Introduction
Telecommuting, distance work, geographically neutral employment, or distributed work, are the various terms used interchangeably to define working remotely. Working remotely has always been around in the office and business environment, but recently, it has gained a lot of popularity. This is mainly because of the menace caused by the global pandemic of COVID-19. However, most employees work from home at least once a week. Remote work was initially started during the 1970s and has now become a part of the mainstream work setting. This blog answers all your questions and queries regarding working remotely, such as what is working remotely?, managing remote employees, working remotely state income tax, etc.
What is “Working Remotely?”
Working out of the traditional workplace and using digital technology to continue doing your work is the basic concept of working remotely. It may apply to various fields and professions. A few of them have been mentioned below:
1. Writing
This is one of the easiest fields that just requires you have an access to an internet connection and a device, such as a laptop or tablet. This is mainly research-based and does not require the employee to be working from a traditional office setup.
2. Education
Distance learning has helped in joining bridges between different continents and countries. Candidates do not have to visit the institute in person to attend a course or workshop, they can easily attend it online, saving up on travel costs as well. This also creates more job opportunities for unemployed teachers.
3. Call centers
Many call centers cater to the international market and must provide professional help round the clock. Employees working in a call center can easily work from home in a calm, silent environment. Call center employees do not need to sit in an office, as they can easily work from the comfort of their home.
4. Healthcare
Telemedicine is a new concept that is becoming extremely popular. Healthcare professionals have been using the internet to provide patients with medical assistance round the clock. This even allows doctors and other medical professionals, such as nurses, to be available for patients across borders.
Generally speaking, working remotely means working from home, which usually requires access to a fast internet connection, a mobile phone, a laptop, or any other device. This allows companies to cut down on the cost of running an office, such as lower electricity bills.
Are There any Working Remotely Taxes Applied in the USA to Outsource App Development?
If your company runs in the USA and your employee is working remotely from another country, you are expected to comply with income tax legislation of your employee’s country. This means that you are expected to know the locate rate of income tax for your employee’s country, and withhold that amount at the local rate of his country. Furthermore, if the employee is in the USA and is working remotely, their pay would be subjected to the local state withholding tax.
Tips for Working Remotely with an App Development Team
Working remotely does not mean that you are exempted from following certain work ethics and rules. Working remotely allows you to meet deadlines at your ease. Thus, to maximize the benefits of working remotely with an app development team, you must keep in mind the following tips.
1. Set a proper work routine and schedule
Working remotely does not exempt you from having a fixed work schedule. However, with working remotely, you do get the added benefit of a flexible work routine, which you should only use in cases of unavoidable circumstances, and not make it into a habit. Usually, most people find the morning hours the best to work. During your work hours, always stay online and be visible to other colleagues, who may need to communicate with you.
2. Be alert during every video call
Working remotely means that you do not have a regular interaction with your colleagues. Video calls are your only option for interacting with them and being able to extract as much information you can. This is important as being a professional, you cannot constantly pester your colleagues and call them frequently throughout the day. Being a part of an app development team requires frequent interactions between the members of the app development team. There are various app development team roles that must coordinate tasks amongst each other. For better coordination with your team, you must not hesitate to ask questions from your team members.
3. Stay fully focused on work
Working from the comfort of your home would mean that you are constantly surrounded by distractions, such as your family members, your mobile phone, certain websites, etc. To make your work hours more productive, it would be a good idea to remove all these distractions from your work station, during your work hours. You should create a strong boundary between your work and personal life.
4. Keep some of your work offline
Sitting about eight hours a day in front of the screen can be very unhealthy for you. Therefore, you must try to keep some of your documents, for example, a project plan for mobile app development, offline. This can involve reading through printouts, writing handwritten notes, or sketches.
Working with an app development team means that you must be constantly in touch with your team members and be fully aware of the requirements and changes that must be made. Working remotely requires you to be fully focused on work and also coordinate with your team members.
Challenges of Working Remotely with App Development Team
Just like any other work strategy, working remotely also has its challenges. Your company may not provide you with the flexible schedule you’re looking for. A few of the challenges of working remotely have been mentioned below.
