Ultimate Guide to Remote Work: Tips for Employers & Employees

Remote work continues to be a hot topic, thanks to its many benefits for both employers and employees. But to make this flexible work arrangement fit your career or your company, you need to know best practices, potential challenges, and the most helpful tools to use.

In this guide to remote work you'll learn everything you need to know—from how to look for and land a job to management tips for hiring managers. You're sure to find some useful takeaways whether you're a remote work beginner or a seasoned pro.

What is remote work?

Remote work is a working style that enables employees to work outside of traditional office environments. Employees may work from their homes, co-working spaces, or any other off-site location that is not in a company office.

Thanks to remote work, employers can source top candidates from anywhere in the world. No longer tied to a centralized location, workers can connect digitally to complete their daily tasks.

Some companies (like Livestorm) are remote-first, meaning that a remote work arrangement is the primary approach for all employees. These companies don't have a central office, and employees are scattered across various geographic locations.

Other companies are partially remote. These businesses typically have a main office where some employees work. But others perform work from remote locations.

Remote work benefits for employees

When you compare remote work vs traditional office work, you'll find that remote roles have numerous benefits for employees. We rounded up a few of our favorite perks of this work arrangement.

Improve productivity

Studies have shown that a remote work arrangement leads to higher productivity. The reason remote employees can get more work done in less time? Remote work provides employees with an environment that's within their control. That often means more quiet and fewer interruptions.

Reduce or eliminate commutes

As of 2023, the average one-way commute time in the United States was 26.8 minutes. This means non-remote employees spend almost an hour each day getting to and from work. In contrast, remote work improves efficiency by reducing or eliminating commute times. As a result, remote work provides better work-life balance because employees can choose where to do their jobs and how long to commute.

Foster an inclusive environment

Since remote work removes many physical barriers, fully remote positions are accessible to more people. For example, candidates with disabilities, working parents, or people that live in rural areas can all benefit from the flexibility of remote jobs.

Reduce stress

Consider everything we covered on this list: more time with your family, more free time in general, a quieter, more relaxed work environment, freedom to perform at your optimal level, no sitting in traffic or wearing fancy clothes. Collectively, if all of those benefits of working from home don't lower your blood pressure, we bet at least one or two will.

Experience greater autonomy

Autonomy instills a measure of confidence and pride in the work you do. For the self-starter, this is huge. Many individuals find they work better, faster, and more diligently when they're free from the pressures of someone looking over their shoulder. That level of independence can help you thrive in your current position and the more lucrative one down the road.

Remote work benefits for employers

Not only do employees benefit from remote working, but so do employers.

Remote work permits organizations to cultivate diverse and inclusive workplaces that include people from different socioeconomic backgrounds, geographic locations, and cultural traditions. This is often difficult if the company can only hire from one geographic location.

An additional benefit of this is that managers can draw from a bigger hiring pool. This avoids potential issues from an oversaturated job market.

In addition, a fully or partially remote organization can save costs. Real estate, utilities, travel expenses, and office materials are all reduced when you remove working in an office from the equation.

These savings can then be passed along to the employees via competitive benefits and salaries. It's a surefire way to attract top talent.

Plus, the combined benefits of remote work prevent burnout and make employees more likely to stay with a company longer.

BEST Human Capital & Advisory Group reports that 72% of employers said remote work has a high impact on employee retention, meaning employees are more likely to stick with their company if they have options for remote work.

Employers who have embraced remote work agreements realize benefits beyond cost savings. They're able to keep their employees happy and healthy and improve their overall quality of life. This results in higher job satisfaction, deeper employee loyalty, and lower turnover.

The challenges of remote work

Despite the many benefits, this work arrangement also presents its fair share of problems. Some of the biggest remote work challenges include:

Inadequate software and material

One of the more overlooked aspects of working from home is the lack of direct access to your IT department. This is one reason browser-based tools like Livestorm prove so helpful. They need minimal setup and support, helping you stay productive all day long.

Managing your own schedule

In a perfect world, how you work in the office is exactly how you work at home. However, being surrounded by your personal life (instead of your colleagues) makes it a lot harder to manage your professional schedule.

Keep your schedule organized for a full eight-hour day with productivity and time management tools that segment your day and keep you on task. Take care of your most important tasks first, and try to mirror a day in the office when you work at home.

Team collaboration issues

Remote work can create a disconnect between you and your team. Face time is limited, and time zones can be tricky. This can create silos and make it hard to collaborate as a team.

Secure video conferencing software bridges the gap between you and team members, employees, vendors, or clients. But even when you work remotely, you should make a point to schedule regular, in-person group sessions to build connections and relationships.

Social isolation

Working by yourself for 40 hours a week without physical interaction between you and your coworkers can make you feel isolated. And it can be hard to break the ice with new coworkers when you've never spent time with them in real life.

