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You can assess how well your remote worker is working by using a combination of clear weekly, or even daily, deliverables that can help you to track progress. Time tracking software like Hubstaff can also be useful for helping you to understand how much time your remote employees are spending working on projects, whether they get distracted by apps like Spotify or websites like YouTube, and how productive they are being. When judging how much your developer is working, place more importance on successfully completed deliverables, and less focus on efficiency and time spent - programming tackles issues that can easily exceed time estimates.

Hiring remote developers may seem like a daunting process, but in reality it is no more difficult than hiring employees for your office. To guarantee success, follow your existing hiring process, and conduct the same due diligence you would for any other candidate, but instead of having face-to-face meetings, conduct interviews with potential candidates over Skype, or a Google Hangout. When interviewing your candidates virtually, be sure to look out for the same indicators of culture-fit or personality matches that you would in a face-to-face sit-down.

Read more about hiring remote web developers.

When interviewing candidates, ask about their past projects and have them describe their work on those projects, including their successes and failures, to you. The way they respond will tell you a lot about whether they were passionate and engaged with their previous positions, and will help you to understand whether they will be able to get passionate about your business. If they seem to have been engaged by their previous work, have shown excitement for your project and business, and possess the skills you are looking for, then they are most likely a good candidate for your company.

Read tips and interview questions to test developers.

If you don't have a technical background, there are many ways you can interview technical talent. By asking specific questions related to their previous roles, try to nail down how well they work independently, whether they are able to delegate up and down an organization, how well they understand the wider aspects of your business (from customer support to commercial operations), and attempt to gain an understanding of whether they would be a culture-fit for your company.

Make sure it is your goal to gain an understanding of how well they execute (if you are unable to understand how they execute). Ask about specific situations when they fell behind deadlines due to technical challenges, and how they overcame those situations; question them about times where they had to change a project’s technology and processes mid-way through, and how they dealt with the fundamental change.

If, throughout your interview, the candidate can explain all of the technological intricacies to you in plain terms, can answer your direct and difficult questions with ease, and is able to communicate their ideas for your business and projects without going into deep technical detail, then you are in a great position to make an informed hire without having to understand the ins and outs of programming technology, and your candidate is likely to be someone who will work well with teams of people who are not technical.

Read more tips and developer interview questions for non-technical hiring managers.

Managing remote employees is something that can be made very easy by using the right tools. Communications software like Slack and Skype can help to make conversation very easy, and can save many tens of email exchanges that would otherwise distract from tasks at hand. On top of that, using project management tools like Basecamp or Asana can help to reduce huge projects into small chunks of deliverables, which are easier to track, and help to reduce the feeling of being overburdened.

To keep a track of exactly what your remote employees are doing, so that you can be sure that projects remain in budget and that remote employees are productive, use time tracking tools like Hubstaff, to monitor and assess employee performance.