If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve already got a team of stellar developers who can turn your ideas into a killer SaaS product. But what about when you want to expand? Maybe you want to explore new markets, or broaden the range of services you offer? For that to happen, you’ll need to increase the talent at your disposal. In this climate, that’s not always easy — particularly if you’re fishing solely in a local talent pool — but hiring remote employees can help give you a better chance of recruiting the right people for the job.
Admittedly, most smaller businesses aren’t set up for hiring outside consultants or contractors, since the costs and complexities involved can be daunting. However, if your SaaS business is looking to take on remote employees on a long-term basis, it doesn’t have to be difficult, since there are many tools and services that can help you recruit overseas without the added fuss!
Here are some tips for SaaS businesses to help ready your company for growth by hiring remote staff members.
Is hiring remote staff a good option for SaaS businesses?
Before you start the vetting process, you need to decide if your company is ready to hire remote staff members. This may seem like a simple question, but there are many factors to consider. First, you need to figure out what kind of product your company offers. Are you in a service-based field? Or do you create software? For those who create software, do your products have a recurring revenue model? If so, remote hiring is an excellent way to scale your business. When you have recurring revenue, you can set a target for new hires to bring in a certain dollar amount each month. This helps you stay focused on bringing in a reliable cash flow and not just a single-time payment.
For service-based companies, hiring remote staff can be a bit more challenging. However, it’s still possible. If you’re in a service-based field, you can hire remote workers who don’t need to be on-site. For example, you can hire remote copywriters, virtual assistants, and even marketing staff. Each of these roles can be done from a remote location.
How do you find and vet remote candidates?
As a business owner, you’ll want to hire the best candidates for the role. When recruiting for a remote position, things are a little different because you won’t be interviewing in person, and you may need to take a little more time choosing the best candidate. Because you are relying on them to work productively from home, you need someone who is trustworthy, self-sufficient, and confident.
There are a few different methods you can use to find and vet remote candidates.
Hiring a virtual staffing agency: A staffing agency can often tap into a wider hiring pool than you can with in-house hiring. If you’re hiring for a service-based business, this is especially important. You want to make sure you’re hiring someone who has relevant experience in the field.
Advertising on your website: Why not add the job post to your company website? You never know, there could be people waiting for a job role to come up at your company. Share the post on LinkedIn and your other social media accounts too.
Using online job boards: An online job board is an excellent place to find remote workers. You can use keywords to find remote candidates who have the skills you need and will fit in with your team.
Defining your company’s culture
Before you even start hiring, you need to decide on your company’s culture. For example, do you have a policy on working hours? Nowadays, most businesses are flexible with their working hours. Conversely, some others prefer a more structured schedule, such as the traditional ‘9 to 5’. However, when hiring remotely there is usually an expectation that employees will have more flexibility — either way, have this clearly set out so that your candidate is aware of your expectations before agreeing to take on a role. Offering a flexible working pattern is a desirable perk for prospective employees, but it has to fit with your company’s overall goals.
Your company’s culture encompasses the shared values, goals, attitudes, and practices that characterize an organization, so ensuring that you’re on the same page with new potential employees will help you fill the vacancy with the right person — from a professional and a cultural point of view. Even when your staff are working remotely, maintaining your company culture is very important — even more so, in fact. You also want to make sure that your hiring process is consistent and easy for everyone to follow. This will help reduce the possibility of candidates dropping out, and it will also make it easier to track your progress.
Onboarding new staff members
Once you’ve hired someone new, it’s time to get them onboarded. When hiring remotely — particularly if your new hire is based in another country — you’ve got to think about the legal requirements that you’re liable for as an employer. That might sound like a lot of hard work, but it’s made easier by something called an Employer of Record: an EOR acts as a ‘local’ employer in countries where a business is without a legal entity, taking care of local compliance, payroll, taxes and more. Using an EOR service provider such as Remote can help you onboard new starters from over 100 countries, providing greater flexibility when finding your next SaaS expert.
Once the legal elements of onboarding an international employee have been covered, there are also some internal processes that you can follow. To integrate your new SaaS team member settled, consider the following areas:
- Training: What training do you have in place? The last thing you want is to hire someone new and not have anything in place for them when they start. Create training documents, schedule training sessions, and look for other relevant training resources.
- Office equipment: Do you need to allocate expenses for a laptop or computer? How about an office chair to ensure they’re working comfortably from their home office? It may sound obvious, but making sure that your remote employees are well equipped before they start is essential!
- Goals and objectives: Even in the first few weeks of their new role, it’s important to set clear goals and objectives for your new hire. You could even set them mini-projects to start with so you can measure their progress, before handing them some meatier assignments once they’re up and running.
Having a standardized onboarding process will make things easier. You may need to make a few adjustments to suit your remote employees’ needs, but having processes that you can refer back to will also help with future employment.
Finding the right tools
As you begin to hire remote staff members, you’ll need to make sure that you have the right tools in place. This is especially true if you’re hiring for a product-based business. You want to make sure that everyone is on the same page, especially since SaaS projects can be pretty complicated and contain many different elements. There are many tools you can use to keep everyone in the loop. While not all of these tools may be right for your business, they are a great place to start. These include:
- A project management tool: This will help you keep track of all the work your team is doing, who is responsible for each task, and where each piece of work is in the process. A tool like Monday.com, for example, makes it easy to work collaboratively even when remote.
- A video conferencing tool: This will help you stay in touch with your team members face-to-face. It’s important to have regular catch ups with your remote SaaS team to check progress and offer support, and video calls are a quick way to stay connected.
- An instant messaging app: Communication is paramount in a remote environment, and instant messaging tools such as Slack make it easier for your teams to keep in touch and stay up-to-date even when they’re miles apart.
Wrapping up
Hiring remote staff is a great way to scale your business. However, there are a few things you need to keep in mind when hiring for remote positions. Once you’ve decided to hire remote staff members, you need to decide how you’re going to find candidates. You can do this through a staffing agency, a hiring website, or an online job board. Just make sure to vet the candidates and then onboard them using the method that works best for your company.