Ready for your global workforce? Here’s how to manage it

1. Post-Pandemic, workplaces are a far cry from what they used to be. The paradigm
shifted and companies had to adapt to survive. The best solution? Remote working.
Given that firms were obliged to adopt this approach, many of them assumed that
remote working would be, first and foremost, a transitory solution, and second, would
impede productivity. That if employees did not come to work every day, deadlines
would be missed and expectations would not be met. Distributed teams, however,
changed all that.
Research tells us that individuals who work from home waste 10 minutes less each day,
work one extra day per week, and are 47% more efficient. Furthermore, 70% of
individuals who worked from their homes during the epidemic indicate that virtual
meetings are much less tense in 2021, and 64% now favor hybrid conferences.
Given all that, businesses all across the world are rapidly adopting this new work
paradigm, driven by needs and evolving employee preferences. Studies show that 99%
of employees wish to work remotely for at least some time in their careers.
Globally distributed teams are the new black.
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But, what is distributed work?
Emerging models of distributed work
So why should you choose distributed work?
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Your go-to guide for globally
distributed teams
Ashwin Kasturirangan  Add comment  14 min read  September 20, 2022
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2. But, what is distributed work?
A distributed team consists of people working from multiple geographical locations, be it
offices, headquarters sites, private homes, or in the field. It does not prevent on-site
teams but rather denotes that personnel is spread across various sites rather than at a
single physical office.
WFH (Work-from-home) vs WFA (Work-from-anywhere)
Work-from-home employees are those whose primary place of employment is their
home office. Working from home usually refers to a specific individual, but working in
distributed teams is a company-wide approach that includes many – or all – people.
WFA is fairly similar to WFH, with the only difference being that teams are now location-
independent. Employees are still working remotely and are vital parts of your business
whether they want to work at the office, from home, at a neighborhood café, or from
any other part of the world.
Remote work v Distributed work
Remote work refers to an individual worker’s actual location when compared to the main
office. A distributed workforce, on the other hand, is the discipline that a whole business
follows to allow people to work from multiple places.
Furthermore, hiring for distributed teams give employers access to a larger talent pool,
and gives employees more opportunities for professional progression and mobility.
Unlock a global talent pool
Work 24/7
Increase your productivity
Diversify your org
Optimize your expenses
Prepare for challenges
Employee disconnect
Lack of company culture
Inertial productivity
Communication
Ready for your global workforce? Here’s how to manage it
Effective onboarding
Use your resources
Encourage transparency
Work asynchronously
The future is distributed – your workforce should be too!

3. Emerging models of distributed work
GICs (Global In-House Centres), GDCs (Global Development Centres), and GTCs (Global
Technology Centres) do more than only in-house internal IT and operational tasks. They
have transitioned into Global Capability Centres (GCCs), acting as a crucial component
of company strategy and goals. Today, GCCs drive process and efficiency gains for many
multinational businesses. Moreover, GCCs develop new capabilities, direct cross-
functional projects, and launch new services and products based on ideas created within
these centers.
There are certain factors that you need to keep in mind when hiring for a GCC, like:
Managing expectations – New hires in GCCs are likely not aware of company
norms and practices, so give them time to acclimate.
Role requirements – Carefully define exactly what you want your new hire to do,
even if it isn’t aligned with the job title. That’ll get you hires who know what is
expected of them.
Maintain company culture – This is hard to do when everyone is offline – but if a
GCC feels like it’s an HQ, they’re motivated to perform better.
Take your time – When hiring for a GCC, the talent pool available is enormous.
Don’t rush if you think you found the right fit, there could be someone better
waiting for you!
So why should you choose distributed work?
Whether you’re a multinational company or a rapidly expanding startup – a distributed
workforce offers multiple benefits to organizations of all sizes.
Unlock a global talent pool
The availability of crucial talent was cited as their greatest difficulty by 80% of tech
CEOs. Hiring across a global pool of talent enables organizations to access highly skilled
talent at an extremely competitive cost. Superior talent can be up to 8X as efficient as
typical workers, as per McKinsey & Co. Organisations can access and hire the top workers
on the market, wherever they may be, by thinking beyond location-dependent teams.
Work 24/7
Employees work from wherever they are thanks to a global workforce. Businesses that
need coverage around-the-clock can distribute these tasks throughout time zones so

4. that someone is constantly working. To reduce costs, offices can be situated in less
costly places. Improved work-life balance could also be advantageous to employees.
Getting work done at any given time is a huge benefit, especially for companies that
don’t have as large a workforce as their rival MNCs.
Increase your productivity
Working from home enhanced productivity by 13%, according to a Stanford study.
Businesses can save money on various resources and boost productivity by giving
employees access to the tools and technologies that enable distributed working.
Motivated workers can complete more work in less time, in addition to being more
disciplined.
Diversify your org
You’re able to hire people from a variety of origins, perspectives, and cultures when you
have a skill base that extends well outside your workplace. You might use this to fulfill
your company’s responsibilities to diversity, equality, and inclusion (DE&I).
Greater gender diversity on executive teams was associated with 25% higher
profitability, according to a McKinsey examination of how diversity matters. Higher
ethnic diversity was associated with a 36% higher likelihood of profitability.
Optimize your expenses
The annual cost of office space per employee is, on average, $18,000. An organization’s
main office footprint can be significantly reduced using a globally distributed staff. Cost
factors for businesses include overhead expenses for things like office space, internet,
power, water, and more. Decentralization and lower IT expenses are also made possible
when businesses move applications off-site to the cloud.
Prepare for challenges
Just like with anything, a globally distributed workforce doesn’t come without its fair
share of challenges. What’s important is how you prepare to face and overcome these.
Employee disconnect
There are many possibilities for interaction between coworkers in the office. These
seemingly little moments of connection—moments that we didn’t pay much

