Meet Shreyansh Sanghani: Founder of SKS Enterpprises. Shreyansh’s venture into distributed teams started 4 years ago when he founded the company and wanted to provide mothers opportunities to rejoin the workforce without the burden of a long commute. We caught up with him to discuss how he’s growing and developing a remote team.

Fast facts about Shreyansh

• Founder of SKS Enterpprises
• Based in Mumbai
• Shreyansh works in an office but manage a team of 2-4 remote workers

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How long have you managed remote teams?

I personally don’t work remotely, but I’ve been managing remote employees since I started SKS Enterpprises 4 years ago. One initiative that was important to me was providing mothers who wanted to join the workforce opportunities to work from home. I found they wanted to rejoin, but traveling was a constraint. I’ve found that working from home the productivity levels are high and the enthusiasm is equally as high.

How many direct reports do you have?

2 to 4 working entirely remote.

What’s in your tech stack?

We use G Suite, email, and Flock for internal communication. We don’t talk much on video, generally because with our phones, we’re just a call away at all times.

What’s your biggest challenge managing remotely?

Measuring of KPIs, work done and the output. When people are on site there’s this mental block, where we think because they’re there, they’re working. Even if they’re not being productive, we can see them so we make this assumption that there’s productive work happening. For that, I think it’s up to top level management to get the most efficiency out of remote work. Deadlines are important. If you’re in sales, it’s numbers that matter. If you’re in customer success, it’s calls made. It will be different from department to department, but for me personally it’s always about numbers (remote or not remote).

What’s the biggest advantage of working remotely?

With the increasing congestion in India, a lot of time and energy is wasted commuting. You spend 2 hours commuting into work and 2 hours out, that’s 4 hours of the day spent in traffic. We work generally from 10-6pm, so right there that’s a 12 hour day. Now, factor in the hour before your commute where you’re preparing for the day and the hour it takes to unwind after that’s 14 hours a day. With that schedule, you’re not getting the best out of that person. Efficiency levels are not there. With flexible working policies, you remove that environmental disturbance. 

Where does your team actually work?

Primarily they work from home. There’s no specific place we mandate having to work from. Remote work culture has a lot of catching up to do in India. There aren’t many companies offering work from home and there aren’t as many rules for remote work. People don’t invest too much in creating that remote work space. 

What’s one piece of advice can you give to someone who is considering a distributed team?

As a business owner, be open to more people who want to work from home. If the targets and KPIs are being met then there shouldn’t be an issue. It’s a mental block, and we need to get over it. The culture isn’t there yet in India around remote work. We’re still about 5 years away. India is known for having a service-based industry, mostly serving companies in North America. But, now we’re seeing more product-based companies emerge, which will be transformational in the next 5 years. More and more products are coming from India and being used all over the world and I think that growth will result in a lot of change in the way we work.

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Learn more from remote leaders like Shreyansh:

• Remote Leaders: Why GitLab’s Head of Remote “unchained from a life of commuting”
• Remote Leaders: Dana Doswell of Sidepart on why habit building is the key to remote work
• Remote Leaders: Marcus Wermuth of Buffer on overcommunication and isolation

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