By Melissa Paulsen

On October 11, 2022, the Montana High Tech Business Alliance and Glacier Bank hosted a discussion with Montana professionals who are managing remote teams around the globe and/or working remotely themselves. Panelists included:

• Kate Mayer, Sr. GTM and Revenue Marketing Leader, Insight

• Rachel Thompson, Strategic Client Development Lead, New Era ADR

• Gregg Barrett, Founder and CEO, WaterStreet Company

• Kelly Schwager, VP Global Communications, Oracle

Mickeli Bedore, advisor for Endpoint Utility Corp in Kalispell, facilitated the engaging conversation among the panelists and MHTBA members. Topics ranged from the shifts the panelists have noticed in their workplaces due to an influx of remote workers, the best ways teams can bridge the gap between in-person and remote workers, and the widening of the talent pool due to the growing number of remote and hybrid employees in the workforce. Keep reading for some of the key takeaways from the conversation.

#1: Remote Work Has Upended the Hiring Process, Work-Life Balance, and the Workplace

The next generation of employees are developing a different set of expectations from their employers with an increased demand for more flexibility as opposed to the workforce a decade ago.

Thompson moved to Whitefish during the pandemic and has been working remotely in legal tech ever since. She commented on the shift she has seen in the workforce as more college-graduates and young professionals are now actively seeking out remote positions.

“A lot of the people we're bringing on are Gen Z or very young millennials, and it's very interesting to see how [younger generations] self-select into wanting to be fully remote and [are] thinking [remote work] is the norm,” Thompson said.

Thompson said one of the reasons for why remote companies like New Era ADR are so successful is because of how their teams are structured to be 100% remote without a physical office. “No one feels like they're missing out or that they’re being left out,” she added.

New Era ADR is a fully remote legal tech platform that resolves legal disputes in under 100 days.

Each panelist agreed that companies are hiring harder now, meaning that the interview process is becoming longer and more detailed to see if candidates can work from home as disciplined self-starters. For example, at New Era ADR, Thompson discussed how new hires are interviewed by every member of the team. Following the interview, the New Era ADR team makes the hiring decision collectively.  

One major challenge employers and employees face with the rise of remote work is that the risk for burnout is increased since there’s no physical separation between the office and home.

Mayer works remotely for Insight, an IT services and consulting company based out of Arizona. With her perspective as a remote employee and her experiences assisting clients who follow a hybrid workplace model, she emphasized the importance of setting boundaries to remedy burnout, especially for those who work remotely full-time.

“The burnout piece is very real in a remote work environment because it is always on,” Mayer said. “People have to really create their own boundaries about when they're going to be available [and] what they're going to respond to. Everyone does it differently.”

Mayer has also noticed how remote work has led to a better shift in the work-life balance of employees, as well as a change in how employees are more open to sharing their personal lives with their employer.

“Another thing remote work has done is allow people to show more of their whole selves,” she said. “It's that integration of being on camera and your dog’s running in the background or your kids, [so] people get much better visibility into each other’s lives outside of work. So, there’s that connection point and I think people are more open about their personal lives now, based on remote work. There is a very deliberate motion to make a connection with employees.”

#2: Deliberate Onboarding, Tech Tools, and Performance Metrics Support the Success of Remote Workers

Besides adopting more rigorous hiring practices, companies are also growing more creative in their onboarding practices for remote employees to bridge the gap between in-person and remote workers.

Companies like Oracle, a computer software company that sells cloud-engineering services and systems and database management systems, are being more intentional about how they think about remote employees through remote-specific onboarding programs. These programs help remote workers set up their Zoom offices and specifically establish the norms and expectations for remote workers.

“We've become very deliberate in how we think about remote workers,” Schwager said. “And one of the things we think about first is access. How do you make sure that [remote employees] have the same level of access to information, [and] the same opportunities to build networks. When you're in a 100%, remote situation, particularly during COVID, we were very deliberate about setting up norms for teams, especially new teams that were forming, and then checking in to make sure that that those norms are being followed.”

Schwager, who oversees a global team that is completely remote, suggested managers make sure they’re intentionally reaching out to their remote employees and ensuring everybody has an opportunity to speak during meetings. Using tools like a chat box, a raise hand button, or a Q/A function are all great ways to give remote employees opportunities to contribute to the discussion without putting them on the spot.

See our list below for additional helpful collaboration tools panelists shared:

• Brainwriting – a team collaboration method where instead of having people all speak in a meeting, which sometimes can be intimidating, allows people to submit their ideas anonymously and remotely prior to a group collaboration session.

• HubSpot – a marketing, sales, and customer service platform that helps companies grow efficiently.

• Microsoft Teams – a user-friendly and robust meeting tool that saves on email through its chat feature and can even help with event registration, save files and teams, and assist project managers.

• Slack – a messaging app that can reduce the number of emails and meetings for businesses by providing a quick and effective means of communication among team members.

• Trello – an online project management tool that helps teams collaborate and stay organized through boards.

Oracle also introduced a buddy system in its remote internship program this year to help establish relationships for remote workers by connecting them with a career professional and a veteran employee at the company.

“Interns always had this pair that they could ask questions or bounce ideas off of, and that worked pretty well,” Schwager said. “We spent a lot of time with managers, reminding them, ‘Hey, all the time that you used to spend grabbing someone to go get a quick cup of coffee or walking down the hall? You need to be deliberate about doing that with your remote workers.’ Because, if anything, [managers] need to be doing this more in this [remote] setting.”

Teamwork and occasional opportunities for the team to meet in person are crucial to establishing a strong company culture with remote hires.

“We do a lot of team building remotely to bring that connection point there, especially with new grads,” Mayer said.  “Providing opportunities to be in person at some point is helpful as well.”

As CEO of WaterStreet Company, a Kalispell-based software company consisting of about 90 employees, Barrett cited team metrics as an important factor in helping remote employees succeed, especially during the pandemic.

“We started working a lot more with people, processes, technology, and just focusing on making improvements,” Barrett explained. “So, we had all this energy going into the team for performance metrics. It's difficult for [remote workers] to get off track for very long, so [there are] quicker course corrections. Metrics are published, so everybody can see the team performance, and so that helps us. We made it through [the pandemic] just fine. I think mostly because of all that teamwork before.”

#3: Remote Work Widens the Talent Pool, Allows Montanans to Live Closer to Family

With the number of Montanans working from home on the rise since the pandemic, remote work creates more opportunities to accelerate growth and helps companies easily discover the talent they’re eager to hire.

“[Businesses] were dependent on a handful of employers up until 24 months ago,” Barrett said. “I think [the influx of remote talent] benefits everyone. Places like [the Flathead Valley] are going to grow. So, when you open it up to intellectual capital, where people can come in that have great talent, that’s pretty big, because that was not our profile 24 months ago.”

“I think that's the thing that I'm most excited about is now when we open roles, it's not strictly geography based,” Schwager added.

Whether remote workers wish to live closer to their families by returning home to Montana, or are seeking new career opportunities, the flexibility remote work provides is a large component of why many job seekers desire remote roles.

“It’s about being where you want to be,” Thompson said. “I love that I can live here and live close to family. To me, that's more valuable, really, than any of the tradeoffs.”

About the Publisher: Launched in 2014, the Montana High Tech Business Alliance is a nonpartisan nonprofit association of more than 200 high tech and manufacturing companies and affiliates creating high-paying jobs in Montana. For more information, visit MTHighTech.org or subscribe to our biweekly newsletter.

About the Author: Melissa Paulsen is the Communications Coordinator for the Montana High Tech Business Alliance. She graduated from the University of Montana in 2022 with a BFA in creative writing and a minor in history.