Creating A Culture Of Performance In A Remote Work Environment

Mina Elias, Founder & CEO of Trivium Group.

Early in my career, I was the youngest project manager at the company, earning $65,000 a year. One of my colleagues, a senior project manager, earned $100,000. He showed up early and stayed late every day. I worked fewer hours than him but consistently outperformed him. This experience fundamentally shaped my management philosophy: The number of hours worked means nothing if they don’t translate to results.

Even though some companies are pushing their teams to return to the office, remote work is here to stay. In my own business, I’ve learned firsthand that creating a high-performance culture can make or break a remote team. Based on this knowledge, here are some guidelines you can use to improve the effectiveness of your remote team.

KPIs And OKRs: Tracking What Matters

Sports provide a great example of tracking what matters. Coaches set specific, measurable targets for athletes: run this distance in this time, score this many points, etc. I believe it’s important to apply the same principle to business. Based on the lesson I learned from my early years, my company has eliminated time tracking completely, focusing solely on key performance indicators (KPIs) and objectives and key results (OKRs).

When implementing this system, it’s important that every role at a company has defined KPIs. For example, your sales team could work to improve their closing rates by a certain percentage each quarter, and your client success team could focus on reducing customer churn. In my experience, focusing on the most relevant KPIs for each division can directly impact the bottom line.

OKRs provide a broader direction. While KPIs track daily performance, OKRs connect these tasks to larger company goals. Growing the business by 20% requires specific targets for lead generation, client retention and other key metrics. When selecting these key metrics, start by identifying your company’s core value drivers—what truly moves the needle for your business? For SaaS companies, customer lifetime value and net revenue retention often matter more than raw customer acquisition numbers. For instance, you might set an OKR to increase customer retention to 96%. To achieve this objective, you could then establish specific KPIs like identifying 99% of all churn reasons, maintaining a two-hour response time to customer issues and achieving a 95% customer satisfaction score. These granular, measurable KPIs can serve as stepping stones toward reaching the broader OKR target.

Remote Work And Personality Types: It’s Complicated

A hard truth about remote work is that not everyone can succeed in this environment. In an office, managers can closely guide employees who need constant direction. In a remote setting, that approach isn’t always successful.

To find the right people for your remote team, I recommend evaluating each candidate’s aptitudes toward skills that can translate into a good remote work ethic. For example, I’ve found that those with natural drive are more likely to succeed whether they work from home or an office. Those needing constant oversight, however, may struggle in remote positions. There are various personality assessment tools available that can help you find the right people for your team.

Another major challenge of remote work I’ve encountered is maintaining a strong company culture when the team isn’t physically together. It’s important to maintain regular contact with your team members and ensure they feel seen and understood, both in their roles and personally. An industry leader and friend of mine schedules virtual happy hours with his team, where they deliberately talk about anything but work. We followed his lead and found that this kind of intentional social connection can be amazing for building deeper relationships, especially within leadership teams.

Money Talks: Tying Pay To Performance

Traditional companies typically reward tenure and hours worked. However, I have found that a more effective approach for remote environments is tying compensation directly to the company’s success. For example, consider awarding your marketing team bonuses based on lead generation and sales, not just content creation. The sales team can receive commission on closed deals, and your client delivery team’s bonuses can depend on customer satisfaction and retention rates.

The Bottom Line

I believe success for any company can be built on three pillars: clear goals, the right people and performance-based rewards. When properly applied, these techniques can help your team deliver exceptional results while working from anywhere in the world.

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