Hey! This is the Daily Overpass! My name is Eric and I make apps! Now today, I want
to talk about the one thing we started doing this year that really improve the
productivity of our remote team.
Okay, so last week I introduced you to my team. I was sitting on the beach with
Rowena and Sandee. Introduced you to them. It was like the first time
we've all been in the same place and it was actually kind of nice.
Even this week, being in the office, it's been nice that we've all - we got to know
each other a lot better last week. You know, sitting around, having -
chatting about this, that and the other day, talking about what, how we
can improve things, the projects that we have on in the moment, the projects in
the past and having a laugh about those kind of things. And it was really great!
I got one of the comments on that video last week was from Future
successors who said, "Can you make a follow-up video on this and maybe expand
on it? I know exactly what you mean with the frustrations on Upwork and I've been
trying to find reliable people for a while." Dude, I can tell you some
stories on one of these, don't get me started. "Would love to hear
more tips about finding people, hiring, training them etc etc. Thanks."
Now, I've already done a video on how I find people. I think it was episode 66
last year, which I used a website called Onlinejobs.ph which that is not an
endorsement. I've had lots of trouble with that, but it's just really
finding the right people. I've been through so many people on the team, I
mentioned this before, just to find the right people. I'm not so much
interested in skills, although skills are important but more the right - just the
right attitude, all that kind of stuff. And I've just accepted the fact
that I have to go through a lot of people to find the really good ones. I
just did - there has to be that, you hire and then and then let go, hire and then let
go and everything like that. Now, I used to beat myself up about it in the
beginning, thinking why can't I find good people. But that's just - that's
just the way that it goes. Sometimes, you've got to find those right people
which you really gel and click with and I'm really lucky to have the team that I
do at the moment. And every time we expand, it's like
really, it's -I tread carefully because I've just been burned in the
past so many times and a lot of times, I had to come to the
conclusion that it's either there's like a lot of bad people out
or I'm not really good as a manager. I said this last week, I'm npt a very good
manager. That is not hyperbole, that is fact. And so, it's getting
through a lot of people and all this stuff. So, check out that video, I talked
on episode 66, I've talked a little bit about how, about some of the problems
I've had in the past. Now, one of the big things we did this year to improve
things was - right now we have a daily call. Almost like if you're - if you're, if
you do scrum, it's like having the daily scrum. Like every day at nine o'clock,
we have nine o'clock UK time, 5:00 p.m. in the Philippines, we have our a daily
like five ten-minute phone call, we use Slack calls. So we use voice. We try
to do it with just chat before, we tried to do with the webcams, we did once a
week, we do webcam conversations which really helps to see each other. But
every day, we do the phone call and it's - I wish we had to implemented this so
much longer - so much longer before because it is such an obvious thing.
You know, if you're in an office you need to have that
communication. Now, one of the things we talked about was like moral was actually
kind of low towards the end of last year because I was super stressed out
with a few different projects. Our revenue was falling. There
was all these different things going on and I was just stressed out. So, I didn't
have a lot of time to chat on Slack and everything like that. You know, some
members of the team may have felt like they didn't have a lot of work to do.
They felt like they were kind of just becoming less and less important
because everybody wants to contribute. We're all - we're all behind the
Overpass, we're all pushing this boulder up the hill and if they don't understand- if they
don't see how can they help, then obviously -this one, I mean finding the right people.
So, one of the best things about having the daily call is we go through and we
talk about what everybody's working on just like a daily scrum. I start with
myself, this is what I plan on doing today, I'm gonna work on this document
for a client, I'm gonna do this code for this client project, we're gonna
try do a little bit of prospecting, I'm gonna do this, that and the other thing
and then I'll say go around what I think everybody's working on. And also
what they're thinking. I always say can you work on this, can you do that,
what are you working on and I think everybody's just making
sure that everybody's busy because like I said, this is one of the failings that
I have in the past was just not keeping everyone busy.
Yeah, not because everybody wants to contribute and it's
really working out. It's having that daily call, it's probably the best thing
I've done going forward or since the beginning of this year. When we talked
about things have just turned around since January this year because
we have that daily phone call. And it's just having voice because sometimes when I'm
stressed, you can tell in chat. They were saying, they were telling,
"We can tell when you're stressed out in chat because you give these short
answers and everything." And I do. I might be smiling in this video but
sometimes I'm just "Grrrr!!!" So, it's - if you hire someone, make sure
communication is always the biggest thing. I mean, it's so obvious and
I've been so bad about it in the past. Having that daily call is
probably the best thing and and finding the right people. If you are looking for
a full-time person to help on your team, I highly recommend it.
Somebody said it in the comments before hire slow and fire fast. Do -
don't - you can only give so many second chances. I don't think you should give a
single second chance. Put everyone on a trial period, try them out and a
lot of the things is, if you feel like you don't have enough to people to do
you have to start offloading that stuff and it's something I'm really bad at. So
anyway, I hope that helps a little bit. If you want me to talk a little bit more
about this I can. If you havee any specific questions let me know. But anyway, that's -
hey, if you've had experiences with this let me know how it goes.
I find Upwork works fine for like temporary projects, like something maybe
a couple days or a few weeks. But for the long term, I really have to have somebody
there in my corner. Somebody there who's willing to contribute. Somebody
like I said we're all pushing this boulder uphill and anybody who
can, who could just put their back into it and move it forward, it really helps.
Anyway, that's it for today! I'll talk to you tomorrow!