ESSENTIALS MANAGEMENT On top of running a very detailed, comprehensive onboarding process, ReadyForce also adopted a unique attitude toward group activities. “At so many companies, you see this ‘mandatory fun’ thing happening whether anyone wanted to do it or not. At ReadyForce, I think a lot of our experiences were special because they were organic — they came out of people’s personal interests. And the leadership provided the resources and room to do more creative things based upon those interests.” You have to balance the importance of community against the personal freedom of allowing remote work. A popular retention strategy companies use to keep employees happy is lfexible scheduling, particularly by letting employees — and especially engineers — work from home. But how can you reconcile “WFH” with the need to cultivate a sense of community and uniifed culture? There’s no hard and fast rule when it comes to working from home. It really depends on your culture. While there’s rarely an easy answer, Guthrie offers two tips for companies looking to strike the right tone: 1) Make sure managers trust their employees. It’s human nature to think, ‘I don’t see this person in the oiffce, so I subconsciously assume they don’t work as hard.’ Managers need to communicate clearly to employees (and themselves) that they are results-oriented, while employees need to trust that it’s important and justiifed when managers ask for them to be in the oiffce. It’s all about both sides respecting each other’s time and abilities — and, perhaps most importantly, communicating this mutual respect. 2) If you offer “WFH” options for engineers, you should offer it to everyone. Employees otfen get resentful if a remote work policy is perceived to be unfair. “Can salespeople make calls from home too? Unfair treatment is what gets employees hung up,” says Guthrie. It’s best to cratf a policy that preserves serendipitous camaraderie in the oiffce while offering the opportunity for all employees to reap the recharging beneifts of occasional remote work. 124