In the last episode of Season 1, host Ali Greene chats with Rhys Black who shares his thoughts on documentation, socializing in smaller groups, key skills of learning how to work remotely, and the benefits of hiring remotely to make every employee experience successful.

Rhys has seven years of experience running distributed teams of engineers and designers as a product manager. He started his first company, Trade Nations, which was fully distributed and had employees all across Europe and Latin America. After selling his stake in that business, Rhys started Delocate to help with issues he saw firsthand on the ground and other companies with operational challenges of working with distributed teams. Delocate was acquired by Oyster, where Rhys is now the Head of Remote.  

Discussion points:

• State of the World:COVID restrictions and memorable moments in the WFH era
  
• Social impact, discrimination, and biases of remote work
• Rhys’ tactical advice for deciding to hire remotely
• What impact remote work has on Rhys’ individual lifestyle
• Remote Work benefits and challenges
• Favorite ways to connect as a team and support a different type of work environment
• Company culture and eating your own “dogfood”
• Oyster Remote Ready program
• Benchmarking salary
• Two things a remote company needs are knowledge management and engagement

Resources: 

Rhys Black’s Email

Rhys Black on LinkedIn

Remote Ready

Donut - Slack Plug-in

TalentLens

Things 3 App

In this episode, host Ali Greene chats with Tilly Firth, Head of People and Talent at Impala. Tilly focuses on how to foster an incredible work environment and culture.  

Tilly describes Impala as an infrastructure API for hotels. Her role is to manage culture, onboard people, socials, community—everything around that and everything in between, as well as everything on the talent and hiring side.  

Discussion points:

• How Tilly handles time zones
• Impala’s asynchronous program
• When and why Impala decided to operate as a remote business
• Hybrid Model and Remote-First cultures
• A day in the ‘office’ at Impala - being intentional and explicit
• Tilly’s People Operations
• Impala’s International Hiring Plans and Processes
• Why Tilly got Oyster to solve administrative or compliance-related challenges

Resources: 

Tilly Firth on LinkedIn

Impala Hospitality Software on LinkedIn

Impala Travel

Tilly Firth’s Email

Impala’s Blog

Slack

Loom

Amy Edmondson

In this episode, host Ali Greene chats with Jo Palmer, founder and managing director of Pointer Remote, an Australian-based company that supports rural communities, businesses, and individuals to leverage remote work. They also operate a remote work jobs board, deliver capacity building programs with government and community groups, and is currently building a decentralization tool to encourage people living in metropolitan areas to relocate to rural towns. 

Jo is motivated by social and economic benefits that remote work provides for marginalized parts of the community. She believes that a person’s location, gender, physical ability, or ethnicity should not determine the type of work they do. Also, Jo is passionate about the environmental, social, and fiscal benefits that organizations experience with hiring remotely.  

Discussion points:

• Lessons learned on how remote work transcends industries
• Why it’s important to put processes and systems in place 
• What remote work means and refers to in Australia
• Candidates, communication, and community impact
• How rural communities leverage remote work to grow and attract/retain populations
• Relocation strategies, economic benefits, and embracing new people in town
• Push-and-pull growing pains and responsibilities with connectivity 
• What recruiters should know when hiring down under

Resources: 

Pointer Remote Roles

Jo Palmer on LinkedIn

Jo Palmer on Instagram

Jo Palmer on Twitter

Jo Palmer on YouTube

Distributed Teams by John O’Duinn

In this episode, host Ali Greene chats with internationally renowned remote work expert and industry thought leader, Laurel Farrer, about the remote work topics people are afraid to discuss. 

With more than 15 years of experience building hybrid and officeless teams, Laurel now collaborates with the world’s top remote friendly companies as the founder and CEO of Distribute Consulting to strengthen design workplace flexibility, policies, streamline virtual communication, optimize digital processes, and strengthen long-distant management strategies. 

Discussion points:

• What the new normal will be, based on where people live
• Revolutionizing work, travel, business, and economy
• Public vs. Private Sector: What works remotely for people, businesses, governments, and communities
• Internet accessibility - is it a public right?
• Humility is best lesson learned by sustainable companies
• The Hybrid Model
• What’s needed to hire and onboard local or globally
• The remote work pay debate

Resources: 

Laurel Farrer’s Email

Laurel Farrer - LinkedIn

Laurel Farrer’s Distribute Consulting Website

Host Ali Greene takes a deep dive into Ayodeji Jeremiah’s experience with remote work and gets him to share the really incredible things he discovered through the Oyster Remote Ready Program.

He shares his thoughts on why it shouldn’t be necessary for the world to go back to work in offices post-covid - at all.

Ayodeji Jeremiah is the chief operations officer at BELAY Associates. He has become an expert and passionate advocate for working remotely in all sectors of corporate.

He shares great insights on the benefits for both employees and companies of working remotely but also highlights the challenges faced by all and while there are ways to overcome these challenges, we still have a long way to go when it comes to changing the legacy mindsets.

He encourages companies to re-imagine the way they work when attempting to go remote, rather than simply trying to recreate the office environment at home to avoid fatiguing their employees. 

This episode offers much to think about, whether you are a CEO, a manager or simply working remotely.  

Key Discussion Points:

• How Ayodeji started working remotely
• Helping his team adjust to working remotely
• Dealing with remote work challenges
• Thoughts on remote working tools
• Reasons why there is difficulty accepting remote work
• Responsibility of employers of remote workers
• How to reach the right candidates while recruiting
• Benefits of the Oyster Remote Ready program
• Where he stands on the remote salary debate

Resources:

Ayodeji Jeremiah LinkedIn

Ayodeji Jeremiah Email

Oyster Blog

Oyster Website

Oyster LinkedIn