Documentation: Why it matters before recruiting remote staff

A new report has underscored the importance of documentation in order to get started with hiring remote employees. 

The paper, released by Remote, advised organisations to "start documenting everything" if they want to be ready to recruit remote employees. 

It made the suggestion as it pointed out that some company knowledge may exist solely within the heads of employees. 

"You might be shocked at the amount of information bottlenecks just because something simple isn't documented," the paper said. 

It urged employers to establish a space where staff can document everything that they know about various processes within the firm in order to streamline information. 

"Set up a secure, designated space for each team to record notes, guides, and best practices, and help employees use these repositories instead of sending emails back and forth," the report read.

Getting ready to hire remote staff

Documentation is just one of the four measures Remote outlined to prepare employers before they start hiring employees remotely. 

According to Remote, organisations need to have the culture and infrastructure in place in order to support remote staff. 

"Otherwise, you're likely to come unstuck," the paper warned. 

Aside from documentation, the paper also advised employers to establish project management systems that are easily accessible to employees working outside the office. 

"This might involve some input from your IT security team but, in general, it's best to work with partners that treat collaborative cloud storage as the default," the paper said. "If you're relying on physical tools like notes on a board, files in a cabinet, or an internal mail system, you need to update." 

It also urged organisations to "default to public channels" and encourage employees to communicate publicly unless talking about sensitive information. 

"Remote workers depend on always-accessible information and conversations (and it increases awareness of what's going on across departments)," the paper said. "For instance, instead of private messages, tell your people to ask questions on public channels, and publish meeting recordings." 

Finally, it also told employers to start converting to asynchronous work if they want to hire remote staff. 

"Teams with workers in multiple time zones cannot operate at peak efficiency when people have to wait on one another to move projects forward. As a result, you need to operate with the understanding that hours will vary," the paper said. 

It told employers to "take advantage" of the situation and push projects forward around the clock instead. 

"Empower your team to work when it's most productive for them, and you’ll reap the benefits," it said. 

Read more on how to adopt asynchronous work in this whitepaper from Remote.