long-term retention strategies.

If you conduct a DIY recruitment search, it may be challenging to reach global talent and screen candidates without technical know-how. In this case, you’ll want to leverage interviewing tools and IT assessment programs. You’ll also want to research local market rates to appeal to top candidates.

‍

Frictionless Integration of Remote Employees

Once you’ve selected the ideal remote employee, focus on integrating them ASAP. The most successful remote team management strategies will make the most of the onboarding process.

Effective Remote Employee Onboarding

Onboarding is a big opportunity to embrace your new developers in your company culture. Just consider that robust onboarding can boost productivity by 62%.

• Avoid info dumping. Although you may have lots of documentation to share, try to make this as digestible as possible. For example, create an online workshop or an interactive self-paced program.
• ‍Daily, weekly and monthly checklists. Give your new hire clear vision into their to-dos from day 1. Assign onboarding milestones in your management tool (Slack, Asana, etc.) for the first day, week and month.
• ‍Grant access to tools. Don’t forget to share logins with your new developer for important tools, such as Slack, Zoom, Asana, Float, Miro, Loom, WooBoard, etc. You may also give a security refresher to ensure top protocols (such as data encryption, software updates, file sharing, personal device policies, etc.).

Boosting Relationships Early On

Effective remote employee onboarding isn’t just about information, but also relationships. Introduce your developer on company channels and schedule calls with key team members. As part of your onboarding process, assign relationship goals. This way, your new hire will see integration events as essential to the job. Having a mentorship program for new hires is also a great way to smooth integration.

‍

Best Practices for Managing Distributed Teams

Now that your teams are well-aligned, you’ll need to understand how to effectively hire and manage remote employees. Here are remote team management strategies that have worked well with our developers:

• ‍Foster clear communication. Set expectations for team collaboration, including key communication channels, milestone assignments and remote work policies. Be transparent in your developer meetings and create peer feedback programs, if possible.
• Set measurable goals and track progress. With remote work, it’s best to concentrate on results, not logistics. Ideally, use project management tools to assign goals and allow your developers to complete them on their own flexible schedules.
• Encourage a strong company culture. Despite the distance, you can create an engaging culture. Focus on building a virtual office space and planning shared experiences (such as informal Slack channels, virtual coffee breaks and/or after-hour gaming or yoga sessions).
• Take the pulse often on employee sentiment. Remote team management is never “one-and-done.” Keep improving your workflows and policies by surveying your remote employees on a regular basis.

‍

Challenges in Remote Workforce Management and Solutions

‍

While remote work comes with valuable advantages, be aware of common pitfalls. As you leverage remote team management strategies, be intentional about minimizing these challenges.

Mitigate Feelings of Isolation

15% of remote workers feel lonely and detached from their coworkers. Make an effort to plan weekly virtual team-building activities. Assigning workplace buddies can also help integrate new hires and boost social connections.

Ensure Team Wellness From Home

Work-life balance is hard to figure out when you’re physically at home, with 11% saying it’s difficult to unplug from work. Reduce the blending of work and home by encouraging “no response email hours.” For high-power deadlines, offer to give a day off afterward so your developers can recharge.

Address Time Zone Challenges

14% of remote employees struggle with time zone differences. That’s why it’s vital to choose locations such as Latin America that provide significant workday overlap with the U.S. At the same time, you can reduce communication breakdowns by using project management tools and aligning your teams through daily check-ins.

Balance Trust and Accountability

Developers tend to do their best work when they have the flexibility to create their own schedules and estimate reasonable deadlines. Yet, it’s a balancing act between trusting them to create high-quality deliverables and ensuring accountability. Avoid pestering developers with micromanagement and instead opt to keep your virtual door open for receiving questions and fielding problems.

‍

TECLA’s Approach to Hiring and Managing Remote Employees

At TECLA, we act as a virtual bridge between top brands and the immense tech talent in Latin America. Our mission is to optimize recruitment cycles and build high-performing remote teams that match your requirements. To accomplish this, we use industry-leading strategies on how to effectively hire and manage remote employees:

• Pre-vetting talent for cultural and remote fit.
• Robust talent nurturing and onboarding to ensure new hires hit the ground running.
• Ongoing check-ins with clients to ensure maximum recruitment outcomes.
• Guidance on talent retention for long-term remote workforce solutions

Don’t take our word for it. We have a strong track record of getting cutting-edge talent results for U.S. businesses – such as the recent success stories below.

Limber Health

Recently, our talent specialists put together a fully integrated 6-person team extension for a DC-based healthtech company called Limber. We handled end-to-end recruitment processes, including a needs assessment, technical and cultural screening, and outsourcing destination guidance. Overall, their main goals were to limit time zone challenges, attain a cultural fit and boost retention. To that end, Limber:

• Hired 6 career-driven developers with top skills (including full-stack developers, DevOps engineers, React Native developers and data analysts).
• Saved 52% on salary rate expenses.
• Accelerated growth, receiving Series A funding in post-hire phases.

Wesper

The NY sleep monitoring device provider Wesper also leaned on TECLA’s expertise to land roles for software, product expertise and data analysis. We carried out key recruitment tasks, including skills screening, reference checks and comprehensive recruiter assessment notes. In particular, we focused on understanding Wesper’s culture and vetting all candidates accordingly.

As a result, our multi-phase talent solution succeeded in:

• Hiring 8 specialized candidates, with 7 still working with Wesper today.
• Saving 48% on salary rates.
• Attaining a rapid 4-week time-to-hire.
• Boosting growth with $9.6 million post-hire Series A funding.

‍

Future Trends in Remote Hiring and Workforce Management

Remote work only continues to rise, with digital jobs expected to reach 92 million globally by 2030. As it becomes more popular, companies everywhere are looking for proven practices to better hire and manage their virtual teams. Some trending topics that will become key to remote work success include the following.

The Rise of Nearshore and Hybrid Work Models

58% of teams are now hybrid, showcasing the shift towards a mixed remote and office approach. At the same time, remote hiring has expanded to mainly nearshore regions. Since 2020, U.S. businesses have boosted hiring as much as 300+% in Latin American countries. This new hybrid way of work means that managers have to seamlessly bridge both environments, managing distributed teams for maximum productivity.

The Impact of Cultural Alignment in a Global Workforce

With a globally located team, cultural alignment is even more important. Not only does it bring your team members together, it also sets up the project for success. Plus, a strong culture leads to more satisfied and productive employees. Just consider that 56% say great workplace culture is “more important than salary.”

Innovations in Remote Collaboration Tools and AI-Driven Management

AI is revolutionizing what remote team management strategies will look like, too. It can help automate key tasks, such as smart notifications, group calendar coordination, meeting summaries, report drafting, etc. For performance monitoring, businesses are also leveraging AI-powered “bossware” to keep tabs on project progress.

‍

Trust TECLA to Hire and Manage Top Remote Talent

With our expert-backed guide, you now know how to effectively hire and manage remote employees. By leveraging our best practices for remote hiring and management, you can get an edge over the competition in our hyper-globalized world.

At TECLA, we provide seamless remote workforce solutions that uplift your teams. We have a decade of expertise in connecting brands with remote employees in Latin America and beyond. Trust us to hire virtual collaboration-ready developers!

‍