To avoid feeling alone, schedule periodic in-person meetings and team-building activities with your team members. Arrange after-hours gatherings  with coworkers or professional connections to create deeper relationships in person.

Overworking

Remote workers often put in longer hours than those who work in the office. To avoid overworking, identify the hours you must work. Then, stick to consistent remote work schedule.

What are the best remote jobs?

You can find remote jobs in almost every industry. Here's our roundup of the top roles.

Data entry operator

If you get a remote data entry job, you'll organize and transfer data from one source to another and update relevant databases. For example, you might enter invoices into a spreadsheet or enter hours worked into a database. Data entry operators need great time management skills and a keen eye for detail.

Web designer

Web designers create layouts and build websites and web pages. A successful web designer needs excellent design skills, an eye for aesthetics, a sense of creativity, and technical knowledge. They must also have strong interpersonal skills because they will sometimes be working closely with clients who aren’t always tech savvy.

SEO specialist

Search engine optimization (SEO) specialists work on researching, testing, analyzing, and optimizing website content to make it perform better in search engines like Google or Bing. Besides being a lucrative remote work option, SEO is a great career choice for anyone passionate about digital marketing.

Web developer

As a web developer, you create software applications using a variety of coding languages, such as Javascript, HTML, or Ruby. Generally speaking, software development work requires being able to think logically, the patience to hunt down errors among many lines of code, and fluency in one or more coding languages.

Virtual assistant

A virtual assistant provides support services to a business or person from a remote location. As a virtual assistant, your responsibilities might include administrative tasks such as scheduling appointments or booking travel arrangements. To succeed in the position, you need to be organized and attentive to small details.

Translator

Translators convert writing or speech in one language to another. Great translators can convey style and tone with ease. Translators typically work from home and submit their work electronically. If you speak multiple languages fluently and love solving problems, a translation position could be a perfect fit for you.

How to find remote jobs

Depending on your work experience, you can find the perfect remote role on a job board or a freelance platform. You can even go the distance and start your own company.

Here are our top picks for remote job opportunities. And don't forget to check out our guide on what to wear for a virtual interview before your first meeting.

1. Remote work job boards

While traditional job boards revolved around listings posted on a physical bulletin board, their 21st-century counterpart is digital. There are plenty of options to choose from where you can look for full, partial, or hybrid remote work models in your dream industry.

While most job boards are free, some subscription models help you go even further in your job search. Here is a roundup of our favorite places to look for remote work:

• We Work Remotely: This top-ranked site features both full-time employee and freelance contract roles based all around the world. If you're seeking a remote position in tech, design, marketing, or customer support, We Work Remotely is for you.
• Welcome to the Jungle: This France-based powerhouse lets you segment your job search based on the location of the job, your dream industry, and the kind of contract you're seeking. With a great mix of exciting startups and established multinationals, Welcome to the Jungle is a great place to start if you want to work for international companies.
• Wellfound: The original job board for tech fans and startup professionals alike, Wellfound connects job searchers with a wealth of opportunities geared for the information age. Remote jobs are a dime a dozen on this platform.

Ready to go job hunting? Before moving on to the next stage of the hiring process, check out our piece on the advantages of virtual interviews and get familiar with this new way of hiring.

2. Freelance platforms

You can think of freelance job search platforms as a not-so-distant cousin of remote work job boards. While related, the two focus on different goals. A freelance platform will help you find jobs on a temporary or project basis.

With freelance roles, you set your own workload, hours, and areas of interest. Most of the these platforms host listings for projects or part-time jobs, although at times, companies will post full-time jobs as well.

Let's look at a few platforms you can use to find your next remote job:

• Upwork: It's hard to mention freelance work without bringing Upwork into the mix. Arguably the world's most popular freelance job marketplace, Upwork is a great place to start looking for your next gig. Don't expect any results overnight, as Upwork is notoriously competitive.
• PeoplePerHour: Similar to Upwork, PeoplePerHour is a virtual marketplace for sellers and clients. With the ability to leave ratings and reviews after each collaboration, PeoplePerHour is a fan favorite of the more cautious among us.
• Guru: An excellent choice for the more technologically inclined, Guru caters to a clientele looking for experts in IT, web, or software development.

3. Apply to jobs at Livestorm

As a remote-first company, we consider ourselves to be experts at building and onboarding a remote team. With the ability to hire top candidates from anywhere in the world, we've managed to scale our team 8x in a few months with no plans of stopping any time soon.

Interested in learning more? See what life at Livestorm is like, and check out our job board.

How to be productive when working from home: Tips for remote employees

Now that you've found your dream remote job and cut your commute time down to how long it takes you to get from your bedroom to the couch, use these suggestions to set yourself up for success.

