How we ensure a smooth remote workflow in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic

Since the beginning of March 2020, our custom application development company completely switched to remote work due to the COVID-19 disease outbreak. The establishment of remote collaboration did not affect the quality of our services as there are various tools and techniques that allow organizations, including ours, to maintain and even raise productivity.

At Arateg, we have been working with clients from abroad for more than 5 years. This helped us quickly set up remote cooperation using the same methods for performing tasks from home and adding some new ones such as daily team meetings via audio and video conferencing software.

Handling the remote-first approach during the COVID-19 quarantine, we especially focus on the following activities:

1. Holding collective team meetings 2-3 times a week - on Monday, we discuss what activities everyone is going to perform and what tasks must be done. On Friday, we estimate what has been done. In the middle of the week, our specialists conduct audio or video calls to ensure everything is going well or to quickly resolve arising issues.
2. Providing information security in terms of remote work - using VPNs, data access permissions, secure user authentification, etc.
3. Recruiting and onboarding employees distantly - for this purpose, we mainly use audio and video conferencing software, file sharing and editing tools, and GitHub (to check the examples of open-source code).
4. Making sure everyone in our remote software development team feels comfortable - we ask all our specialists to take home all necessary devices (from laptops and keyboards to mouses), fave chairs, and plants they need to create a convenient working environment and maintain high productivity.