2020 has been a challenging year. We witnessed how a virus could lock us inside our homes, limit our social gatherings, and shift our focus to online shopping. Not only that, but the coronavirus-induced lockdown also compelled many companies to rethink their hiring norms and give opportunities to remote talent.
While there are multiple approaches to build a remote offshore team, I’ve enumerated 9 tried and tested tips that will surely help you find the right talent and build a team of your choice.
1. Know Your Hiring Needs
Though this goes without saying, many business owners make blunders by hiring people who are not fit for the required job role. Hence, assess your hiring needs is step one for building a strong remote team.
Ask yourself what kind of offshore team you want to build? What type of talent do you want to hire, and from which country? What skill set are you looking for? Jot down all the points, make a list of the “must-haves” and “good to have,” and put them in the job description. Then share the requirement across hiring platforms or ask your talent acquisition specialist to look for suitable candidates.
2. Look for People Who Are Aligned to Your Vision
When your remote offshore team doesn’t know your vision, their efforts will always be inclined to get the momentary benefits, and they will be less likely to become a part of your company’s growth. Hence, it’s crucial to clear your mission and vision right from the beginning and find people who can align themselves to the same.
3. Look for People With Strong Communication Skills
One of the crucial aspects while hiring and building remote is to find talent with good communication skills. This is because you don’t have the luxury of communicating with your remote offshore team in person. Hence, when building your team, ensure that each team member is well versed in a language everyone understands.
4. Do a Pre-screening Exercise
You need to do a pre-screening exercise to find the best talent for your remote offshore team. This includes collecting CVs of the interested candidates to find critical information such as work experience, technical know-how, languages known, education background, certificates, achievements, rewards, and expertise in a similar domain
After reviewing the CVs and finding your desired candidates, you can schedule an interview to understand them better. You can do this through video conferencing platforms such as Skype, Google Meet, and Zoom. This exercise will ensure that you get the best candidate in your team and sift out dishonest employees.
5. Build a Robust Communication and Project Management Infrastructure
Building a collaborative set up for working with your remote offshore teams will improve your remote employee’s efficiency and productivity. And for this, you need to set up multiple collaboration channels such as:
- Email — Use this channel for official communication, setting up meetings, and planning schedules.
- Chats — You can use chat platforms like Slack, Skype, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet them for quick status updates,, questions and clarifications.
- Project management tools — Jira, Asana, Trello, are some of the best projects for working in collaboration, assigning tasks and deadlines.
This will help improve the communication between you and your remote team and reduce friction and contingency. It’ll also help them understand your goals and the roadmap to achieve them.
6. Look Beyond What’s on Paper
When we hire talent, we emphasize so much on the candidate’s technical skills that we don’t pay heed to the aspects that aren’t in their CV. We’re so engrossed in knowing the languages they code in or the projects they’ve worked on that we forget to gauge their willingness to stick with the company for the long term. As a business owner, you must understand that hiring a remote talent is a nuanced subject, and you need to look at it holistically.
That said, gauge your potential hire’s problem-solving skills, creativity, personality, and ability to grasp complex concepts. Vet how smoothly the remote teammates can integrate with your in-house team. These aspects may seem insignificant initially but would go a long way in building a robust remote offshore team.
7. Start With a Small Engagement
Start with a small engagement with your offshore team to understand their skill set, working style, work ethics, and attitude. It’ll help you know whether the candidates are aligned with your goals and objectives. It will also build a rapport with your onshore and offshore teams. Once you’re satisfied with your team’s work and attitude, you can engage them on your important assignments that require long-term commitments.
8. Take Care of Diversity and Inclusion
Always treat your offshore team as your in-house team. This will make them feel valued and forge a bond between them and your company’s other important stakeholders. To ensure this happens,
- Make sure they understand and adopt your company’s culture
- Align their work with your business’s vision
- Work towards achieving their targets
9. Visit Your Team From Time to Time
Visiting your team once or twice a year to know your staff in person. Having face-to-face conversations will help you understand your team’s concerns and take the necessary steps to address them in real-time. It’ll also help you reinforce your business goals and motivate your team to walk the extra mile.
Moreover, physical visits boost your team’s morale and help them understand who they are working with and why which improves their productivity.
As a business owner, you must understand your remote offshore team inside out. This includes understanding their strengths and weaknesses, challenges, problem-solving capabilities, the things that happen on the ground.
Building a Robust and Hyper Performing Offshore Remote Team
The coronavirus pandemic has drastically changed the hiring pattern of businesses. Today, sourcing qualified candidates is no longer a far-fetched dream; it has become a reality. Building a remote offshore team fulfills the need for talented and well-trained resources at cost-effective rates, which are scarce in today’s global workforce.
That said, set expectations right from the beginning and involve your team in decision making. Make them understand your mission, vision, and core values. This will inculcate a sense of belonging and encourage them to give their best shot.
Follow these tried and tested tips for successfully building strong remote offshore teams.