Build the best home office setup

It's easy to get your home office setup wrong. Instead of looking for a quick solution, choose equipment that will suit your needs for the long term.

Always aim to have a dedicated space for your work that's free from interruptions. Whether this means banning any pets or humans from your co-living space between certain hours or just finding a room where you can focus, make sure you can work uninterrupted.

After you've found your spot and claimed it as your own, build your home office. This means including items like a desk, an ergonomic chair, an extra monitor, and great lighting so you can look good in video calls.

Finally, you'll want to get your tech up to speed. Your Wi-Fi should be lightning-fast. Think you've got it all covered? Let's check out what tools you're using next.

Use the right video and collaboration tools

You need need a way to communicate with your team and collaborate from a distance. Video engagement tools like Livestorm will help you do just that.

Perfect for everything from one-to-one meetings to large conferences, Livestorm is highly adaptable for your remote needs. As a remote-first company, we've put our money where our mouth is by using our own platform as our exclusive video communication tool.

This means all of the team meetings, keynote addresses, company Q&As, and employee onboarding sessions are hosted right on Livestorm. The best perk? You can opt to have your events recorded and shared automatically with registrants afterward so teammates who miss work can get up to speed on their own time.

Don't stop there. Popular tools like Slack, Asana, Notion, Basecamp, and Trello can help you stay organized and work with remote employees more easily. You can even use remote work tools like Payfit and Mooncard to manage payroll, HR tasks, and business expenses.

Get to know your virtual team

Many video engagement tools have features that are designed to help teams collaborate. Chat boxes, emoji reactions, questions submissions, and more can make it easy to participate in ice breakers during virtual events and meetings.

Engaging in work topics like this has two benefits. First, it shows your supervisors that you’re fully present and involved, even from a distance. Second, it helps lighten the mood and ease any tension the team might be feeling.

If you have a leadership position within your organization, you can also use video engagement tools to host fun virtual team building activities like:

• Group trivia contests
• Show and tell activities, wherein employees share favorite things they’ve collected
• Virtual classes, either fun (like cooking) or work-related (like coding)

Practice good virtual meeting etiquette

Of course, work needs to be more than fun and engaging. It also needs to be productive. Which is why it’s a good idea to learn (or reiterate) some of the remote work ground rules and etiquette designed to keep everything running smoothly.

For instance, make sure that you always show up a little early for remote meetings. This will give you a few minutes to make sure your connection is strong, and all your technology is functioning correctly.

It’s also important to know some virtual best practices that can help you look more professional:

• Eliminating background clutter like unwashed laundry, distracting artwork, unmade beds, and litter boxes. The only thing your team members should be focusing on during your call is you.
• Minimizing background noise like traffic, beeping, barking, and lawn mowing. Ask your employees if the sound of typing irritates them. If so, mute yourself when not talking.
• Eating food before or after the meeting, not during.

Dress professionally when working from home

Just because you're able to work from home doesn't mean your wardrobe should suffer. Remote work may prompt you to dress more casually than you did when working in the office. But dressing professionally for remote work can have seriously positive effects on your performance and mental health.

Take this study that pitted a group of participants wearing white lab coats against a group of participants wearing plain street clothes. The study found that the individuals wearing lab coats achieved better scores on attention tests than those who didn’t, even though they were alike in terms of age, education level, and intellect.

The verdict? If you dress the part, you really can bring more energy, concentration, and focus to your work.

Work with yourself to set a routine

“Set a schedule and stick to it” is standard advice for remote workers. You might even be tired of hearing it because you know all too well that for people who work from home, creating a solid work routine is much easier said than done.

The key to setting a work routine you truly stick with is to work with yourself, not against yourself. Craft a routine that revolves around a custom or habit you already have.

What in your current routine indicates you're about to start working? It might be sitting down with a cup of coffee or returning home after a morning jog. Even something as simple as brushing your teeth or getting dressed can help signal your brain that it’s time to kick off your workday.

There’s no need to start in the morning. If your productivity is highest in the afternoon or evening, work with it. If you coordinate your work schedule with the rhythms and patterns you’re already following, you'll have an easier time sticking with it.

Set boundaries between remote work and home life

When you’re working from home, distractions are inevitable. The solution?  Set boundaries. Let your partner, roommates, children, or pets know that your door (literally or metaphorically) is closed until working hours are over.

Don’t be afraid to get the help you need. If you relied on nannies, babysitters, dog walkers, and pet sitters before remote working, there’s no need to forgo those resources now. You’re still working, even if your commute is a lot shorter.

Take regular breaks

Working without breaks is bad for business. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that working too hard, for too long, often results in inferior performance and deliverables.

