In most cases, during interviews, inadequate freelancers, with whom the dialogue does not work out, are eliminated. But other difficulties arise – for example, with the speed of the contractor’s response. If there is a significant time difference with a freelancer and / or we are working with a “half man,” this risk is likely to work. We may already be late in the evening, when the “half” returns from the main job and sees the tasks that need to be done or corrected.
In addition, the remote worker always feels disconnected from the team, which reduces his motivation. It is important for a specialist to be heard and directly influence the project, feel his contribution and be “his own”.
What to do?
At the stage of selection. If at this stage it is difficult to communicate with the candidate, he does not make contact, then, most likely, in the process of work, the interaction will only become more complicated. You are not on your way.
We take a close look at the type of developer and the city of residence. The optimal time difference is up to 3-4 hours. We find out the contractor’s work schedule and the time when he works and can be in touch in order to quickly resolve issues, for example, if an urgent need to fix a bug or complete a task that slows down the work of other developers on the project.
Before starting work. We introduce the specialist to the team, negotiate the rules of interaction and immerse him in the main processes. The time and format of meetings, the rules for using the task and time tracker, the format for transferring the code, the principles of project management in the corporate repository are just a small part of what we are discussing “on the shore”. Otherwise, from time to time, the contractor transfers the completed tasks to the wrong column in the tracker, tries to coordinate changes in the task list with the team lead, but not with the manager, which slows down the work of the entire team and does not help solve problems.
Working on a project. A freelancer must communicate not only with the project manager, but with the entire team. For example, it is more expedient to discuss questions that arise during code review with the team lead in order to avoid the appearance of a “dead phone” and to solve the problem more effectively.