Work Anywhere – How Chanty Manage Remote Working

Why work from one place, when you can work from anywhere in the world?

For Chanty, a software company that has built a simple AI-powered team chat; remote working was the best way to go global.

Founder Dmytro Okunyev reveals why they made a choice to introduce remote working. After all, while there are plenty of people in the country that would love to work for the company, not many of them live close to company headquarters.

At Chanty, remote working was a decision to help them discover the best possible talent for their business.

“If I wanted to hire great people, I would have to ask them to relocate, commute daily or work remotely. As it turns out, remote was the best option because I could get the best talent out there, regardless of location. What’s even better, I could now start looking for new people beyond the borders of my country.”

Of course, a big concern for many businesses about remote working is; how can we create a culture where people feel they’re part of the company even though we don’t all work from the same space?

As Dmytro explains, they’ve worked hard to make everyone feel included no matter where in the world they are.

“You need lots of interaction. When people work all day without getting in touch with each other, it can feel like a disbanded group of freelancers, all working for themselves.”

“We have regular meetings because we want to have as much contact as possible. In total, everyone has two weekly meetings. One company meeting where team leads discuss progress and one department meeting where employees discuss KPIs and the progress of ongoing tasks. Besides these two, we also have one-on-one meetings as necessary.”

Creating a team spirit in the culture is vital for any remote working company, which is why Chanty have invested heavily in building processes to make people feel included from day one.

“When someone new joins us, we make sure to give them a warm welcome as the entire team, which is why we always set up a video call with the entire company. The second step is getting to know their team leads, and this is done in their first day of work. The third step is having a call with the coworkers in their team, so we make sure they talk to everyone in their team for about 15 minutes in their first week.”

“We always try to have fun during our calls and company chats so that it’s not all about work. We want everyone to show their human side so that it feels like an actual office, even though we’re scattered across the country and continent.”

With any remote working option, overcoming long distances and time zones can put off many organisations from taking the leap, but not for Chanty.

“Most of our employees work from the same (or similar) timezone, so it’s not that much of a challenge. However, we have people that work flexible hours, which can be a bit difficult to navigate. We have one rule: we set goals, and as long as you achieve those goals, it doesn’t matter when you work at all. Everyone has to be present for the company and team meetings, but other than that, they’re free to work at their own pace.”

There are many benefits to implementing remote working, and Chanty have certainly seen this in the impact it has had on their people.

“We have a few parents who appreciate the ability to work and take care of their small children at the same time. The same goes for those who take care of the elderly.”

“I think the biggest benefit is the time saved, since most of us would have to travel at least an hour every day to get to and from work. Finally, we can save the money we would spend on our commute on something else.”

1.Have everything written down in an employee handbook. Having a handbook that a new remote employee can read from can be immensely helpful in all aspects of their work.

2. Onboarding and training remote employees is vastly different than doing the same process in an office setting. Onboarding is the most important part with remote workers – if you don’t get it right, your employee engagement will plummet and your turnover rate will be very poor.

Find out more about how Chanty have created a productive remote working team, read their awesome eBook from their own experience.