What if we told you everything about how we managed to build a 100% remote team that is just awesome? In just one year, EMF has grown from 4 to 30 people. We may seem proud of it, well, because it is the case.  This is the result of long months of hard work, trials, failures, and finally, success. If there is one thing we have learned from all this, it is these 5 golden rules, which should never be overstepped. Never, is that understood? And it's Sophia, COO at EMF Media who will explain everything to us!  

1. Never do one on one

We often have the impression that we know how to communicate, that the message has been properly expressed. However, we are also often wrong. With a 100% remote team, we are obliged to ensure ensure that no information is passed on without an account manager or project manager being involved. This person is responsible for properly transferring the information, and must ensure that each word is transmitted clearly, for everyone. Our teams ensure that our partners always speak with them in the presence of their account manager. If not, they will redirect the conversation to a channel where the other people on the team shall be present. Between us, never do one-one either if the information has been received from a department. If it interests an influencer marketing person, it must also interest the other members of his team. This allows everyone to be aware of everything, all the time. To be able to offer better solutions because they have a global view of everything. Also to be able anticipate problems because the media buying teams will be aware of updates through the influence team, for example.

That's a lot of notifications, isn’t it?"

Yes, it's true. And it is up to us to get organized properly so that things are not too intrusive. And there are plenty of tools that allow us to drastically optimize our productivity (pause notifications, bots, etc.).

No one-on-one. Really, never?”

Of course it is, for the moments dedicated to the development of skills between a team member and his lead for example. Everything related to staff, finally. But we don't talk about projects and their advancements at that time. We remain on a discussion between us only.  

2. Trust the process: not sexy but a life saver

Each process at EMF is meticulously studied to provide total visibility and traceability of any action which is taken by the teams. Everyone knows where they are going, and where the others are going. All team members have complete visibility, in regard to the progress of each person. Media buyers can easily track the progress of creative teams. Influencer marketing coordinators can consult the results of media buyers through one click, and the following actions will be deployed. This is an essential rule if you want to observe a sustainable  evolution of projects. And because we are never better served than by ourselves, we were even able, with experience, to understand exactly what we needed, and build our tools in-house.They correspond exactly with our habits, and are perfectly implemented, thanks to our strategies. In any case, if you are interested in getting them, come this way.  

3. A meeting = one solution

Time is money. Especially with teams. Every single minute spent in a meeting is time that you don’t spend working on other projects. These meetings must therefore always be useful, and provide genuine added value. After leaving a meeting, if you haven’t: apportant une vraie valeur ajoutée. En sortant d’un meeting, si tu n’as pas:

• Solved the problem
• Learned about new things
• Collected unique feedbacks
• Got your questions answered

It means that the meeting was not necessary. You can also implement the following:

• Giving tasks: why not just use Asana, Notion, etc.?
• Collecting feedback: why not ask for it through a form, and request a loom.com video to get it?

Etc.  Let’s remember the golden rule at EMF: it is to always ask yourself if this meeting, before being asked could not rather be: a task, a call or a video conference. Of course, we encourage brainstorming and other group work sessions. But it’s always with a goal in mind. If you want to generate new ideas, then the meeting should end with new proposals, etc.

Do you think it’s tough doing so?

30 people working remotely also means a schedule that is sometimes far too full! And therefore there isn’t much time to work. So, believe us when we tell you that this system is essential for our projects, and our workload ;)  Ah, and as a bonus, we even defined timeslots which we call No-Meeting-Zone, because there is nothing worse than making 7 calls in a day with a 15 minutes interval in between. It’s counter productive.  

4. We trust each other

We never monitor one another. Everyone is responsible for their own work. Everyone knows how important it is for a project to succeed. And that's because we trust each other. 0 remote people to micromanage is impossible, and it goes against our values. This is also the keyword in regard to our recruitments. Choose people you can trust. We are not interested in controlling everyone's actions. We work with a common goal, and because of this, we support each other, more than control each other. If there was only one rule to follow in this article, it would be this one. To properly assess this, there is no miracle recipe, it remains instinct.  We have gone over our recruitment processes quite a few times, to be able to filter the profiles as much as possible, and set up a precise evaluation system. which allows us to analyze our candidates very finely (if you are interested, you can have access to our scorecard here). And we invite you to do the same when it comes to your recruitment.  

5. NO EGO

Along with trust, we attach great importance to ego management at EMF. We believe that every business should operate as one team. We will never be afraid to say that we don't know, we don't understand or we failed.  Nor do we take into account hierarchical titles such as "assistants", "CEO", etc. As long as you are here, you have a voice, like everyone else.  If an Influencer Marketing expert has a solution for the Paid Media team, well that’s great!  When it comes to us, it is 0 jealousy, 0 hassle or any other ego-driven feelings.  This is what allows us to always be able to question ourselves, grow, offer new solutions, and evolve. And this is also a crucial point when recruiting. Make sure our teams can move forward feeling safe to ask their questions, expose their doubts, and propose new things.     The EMF Team. “We are not a Typical Agency. We are your Growth Team On-Demand.”