The first fortnight,
done properly
Offshore hires are won or lost in the first two weeks, and almost always for management reasons rather than capability ones. Here is the plan, day by day.
The pattern in a failed offshore arrangement is remarkably consistent. Week one: enthusiasm, access granted, a broad brief. Week two: work comes back slightly wrong, the owner quietly fixes it rather than saying so. Week six: the owner has concluded it is not working and the team member has no idea anything was wrong.
Nothing about that is unique to offshore. It is what happens to any new starter who receives no correction — the difference is that a local hire absorbs context by sitting in your office, and a remote one cannot.
So the first fortnight has to do deliberately what proximity would have done accidentally. This is the plan we give every client, and the clients who follow it have a very different month two.
Who this is for
✓Worth your time if
- You have a start date and want to get the first fortnight right
- A previous remote hire never quite got going
- You are about to grant access to your systems
- You want to know what your own time commitment actually is
✕Probably not if
- You want an arrangement that needs no management at all
- You cannot commit fifteen minutes a day for two weeks
- Your process exists nowhere and you will not write it down
What to have ready
None of this takes long. All of it is skipped by businesses that then wonder why week two was rough.
A list of the steps, the ambiguous cases and how you decide them. It does not need to be good. Writing it is what reveals how much of your process was never written — which is the number one cause of offshore hires failing.
Their own login in every system, on the permission level the role needs. Never a shared password, never the owner account, nothing touching payment settings or money movement.
Not the job. One task, rule-bound, where right and wrong are visible immediately. Reconciliation, listings, take-offs on jobs you have already priced, claim preparation you will review.
Booked for the first two weeks before they start. Not a status meeting — a look at real work and a plain statement of what is wrong.
What they do when unsure, who they ask, and an explicit statement that asking is the expected answer rather than a failure.
Team channel access, an introduction to the people they will need to chase, and your backing for that chasing in writing.
Access: what to grant and what to withhold
Get this right on day one. It is far harder to walk back later, and it is the first thing an auditor or your licensee will ask about.
- Named user, least privilegeTheir own account in every system with only the permissions the role requires. Every action attributed, access revocable instantly.
- Never money movementNo banking login, no payment authorisation, no payment token, no trust account access. They prepare; you release.
- Never the owner or admin accountIt cannot be scoped, it cannot be attributed, and it survives the person leaving. Create a staff account even when it takes ten extra minutes.
- Delegated access, not shared passwordsFor inboxes and calendars use your platform's delegation feature. It is auditable, revocable and does not require anyone to know your password.
The fortnight, day by day
Your total commitment is roughly fifteen minutes a day. The return is whether this works at all.
Days 1–2: shadow and document
They watch you do the task and write down what they see. Two things happen — they learn it, and you find out your process has undocumented steps. Have them produce the written version; you correct it.
Days 3–5: they do it, you review everything
Every piece of work reviewed and corrected out loud. Say what is wrong plainly, in the moment. This is the single highest-value thing you will do all fortnight, and the corrections are the training data.
Day 5: an explicit check-in
Ask what is unclear and what they are guessing at. New starters rarely volunteer this, so ask directly. Whatever they name is the gap in your documentation.
Days 6–10: same task, wider scope
Same work, more of it, still reviewed daily but faster. Competence should be visible by day eight. If it is not, the problem is usually the brief rather than the person.
Day 10: add the second task
Only now, and only when the first is genuinely steady. Resist adding a second task in week one; it is how both end up done approximately.
Days 11–14: move to spot-checking
Review a sample plus anything flagged. Keep the daily call but let it shorten. By the end of the fortnight you should be checking exceptions rather than everything.
Week 3 onward: weekly, permanently
A standing weekly call and a short report. Never drop it entirely — an isolated remote team member cannot make good judgement calls, and isolation is the fourth cause of failure.
Quietly fixing the work instead of saying something
This is the failure we see most in businesses that are otherwise excellent employers, and it comes from politeness rather than neglect. The work comes back nearly right. You are busy, you do not want to seem harsh on someone new, so you correct it yourself. Ten repetitions later, two things are true: they believe their work is fine, and you have decided the hire is not working. Neither of you knows what the other thinks. Then it becomes a conversation about fit when it was only ever a conversation about a spreadsheet format nobody mentioned. Say it in week one, in the moment, plainly. It is kinder than the alternative and it is the whole job.