5. consideration to—help to improve team dynamics, foster a sense of community, and
spark cooperation among groups and group members.
In these circumstances, what is often done in person should be done online. Your
distributed team needs to connect with each other to better gel with each other. It helps
them work better together.
Lack of company culture
Culture must be preserved in the age of computer displays. It’s crucial to provide
opportunities for interactions that are unrelated to business. It enables employees to get
to know one another better, fostering closer bonds and a more cohesive distributed
team.
In assessing employment possibilities, 57% of job searchers across all professional levels
consider culture as essential as salary. To build and reinforce business culture, managers
and leadership would have to recreate certain events throughout every employee’s
tenure at work.
Inertial productivity
Lack of face-to-face interaction may have a detrimental effect on morale and
productivity. Most workers like their coworkers’ company, whether they are collaborating
in a meeting room or unwinding with them at an event on a Friday after a productive
week.
While workers themselves claimed that this method of working boosted productivity,
businesses may encounter difficulties on its process level.
Communication
A distributed team has to communicate with deliberate purpose. Clear regulations that
specify the appropriate cadence and optimal mediums for various forms of
communication are beneficial. To respect people’s time, you could make a rule that,
unless it’s an exigency, no one is anticipated to reply to messages submitted after
business hours.
When there are no proper conversation channels, employees become less friendly and
trusting of each other. This leads to disruption of workflow dynamics and even conflicts
and arguments.

6. By making sure that each employee of the distributed team feels respected, heard, and
supported, you can boost engagement. Keep in mind that working remotely often gets
lonely.
Ready for your global workforce? Here’s how to
manage it
Management of a distributed workforce brings additional difficulties. For a firm to
succeed going forward, it is essential to sustain staff productivity and attention to work-
related duties.
Collaboration and communication, whether on a Zoom conference, through a Slack
channel, or by exchanging Google documents, are the lifeblood of any remote team.
Effective onboarding
Since they were formerly uncommon, remote workers are now a significant portion of
the workforce. In actuality, since 2005, there has been a 159% growth in the number of
persons who work remotely. There has been a change in how businesses onboard new
employees as a result of a growing population working remotely. It’s time to change
onboarding and turn it employee-focused since efficient onboarding increases
retention.
Here’s how you can smoothen your onboarding process:
Get employees online – The only way remote employees connect with their
teams is through the web. Get them acclimatized to your tech and practices.
Send welcome packages – Send them a welcome present, organize a virtual lunch
on their first day, and inquire about what will help them succeed the most in their
new position. This makes the employees feel at home instantly.
Virtualize offline experiences – Bring to life all of the little thoughtful touches that
staff members often encounter at work.
Prioritize basics – The employee isn’t omniscient. Carefully elucidate your way of
doing things, and get them on the same page.
Don’t be too serious – One of the key things is the first 90 days for a fresh hire’s
integration into a company. The transition from engagement to assimilation
should be made by allowing time for socializing and learning.
Use your resources

7. Utilize the array of tools and services at your disposal to efficiently interact and
cooperate with members of your distributed team. Consider employing other solutions
to streamline program administration, communication, and document sharing in
combination with videoconferencing systems so that remote members of the team can
effortlessly interact and collaborate despite physical separation.
Encourage transparency
Clarity and consistency are essential for effective communication. It’s crucial to explain
expectations, duties, and objectives before a distributed team starts working so that
everyone is aware of their roles.
When functioning with independent talent, information sharing becomes even more
essential. Independent professionals are accustomed to launching into projects and
scaling up rapidly, but they might not be aware of the information presented at internal
meetings or the specifics of the industry.
Twitter, one of the world’s largest social media organizations, has clear views on how to
communicate in distributed teams. Twitter is known to have one of the most successful
distributed models in the world, and they frequently talk about it on their blog!
Work asynchronously
The idea behind asynchronous work is straightforward: Use your resources as efficiently
as you can, record everything, hand the project over to the next person, and then go on
to something else.
Companies that operate asynchronously ought to have a low-context culture. This
indicates that communication is clear and concise. By providing further background,
uncertainty is eliminated and the chance of misinterpretation is reduced. Crystal clear
understanding between team members is crucial, especially for a distributed team.
Gitlab has over 1800 employees spread across 60 countries and is a pioneer in
asynchronous work. They detailed their turbulent but steadfast route to building a good
distributed team in The Remote Manifesto.
The future is distributed – your workforce should
be too!
The issues of today cannot be solved with yesterday’s answers. Workers and enterprises
are liberated from constraints imposed by being confined to a single place by distributed

8. teams & remote workforces. The years 2020 and 2021 have amply demonstrated the
insufficiency of the old, centralized workforce in a contemporary, hyper-productive
economy.
If you’re stuck to the formal and traditional structure of working strictly in-office – you’re
missing out on driving forward revenue, productivity, and stature. Business as usual is no
longer acceptable and employees are ready to leave companies with rigid working
practices. Want a piece? Talent500 takes care of all your global workforce needs.
With AI-powered algorithms and vetted professionals, we provide you with the best
talent along with an insight into how to manage your teams to get the best out of them.
To know what more we can do for you, you can request a consultation.
Globally distributed teams are the future. Get global, or get going!
#global teams distributed teams distributed workforce global teams

8 reasons to start hiring remote
workers today

Six tips to overcome challenges in
managing a global team
0
Ashwin Kasturirangan
Entrepreneur & strategy consultant with experience in building & scaling
up new businesses and executing large-scale complex cross-functional
projects.
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