What we learned from hiring remote workers for our construction company

TLDR

• Transitioning to remote work expanded our talent pool and allowed us to scale, but it posed challenges.

• In residential construction, efficient communication and immediate actions are hindered in a remote setting compared to an office setup.

• Office work fosters stronger relationships and collaboration due to personal connections, while remote work boosts individual productivity and flexibility.

• Our hybrid approach suggests a balance: offices for crucial communication and remote setups for focused tasks.

• The future may thrive on a hybrid model, leveraging advancements like AI to enhance efficiency. The key lies in merging the best of both worlds for optimal productivity.

Midjourney Prompt: manga anime style cartoon of an aerial view of an office that looks like a home one side has many people working and collaborating and the other side has a is separated by a wall and has a single person working by themselves

Introduction

This year, one of the things that we had to learn to navigate as a business was how to handle remote work. At the beginning of the year, we added a few remote workers who live in our home country of Venezuela. These people are skilled professionals (civil engineers and accountants) and, at a similar price, were much more valuable to non-educated workers in the U.S. 

Post Covid, many companies went remote. Technology has advanced to a point where being at an office to be productive isn't necessary. We benefitted from our remote workers, who radically helped us transform our company and scale. We now have almost 20 remote workers.

In this blog, I want to highlight the benefits and drawbacks we've experienced with remote work.

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Preface

My business is primarily residential construction, where many departments work together to move projects along, resulting in a new home. An example of how this "value chain " works goes as follows: 

1. The Design team works on creating the documents that will be submitted to the counties, such as plans and energy calcs. 

2. The permitting team gathers information such as subcontractor licenses, insurance, worker's comps, and other required permits. 

3. Together, these two teams submit all the requirements to the county to approve the project.

4. After that, they hand it over to the construction team to get the project started. 

5. The construction team schedules the laborers to work until the project is finished.

Here is how our teams are spread out: