How To Stay On Track As A Fully Remote Company

If you had shown me in early 2020 where my company, Railbookers Group, stands today while abandoning in-office work across four continents—I wouldn’t have believed you. I had not envisioned or planned any remote work, let alone going 100 percent fully remote, but it has made all the difference in our growth. We have learned, and continue to learn, so many lessons with the work-at-home model, all while balancing skyrocketing growth and scaling to previously unimaginable levels.

I’m excited to share my tips and learnings about running a thriving company committed to fully remote work, which I’ve broken down into seven categories: 1) Corporate structure; 2) Communications; 3) Company culture; 4) Technology;  5) Training; 6) Management; and 7) Processes/reporting.

But first, a quick history. When the world shut down in March 2020, we had offices in Boston and Laguna Hills, California, in the U.S., as well as global locations in London and Sydney. Our company, which is the world’s leader in independent rail-based vacations, had been experiencing double-digit growth for eight straight years. As the Covid-19 pandemic endured, we were so fortunate that train travel was considered an essential service, so that our customers in each source market could travel domestically and maintain proper safety. Our most successful example of this was our Amtrak Vacations brand in the U.S., where travelers could ensure social distancing in private rooms on board while exploring America’s national parks outdoors.

After six months at home, I noticed our company was operating very efficiently and effectively, while at the same time, we were able to hire many great people in our industry who lost their jobs, as we were no longer tied to specific geographic locations for our workforce.

That is when I committed to remaining 100 percent remote—which is when the fun began, and where we remain today.

Corporate Structure

Our company has roles and departments now that simply would not have existed in the traditional office environment. We’ve expanded our training/onboarding as well as employee engagement teams, with each working in a completely different role than office staff with similar titles. For the former, the challenge of training and onboarding is so much larger with remote staff, so we had to counteract that with more staff each possessing different skills. As far as engagement, we ensure we measure our staff beyond the work level (emails, calls, meetings, etc.), but also their involvement in internal committees, monthly town halls, coffee chats and other groups and activities. To be successful remotely, it starts with the proper structure.

As we expand and hire, no matter the role, we first decide where on Earth they should be located. Why does that matter for a remote company? Because we take advantage of time zones across the globe to ensure the whole company, regardless of department, can be operated around the clock like a 24/7 assembly line.

Communications

Every person consumes communication differently. Our success comes in connecting with the person on an individual level—requiring video cameras to be on for every meeting and call, no exceptions, but also providing opportunities for staff to connect. Whether it’s monthly town halls with small-group breakout sessions, monthly internal newsletters or building an interactive SharePoint directory with pictures and videos, we want our staff to have the opportunity to get to know each other—their interests, families, hobbies, expertise and more.

I also implemented our mic emails—as in, an open microphone—where every person in the company wraps up the week answering three questions:

• Top three highlights, major learnings or things that stood out from the week
• Top things you’d like more information about, or lingering questions
• Something the company or department can improve on

Each manager reviews the emails, but also at the department level, we use AI to globally summarize our staff’s weekly feedback. It seems so simple, but it is extremely powerful and our company really gets behind it as everyone’s voice is heard—hence the name.

Company Culture

My biggest area of concern at first was maintaining a fun-loving, hard-working, competitive yet lighthearted culture that is 100 percent customer focused. We’ve succeeded in this area in a few ways:

• Our annual Global Summit, with about 60 percent of our staff in attendance
• Regional in-person trainings
• Familiarization (FAM) trips, where a group of staff from departments across the country and the globe travel together on one of our trips to experience what our customers do while getting to know each other
• Mailing fun “swag” to our staff at their home a few times per year
• Special interest “clubs” where staff can interact with their colleagues on a variety of topics, like cooking, wellness, books, etc.

All of these tactics enhance the culture while also giving us something to highlight and market in recruiting for the company.

Technology

As a remote company, tech is the air we breathe—it’s everything, and we all know it changes fast. So we use a variety of technology besides the systems we use to book for our customers, to name a few: AI and knowledge-based systems, collaboration tools, video and sharing screens for learning and certification/recertification.

All of our staff are required to have a minimum of three monitors, provided by the company at their home office (some have up to six!), and we use software like ConnectWise to allow us to remotely “jump” onto a colleague’s computer and observe or assist them in their work. This allows management and trainers to “sit shoulder-to-shoulder” virtually to teach and correct in all systems at the same time.

Training

This is an area we continuously work and improve on. Many departments have half-days of working together, joining a Teams meeting with their cameras on while working on their own tasks, but replicating the office environment where they can ask each other questions and collaborate in real time.

Cross-department training is critical for us as well. Being fully remote, someone may know their role but not how it connects into the larger puzzle of the company. We have our staff and managers do weekly “ride-alongs.”

Management

The role of a manager is completely different in a remote environment—which we learned during Covid when everyone was home. The ones who are successful are what I call “plannagers,” or planning managers. There’s no winging it or just using personality—you have to be organized and willing to coach your staff to work well.

Processes/Reporting

This is an area where our teams consistently work to get better, whether it’s analysts, digital engineers or members of our process improvement staff. The work never ends. In our business, we’re lucky to have limitless leads and unlimited inventory, so processes and reporting are critical to scaling quickly and efficiently.