It’s important to consider how the new normal is going to change the way most companies are going to implement their staffing needs. Sometimes, there is no longer the use of in-office or on-site workers if quarantine regulations in your local state prohibit a full workforce. Sometimes, you may be very well managing a remote team.

A successful remote team depends on how you manage them but also it starts with how you hire them and if you find the right people in recruitment.

Here are a couple of questions which can help you qualify hiring remote employees.  These questions are also applicable if you’re deciding to send your workers on-site to Work from Home arrangements.

1. What skills do you want to improve?

This is the most important question. In hiring someone to add to your workforce, you need someone who is willing to engage with activities that they might have not been familiar with otherwise. They are likely to allow themselves to explore new territory if from the get-go, you offer them some opportunities for growth and enhancing their skills.

2. How is your Internet connection?

It’s good to perform a speed test first before allowing someone to work for you in a remote staffing arrangement. Having a superb Internet connection is especially critical for customer service and chat support. If you have your own IT personnel to oversee their needs this is better. You can allow them to work offline if they experience some power cuts but this should not be a hindrance if you intend to employ a remote employee on a full time capacity.

3. How are you feeling about the current crisis?

This might be unorthodox for recruitment, but it’s an especially important question and something you need to consider. If they’re going through problems right now with Covid-19 and what not it’s important to make sure that the current crisis won’t have any effect on their ability to provide you productive output.  Mental health is extremely important because you want people to be as efficient as your in-house staff. Full time workers certainly need to take care of their mental health as to avoid a highly unmotivated way of doing the work.

4. How are you with a team?

You also ought to ask them how good they are with a group of people. If you want to allow them to contribute to your needs, then it’s important they are also likely to participate with others on the team. If you’re going to be collaborating on Asana and Slack it’s important that from the get go the remote staff member you hire is a team player if you are to achieve things together.

5. Aside from this field of work, what are your interests?

You can substitute this for “Aside from graphic design, what things are you passionate about?” Or aside from content writing, what else interests you? This might be a trivial point but if you let them do things that are a little close to their inclinations and interests, they might function more efficiently. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t push them to learn new skills and be open to newer things.

6. Why have you resigned from your previous work places?

It’s a question which puts them on the spot. But asking them where they have resigned from their previous offices gives you a hint as to their behavior and what their intentions are. If they don’t have a good track record, that’s an indication they might be a job hopper and won’t be as committed to your company. It’s necessary to gauge their temperament as well.

7. What personal goals can you share with the company?

If your potential hire is planning to open a small business for themselves or maybe they would like a career as a chef, ask them to share those to you. In the recruitment process, it’s really great to get a handle on them. If you know of any ways you can support them, such as letting your team on Slack like their Facebook pages or Instagram accounts, then by all means support them.

But knowing you’re going to be adding this person to your team as a remote staff member, it’s important to also know about their aspirations.

8. What are examples of challenges you have tackled in previous jobs?

This question puts them on the spot as well. And it’s important especially in the line of work you are going to be giving to them to ask what kinds of challenges have they tackled and what they did to meet the bottom line. If they took initiative in handling an irate customer, or if they’ve shouldered team leader responsibilities, these are some of the things you need to look for to allow your remote employees to show you if they are likely to be a huge contributor to your firm.

9. How many are you in the home?

This is a personal question but if you’re going to be employing them remotely, it’s also important to get a general overview of the situation and how that might affect their work. If they can assure you of meeting your quotas and KPI’s then, ask them about the specific ways they’re going to maximize their work life balance to ensure they’re going to be giving you the output you need.

10. Why should we hire you?

This question is pretty common but another way you can phrase it is “We have hundreds of other applicants for this position, what makes you stand out?” If you’ve been pooling from a lot, you need to be able to discern that the person you’re about to hire actually has the goods and has a convincing stance for being able to contribute to your company’s KPI’s.

These are just some of the questions you can ask before hiring remote employees. If you find the right managed operations provider though, you can take advantage of remote employees who are equally as competent but with lowered operational costs.

Ask us questions if you want to know more about remote staffing.