1. Loneliness
Working remotely causes you to miss out on the interaction you would have had otherwise with your app development team at your workplace. This interaction includes lunch breaks, coffee breaks, and interactions between coworkers.
2. Distraction
Since working remotely does not provide you with the same set up as an office, chances of you getting distracted are high. You can easily choose to watch your favorite show on the television, turning your thirty-minute break into a two-hour break.
3. Decreased physical activity
Working remotely reduces your physical activity, as it does not require you to commute to work. Decreased physical activity leads to a lot of other health-related issues.
4. Communication problems
Effective communication is essential for the successful management of your app development team. However, the communication style of each employee is different; one employee may be comfortable with communicating over emails and one might be comfortable over video calls.
5. Technical glitches
Technical glitches may involve internet connectivity issues, system crashes, etc. Since you are on your own, without the help of the technical team’s assistance in office, you would have to manage everything yourself timely, without missing any work or deadlines.
What should be the Mobile App Development Project Plan?
The mobile app development project plan should include a team of best professionals, that may be in the same country as your company, or they may be working remotely for your company. Since a mobile app development project caters to all the various mobile Operating Systems, there must be separate teams for all the operating systems, such as the iOS app development team.
Working Remotely Pros and Cons
Working remotely provides you with the flexibility you require, but at the same time, it can be a challenge for a few employees. The pros and cons of working remotely have been discussed below to give you a better picture.
—Pros of Working Remotely and Managing Remote App Development team
1. Global Hiring Opportunities
Working remotely allows you to become a freelancer and get hired by global companies, allowing you to rub shoulders with numerous names abroad. This would further increase your chances of getting hired by bigger companies.
2. Time and Money
Save time and money by not commuting to work and working remotely- the main advantage for employees. From the employers’ point of view, they end up saving on costs such as electricity bills, internet bills, space rents, etc.
3. Tools and Tech
With time, many platforms have come out with solutions for working remotely. Hence, employees can easily work from home with all the tools necessary for working remotely. For writers, getting these tools is not necessary at all. They just require a laptop and a fast internet connection. However, having a platform for managing all your employees would be an added benefit as it allows better and easier management of the employees, and it also helps in better communication between all employees.
4. Better Productivity
Working from home allows employees to be fresh and healthy, producing better quality of work.
5. Health Safety
In the current situation of the global pandemic. COVID-19, working remotely is a great way of curbing the spread of the disease, without compromising the quality of work.
—Cons of Working Remotely and Managing Remote App Developer
1. Your employees might feel left out occasionally.
Working remotely causes employees to miss out on in-office celebrations and happenings.
2. Networking is much harder for employees working remotely.
Networking is extremely important for finding contacts that can help you to reach your next job.
3. Poor Health
Removing the commuting distance to work and other activities involved at work, the employees’ physical activities would be very limited, leading to a sedentary lifestyle. this leads to a lot of health issues.
How to Hire Remote Employees for an App Development Team?
Hiring remote employees is easy due to the numerous job searching platforms, that allow employers and employees with similar interests and requirements to connect. Certain employers are looking for employees who are wanting to hire people who want to work remotely. The app development team structure requires various team members who can provide different skills for the app development process.
What Should be the Remote Mobile App Development Team Structure?
Working remotely allows the building of a team that is culturally diverse, even though the team is not connected physically. The employees who are working remotely must be answerable to someone in your company’s hometown.
What Should be the Mobile App Development Team Roles?
The mobile app development team roles should be decided according to the expertise of each employee. You need a team of designers, developers, sales and marketing specialists, Quality Assurance specialists, project managers, business consultants, strategists, and others to have a competent team. Each requirement of the mobile app development team is split and a specific employee is hired for that particular post. Working remotely allows you to hire people with diverse work experience and ideas so that your team can produce the best of the apps in the market.
How to Find Remote Candidates?