So, yes, you want that PowerPoint presentation to be done on time. But you also need it to be articulate, informative, and engaging. To do that, your brain needs to be at its best.

Take some time each day to pause, get some fresh air, and step away from your desk, both mentally and physically. If pausing work is tough for you, you might consider using an app that blocks certain work-related websites or locks you out of your computer during certain times.

How to manage remote employees effectively

In-person management isn't always easy. But managing in an online setting can amplify issues with communication., leadership, and organization. Use our suggestions to build a more effective remote team.

1. Set clear productivity standards

Whether your team works in a central or remote office, they need to know what you expect from them. But that doesn't mean you should micromanage.

Instead, clearly communicate when your team is required to work, if a standard schedule is optional, and which objectives they're responsible for meeting. Clarify what kind of work product you expect from remote employees. Lay out a game plan and trust your team to stick to it.

2. Use the right remote work tools

With a mix of video conferencing software and asynchronous tools, you can track employee progress and touch base with them regularly. Here are a few tools to consider:

• Task management tools like Asana or Trello can help you keep projects moving along smoothly
• Slack plugins like Standup Alice give your team an opportunity to list their top goals and challenges for the day
• Video engagement tools like Livestorm enable face-to-face conversations and team meetings
• Business expense management tools like Spendesk, which is designed for virtual teams

To collaborate efficiently, your team may also need hardware like:

• A work-only desktop or laptop computer
• Scanners, printers, or backup drives
• An ergonomic mouse, keyboard, or chair
• Microphones and webcams to make communication cleaner and clearer

3. Choose the right video engagement software

Clear communication is a must when working remotely. Since almost all of your interactions will take place via a screen, it’s crucial to choose a video engagement platform that’s steady and reliable.

One good tip is to choose a browser-based platform, rather than one which requires downloads and installations. Browser-based video platforms use P2P technology to connect users, meaning that they don't require a third-party server or app to facilitate the transmission. This means glitches and lags occur much less often (if at all).

4. Encourage asynchronous communication

When your team can work from anywhere and in any time zone, they may feel compelled to check emails and respond to Slack messages around the clock. However, some research suggests that this can have a harmful effect on productivity.

According to research by the Harvard Business Review, the time employees spend on collaboration has increased by more than 50% over the past two decades. Researchers found it was not uncommon for workers to spend a full 80% of their workdays communicating with colleagues in the form of email, meetings, and instant messaging apps.

Researchers concluded that all of these real-time communication interruptions drain employees’ mental resources, disrupt focus, and generally impede progress on assignments.

To avoid this downside, try to embrace a more flexible work schedule and an asynchronous approach to communication. This permits employees to respond to emails and other messages in their own time, not as soon as the messages are received.

Because employees don’t have to address each message as it comes in, they can block off large chunks of uninterrupted time to perform high-value deep focus work—the type that creates the most value for organizations.

5. Schedule specific times for team meetings and interaction

Even if your team is distributed around the world, it's important to schedule regular check-ins to keep everyone on the same page. You don't necessarily need to meet daily, but you should plan to check in at least once per week.

If possible, try scheduling these meetings during off-peak times to ensure maximum availability. Establishing a routine also helps people to work more comfortably in their roles and understand how to work together more effectively. You can also organize virtual team building activities to bring your team together.

6. Build your remote workforce through virtual interviews

Thanks to the rise of full-time remote work, employees can work from different locations for almost any company. This means you can seek top employees from around the country or the globe.

This has a couple of benefits. First, you can screen the best candidate with the best qualifications anywhere, not just in your immediate area.

It also expedites the interviewing process. Your potential hire doesn’t have the stress of traveling to a new place, and you don’t have to worry about compensating them for it. Instead, you can interview virtually using a video conferencing tool like Livestorm.

Once you’ve got one or two top options picked out, it’s always a good idea to meet in person—but you can vet the majority of candidates from afar.

7. Help orient newcomers with video onboarding

Once you’ve selected your ideal candidate, you can use the same video collaboration tool (e.g., Livestorm) you used to interview them to bring them on board. Using video for the employee onboarding process is an easy and helpful way to communicate your company’s core values, policies, and processes, as well as introduce them to their fellow teammates.

And unlike in-person onboarding, video onboarding allows new hires to review training materials from their remote work site at any time.

Video onboarding also tends to benefit employers, too. It frees up time for administrative or HR team members, which can help lower costs. And video an engaging medium that allows you to create a more personalized experience for new hires.

Build a better remote team with video engagement

If the future of work is remote, then the most successful people will be those who are able to thrive in a remote environment. Invest time in learning the skills and the technology that help you work effectively from any location.

Livestorm's video engagement platform is made for your remote team. This easy-to-use browser-based tool provides everything you need to run virtual meetings and events. To test Livestorm and get started, simply create a free account.