Remote work has gone from being a niche perk to a global phenomenon. As more people embrace the freedom and flexibility of working from anywhere, understanding the best strategies to thrive in this environment has never been more crucial. Enter the world of ebooks—a treasure trove of knowledge that can transform how you approach remote work.
After over a decade of remote working, our team understands how many good books there are on the topic. Hubstaff’s 100% virtual team found a lot of valuable takeaways from these books, so we decided to round up our top picks and share them with you.
In this article, we’ll explore the top 10 ebooks and books you should read in 2024 to elevate your remote work game. These books cover everything from boosting productivity and employee retention to fostering seamless team collaboration across different time zones. Whether you’re a seasoned remote worker or just starting your journey, these reads are packed with actionable insights and practical tips to help you excel in the remote work revolution.
- 1. Zapier’s Ultimate Guide to Remote Work
- 2. Hubstaff’s NO EXCUSES Definitive Guide to Building a Remote Team
- 3. Remote: Office Not Required
- 4. The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work
- 5. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
- 6. HBR Guide to Remote Work
- 7. The Long-Distance Leader: Rules for Remarkable Remote Leadership
- 8. The New Corner Office: How the Most Successful People Work from Home
- 9. Working From Home: Making the New Normal Work for You
- 10. Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding from Anywhere
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Try it free for 14 days1. Zapier’s Ultimate Guide to Remote Work
This is an ultimate guide in every sense of the word. The book covers everything you need to know about remote working. Readers can gain insights on cultivating company culture across borders (and time zones), how to work faster, and optimizing your work environment for productivity.
The book began as a series of posts on their blog and is an ongoing effort to record their experiences as a remote team. It shares both their successes and failures, providing raw details about the actual challenges and rewards of distributed teams.
An awesome excerpt: “Teamwork is great. But, if you’re working with a time shift, you’ll need to pull your own weight on the team and lead your own way. If you’re always waiting for someone to tell you what to do next and that someone’s asleep while you’re working, you’ll never get anything done.” That’s why the most crucial part of building a remote team is hiring self-directed team members — ”managers of one,” as the Basecamp team calls them in their book Rework.
2. Hubstaff’s NO EXCUSES Definitive Guide to Building a Remote Team
This ebook is no-nonsense, listing common concerns with virtual teams and their actionable solutions right at the beginning. Each section contains strategies clarifying how to run your remote teams, providing management flowcharts, practical tips, strategic questions to ask yourself, and communication templates/examples.
Hubstaff Co-Founder Dave Nevogt has over 12 years of experience building and managing remote teams, so he’s been around the block regarding remote working. This ebook covers Dave’s strategies for building three multi-million dollar businesses with remote teams and creating a remote work environment that works.
An awesome excerpt: Your job as a manager/owner of an organization is to leave no room for excuses from your people. There’s a super quick 5-step process that I use in my business to make sure that I am leaving no room for excuses…
- Describe the project to your team, making sure that they understand what the finished project looks like
- Get their “sign-off” that they understand precisely what needs to be done
- Set a deadline for project completion
- Get their “sign-off” on the project completion date
- Make it abundantly clear that you are available for questions, and live up to it.
Dave started Hubstaff as a tool to better manage remote team members with intuitive time tracking, insightful reporting, proper productivity monitoring, and other innovative features to propel your distributed team’s productivity.
3. Remote: Office Not Required
REMOTE was written by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the founders of 37 Signals, which brought the world Basecamp.
Basecamp is a leading project management tool that provides remote teams with excellent collaboration infrastructure, including discussion threads, file organization, to-do lists, text notes, a built-in calendar, and more. They began their work in the industry in 1999 and have since grown to a company spread out across 26 different cities worldwide.
Employers and employees who limit their searches geographically also limit themselves, often losing out on working with the best professional/company possible. That is the idea that drove this bestselling book on the merit of remote working.
An awesome excerpt: It’s a lot harder to fake your way as a remote worker. As the opportunities to schmooze in the office decrease, the focus on the work itself increases. Additionally, central online repositories for tracking tasks and reporting progress, like Basecamp, create an irrefutable paper trail showing what everyone is getting done and how long it’s taking.
This gives the edge back to quiet but productive team members who often lose out in a traditional office environment. In a remote setup, you don’t need to constantly boast about the quality of your work when it’s already apparent to everyone willing to pay attention. Likewise, it’s painfully clear for all to see if you’re all talk and no walk.
4. The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work
“The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work” by Scott Berkun is a compelling dive into the unconventional work dynamics of WordPress.com. Drawing from his experience as a former manager at Automattic, Berkun unveils the inner workings of a distributed team with transparency and wit.
The book illuminates the challenges of managing a remote workforce and celebrates the triumphs and innovations that arise from this unique work culture. Berkun’s narrative is a delightful blend of humor, thoughtful analysis, and practical advice, making it a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the intricacies of remote work.
An awesome excerpt: Automattic, Inc. runs WordPress.com, the 15th most popular website on the planet, and is the leading organization behind WordPress, the software that powers 20 percent of the entire web. Their success is based on challenging our biggest assumptions about how work is done:
- Employees work remotely from wherever in the world they wish
- No one uses email, preferring customized blogs and online chat
- There are no schedules, few meetings, and fewer rules
- Workers launch new ideas and features dozens of times a day
5. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
The book’s strength lies in Newport’s meticulous research and real-world examples, providing compelling insights into the benefits of deep work. The actionable advice and well-crafted principles empower readers to cultivate a work ethic beyond busyness, profoundly impacting professional success and personal fulfillment.
An awesome excerpt: The Deep Work Hypothesis: The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill and then make it the core of their working life will thrive.
6. HBR Guide to Remote Work
The “HBR Guide to Remote Work” is an indispensable resource for navigating the intricacies of the modern work landscape. Compiled by one of our favorite experts, the Harvard Business Review, this guide is a comprehensive toolkit that addresses the challenges and opportunities of remote work.
The authors provide actionable insights backed by research, covering everything from effective communication and virtual collaboration to maintaining work-life balance. What sets this guide apart is its practicality; it outlines principles and offers tangible strategies for individuals and organizations to thrive in a remote environment.
With its authoritative voice and wealth of expertise, the “HBR Guide to Remote Work” is an essential companion for anyone seeking to optimize their remote work experience and excel in the evolving world of work.
An awesome excerpt: Get your best work done, no matter where you do it. Video calls from your couch. Project reports in a coffee shop. Presentations at your kitchen table. Working remotely gives you more flexibility in how and where you do your job. But being part of a far-flung team can be challenging.
7. The Long-Distance Leader: Rules for Remarkable Remote Leadership
“The Long-Distance Leader: Rules for Remarkable Remote Leadership” by Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel is an invaluable guide for leaders navigating the challenges of remote teams.
With a blend of practical advice and real-world examples, the authors tackle the complexities of leading from a distance. This book stands out because it focuses on the human side of remote leadership—emphasizing trust, communication, and fostering a positive team culture.
Eikenberry and Turmel provide a roadmap for cultivating strong connections, maintaining productivity, and achieving remarkable results despite physical distances.
An awesome excerpt: “Three-O” Model refocuses leaders to think about outcomes, others, and themselves — elements of leadership that remain unchanged, whether employees are down the hall or halfway around the world. By pairing it with the Remote Leadership Model, which emphasizes using technology as a tool and not a distraction, leaders are now able to navigate the terrain of managing teams wherever they are.
8. The New Corner Office: How the Most Successful People Work from Home
“The New Corner Office: How the Most Successful People Work from Home” by Laura Vanderkam is a refreshing take on remote work, providing a blueprint for success in the evolving work landscape. Vanderkam combines insightful research with practical strategies, offering a holistic approach to working from home.
What sets this book apart is its focus on productivity and creating a fulfilling and balanced work-life integration. The author dispels common myths surrounding remote work and shares real-world examples of successful individuals seamlessly navigating the challenges of a home office.
This book provides actionable advice and a mindset shift that empowers remote employees to thrive in home-based workspaces.
An awesome excerpt: Vanderkam’s hacks include:
- Manage by task, not time. Going to an office for 8 hours makes you feel like you’ve done something, even if you haven’t. Remote workers should set 3-5 ambitious goals for each day and consider the work day done when these are crossed off.
- Get the rhythm right. A well-planned day features time for focused work, interactive work, and rejuvenating breaks. In place of a commute, a consciously chosen shut down ritual keeps work from continuing all night.
- Nurture connections. Wise remote team members can build broader and more effective networks than people sitting in the same cubicle five days a week.
9. Working From Home: Making the New Normal Work for You
“Working From Home: Making the New Normal Work for You” is a practical and insightful guide by Karen Mangia that skillfully navigates the nuances of remote work. Mangia combines firsthand experience with research-backed strategies, offering a comprehensive playbook for individuals adapting to the new normal of remote work.
The book addresses the logistical aspects of working from home and delves into the emotional and psychological aspects, providing a holistic approach to a balanced and fulfilling work life. What stands out is Mangia’s emphasis on individual empowerment and resilience, encouraging readers to shape their remote work experience proactively.
Whether you’re new to remote work or a seasoned professional, this book serves as a valuable companion, offering actionable advice, engaging anecdotes, and a roadmap for success in the evolving work landscape. “Working From Home” is a timely and empowering resource that resonates with the challenges and opportunities of the new era of remote and flexible work.
An awesome excerpt: COVID-19 has transformed the way that we work, interact, and live. But the change to working from home was happening long before the global pandemic. Post-coronavirus, much of work will not return to the way it was. And many workers won’t be returning to headquarters anytime soon. As I write these words, it’s difficult to predict what the new normal will look like exactly. Whatever the future holds, the odds are that you’ll be looking at it from your home office.
10. Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding from Anywhere
“Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding from Anywhere” is a compelling guide by Tsedal Neeley that masterfully navigates the landscape of remote work. Neeley combines meticulous research with real-world examples, offering a comprehensive playbook for individuals and organizations embracing the remote revolution.
The book delves into the nuances of remote collaboration, providing actionable strategies to foster effective communication, team cohesion, and productivity. Neeley’s emphasis on the human element distinguishes this work, addressing remote work’s emotional and cultural aspects.
Whether you’re a seasoned remote professional or new to the concept, this book serves as a valuable companion, offering insights, practical advice, and a roadmap for success in the evolving world of remote work. “Remote Work Revolution” is a timely and authoritative resource, illuminating the path to not just surviving but thriving in the era of remote work.
An awesome excerpt: [In remote work], employees feel lost, isolated, out of sync, and out of sight. They want to know how to build trust, maintain connections without in-person interactions, and a proper work/life balance. Managers want to know how to lead virtually, how to keep their teams motivated, what digital tools they’ll need, and how to keep employees productive.
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