You can find remote candidates on various job search profiles. You can also post job openings on your official website and wait for candidates to apply to these job openings. It is generally a good idea to thoroughly go through a candidate’s resume before moving on to the next stage of the hiring process i.e. interviews. In the resume, you should look out for the candidate’s work experience and exposure. You may want to hire somebody who has already served as a team member of an iPhone development team or an outsource app development team.
How to Manage an App Development Team Remotely?
Working remotely means that your employees would be hardly be coming in person to your office. If they happen to be located somewhere abroad, then the chances of them visiting the office are close to none. Since all the employees would be working from different places, good communication is the key to the smooth running of the team and its functions. The details of how to manage your app development team remotely have been discussed below.
1. Good Communication
This is the only thing that can be done to update each other about the progress of the work! If your employees are based in different countries then having good communication skills are a must. All forms of communication should be used, such as phone calls, video calls, emails, and messages.
2. Get Comfortable with Video calls
Video calls can be a good substitute for letting in person. You can even share your laptop or tablet screen with the other participants of the video call, and discuss any technical issues that you or another employee must be facing. It is not just about the issues that require screen sharing; even sharing of ideas can be done easily.
3. Pick up the Phone
Another way of communicating is phone calls. Phone calls are a quick and easy way of contacting other team members and updating them about the progress or issues faced during the app development process.
4. Pay Attention to the Time Zones
Working remotely also means that people from different countries are hired. This brings us to the main issue of different time zones. If you happen to be in a situation like this, then it is expected that you should keep a track of the time difference between you and other employees. This means that if you want to contact an employee, who is fast asleep according to his time zone, you would have to be considerate towards them, and send them a message instead of calling them.
5. Use the Technology Available to you
Since working remotely is on the rise, various platforms are available that allow all employees to stay connected and keep abreast of each other’s work. Moreover, if you are willing to spend, you can even use customized software for managing and running your team.
What Should be the Best Practice for Managing Remote Teams?
All members of the remote teams must be updated about all the work-related issues and requirements all the time. For this reason, a custom made software or any other well-known platform for this purpose can suffice. Furthermore, the employees must be paid timely and none of the work ethics and rules should be violated in any way. One thing that must be kept in mind are the working remotely abroad taxes. If you run an app development company in the United States, and if your employee is working remotely from Australia, you must keep in mind the tax policies of Australia, and pay the employee accordingly.
—Is there any chance to travel while working remotely?
Working remotely might require you to travel for work once in a blue moon. The chances of it happening are very very rare, but it may still be required.
—What is the best technology for working remotely?
Video calls, phone calls, messages, emails, specific platforms, and software can be used to be updated at all times.
—What are the tips and tools to hire app developers from anywhere in the world to work remotely?
Using international job searching platforms to post for new job openings is a useful way of hiring app developers for working remotely. Furthermore, you can even post job openings on your official website where candidates can apply.
—What are some common misconceptions about remote work?
Remote working means that you can meet all your work deadlines from the comfort of your home. This does not indicate that people who work remotely do not work at all. A few of the misconceptions about remote working have been listed below:
-Remote workers are always available
-Remote workers do not work
-Remote workers do not communicate properly
—How to negotiate with the App development team working remotely?
You can use video calls, phone calls, messages, emails, internal software, and other well-known platforms to negotiate with your remotely working app development team.
—What should be a sample project plan for the mobile app development remote team?
Providing your team members with sample work is good practice. This gives your team members an insight into what you are looking for, and what are your requirements. Providing references is always encouraged, as long as there is no plagiarism involved.
—Best tips to hire a project manager for app development remotely?
While looking for a project manager for your app development team, you must ask the candidate for their work samples and study them thoroughly, to ensure you both are on the same page. Apart from work samples, you must look at the candidate’s work experience. A person who has a few more years of experience under his belt, as compared to a fresh graduate, would be able to provide you with more versatility than the fresh graduate.
—Best tips for managing remote app developer or employees?
The key to managing your remote employees well is to have good communication amongst all team members. Lack of communication causes a lot of delays and misunderstands. Also, remotely working employees should be paid timely.