Building Relationships With Remote Developers

Originally published in Forbes Tech Council

Whether your development team is in house or remote, it pays to cultivate good working relationships with everyone on board. From getting to know their personal hobbies to respecting their local culture, a few less-obvious strategies can help everyone stay on the same page and working together well.

Have Regular Phone Calls

Remote work can become lonely and isolating. I schedule regular calls with remote workers and we talk about more than work. We vent about difficult parts of our job and share stories about our families.

This might seem like a small thing, but it matters more than most managers realize. When you’re working remotely, it’s easy to feel disconnected from the team - like you’re just a resource producing output rather than a valued member of the organization.

Those casual conversations - the ones that happen naturally when you’re in an office together - don’t happen automatically when you’re distributed. You have to be intentional about creating space for them.

The calls don’t need to be long. Even 15 minutes of genuine connection can make someone feel like part of the team. Ask about their weekend. Mention something you’re dealing with. Share a win from another part of the business.

These small investments in relationships pay dividends when things get challenging - and in software development, things always get challenging eventually.