For a home service business, “remote team” can sound a little contradictory. After all, your technicians need to be on the job site executing installations, repairs or replacements.
But a lot of what keeps those jobs moving happens elsewhere: scheduling, customer follow-up, bookkeeping, project coordination, purchasing, CRM updates, overall admin work, among other responsibilities that don't necessarily require that someone sits in the same building as you.
Right now, we're seeing more and more business owners becoming comfortable with that distinction and adopting either a fully remote or hybrid work model. But what does it take to make it work for your business?
For us, building a successful remote team comes down to everyone understanding their role, expectations being clearly communicated, and work being organized through strong systems. So, pretty much, the same fundamentals that make an in-person team effective still apply, but a remote environment requires owners and managers to be more intentional about them.
So, let’s get into what it takes to build a successful remote team.
1. Define what success looks like
Clear expectations matter in any team, but they become particularly important when people aren't sharing the same physical workspace.
Give the person clear ownership:
- What are they responsible for?
- What decisions can they make for themselves?
- What needs approval?
- What should happen daily, weekly, or monthly?
Establish those expectations early and give clear verbal and written guidelines around work hours, response times, communication methods, deadlines, attendance, and quality standards. The person should also know what to do if they are unavailable, running behind, or need help.
Performance should be measured through results, quality, consistency, and communication. Are tasks completed on time? Is the work accurate? Is the person reliable and responsive? Can they solve routine problems appropriately? Those indicators tell you much more than whether someone appears “busy” or is online at a particular moment.
2. Encourage autonomy and ownership
Relevant experience matters, but working successfully in a remote role also requires a particular set of soft skills. The right person should be able to manage their responsibilities independently, organize their time, communicate clearly, and follow through without needing constant direction.
There will always be situations that aren't covered perfectly by an SOP. A customer might ask something unexpected, or a technician's schedule might change at the last minute. The right team member will know when they can solve something themselves and when they need to involve someone else.
This is where interviewing and vetting become crucial. Ask candidates how they've handled situations similar to those they'll encounter in the role. Talk through real scenarios from your business and assess how they respond.
Jeff Hyman, talent acquisition expert and author of Recruit Rockstars, highlights this in a recent conversation with our co-founder: consistency is part of a strong interview process. Asking candidates the same core questions provides a better basis for comparison and helps you identify patterns in how different people approach the same situations.
3. Give remote onboarding the attention it deserves
A new team member needs to understand how your company works. That includes the customer experience, how work moves between departments, who makes which decisions, and what happens before and after the responsibilities they own.
Someone supporting scheduling, for example, needs to understand more than how to put an appointment on a calendar. They should know how jobs are prioritized, how long different appointments take, which technicians handle each type of work, and what to do when the schedule changes.
A structured first few weeks can include:
- Introductions to the people they'll work with
- Training on systems and processes
- Time to observe how the work is handled
- Clear priorities for the first 30 days
- Regular opportunities to ask questions and review progress
Onboarding should also introduce the tools used for communication, task management, file sharing, meetings, and documentation. The purpose of each tool should be clear, including what information belongs there and how the rest of the team uses it.
4. Establish communication guidelines
Communication protocols are the backbone of any successful remote work model. Remote employees need to know how information moves, where decisions are documented, and when something requires a faster response. That means being clear about which tools to use and when:
- Chat for quick questions
- Email for formal updates
- Calls or meetings for conversations that need real-time discussion.
They should also know what guidelines to follow when sharing customer, schedule, and project updates – how they should be recorded so everyone who needs the information can find it later.
Same with meetings, a clear protocol helps keep conversations focused and productive. Each one should have a defined purpose, include the right participants, and specify what needs to be discussed or prepared in advance.
Important instructions, decisions, and next steps should be documented in the appropriate system. Everyone involved should know what was decided, who is responsible for each action, and when it should be completed.
These guidelines should be documented in a centralized place that the team can reference at any time. They should also be reinforced through regular check-ins at the beginning, so following them becomes part of how the team works every day. Make sure to cover which channels to use, expected response times, when to escalate an issue, and where decisions and process updates should be recorded.
5. Make remote and local employees one team
Remote and in-person employees should operate with the same expectations and use the same systems and channels whenever possible. This way, important information reaches everyone who needs it, rather than circulating only among the people in the office.
A strong remote culture also requires trust, recognition, and consistency from leadership. Include remote professionals in relevant meetings and company updates, keep them informed about changes that affect their work and create opportunities for them to communicate directly with the people they work with regularly.
At WorkBetterNow, we've helped businesses build dream teams with WBN Certified Professionals™, giving us a close look at what makes these relationships successful over time. Clear roles, thoughtful onboarding, consistent communication, and trust all play a part. More importantly, many of the practices that make remote teams successful are simply good practices for building stronger teams overall.
Every business will approach remote talent differently depending on its people, processes, and the work that needs to get done. If it's something you're exploring for your own team, we hope these ideas give you a useful place to start.