The 8 Best Books on Working from Home for Remote Work Employees

Remote work is amazing. Goodbye, soul-consuming commuter traffic, uncomfortable “business professional” outfits and expensive salads to take away.

Hello leisurely mornings, hoodies and slippers, and delicious home cooked meals.

Remote work is also difficult. You are hundreds, if not thousands of kilometers from your colleagues. Your home office space is likely to be missing some of the bells and whistles of a traditional office. and your work-life boundaries can quickly no longer exist.

These remote working books will teach you how to tackle these challenges – and many that you haven’t discovered yet.

1. Remote working: secrets of success for employees in distributed teams

By Teresa Douglas, Holly Gordon, and Mike Webber

Unlike many remote workbooks aimed at executives and solo preneurs, Douglas, Gordon, and Webber focus on the remote worker on the front line. This book is divided into seven chapters, each dedicated to a pillar of WFH success.

You will learn how to fight isolation and loneliness, work well with your co-workers, and manage your inbox. In addition to specific tips, the authors include examples and anecdotes to bring their points home (no pun intended).

2. Work-From-Home Hacks: 500+ Easy Ways to Organize, Stay Productive, and Keep a Work-Life Balance While Working from Home!

From Aja Frost

On March 20, I left the HubSpot Boston office with my monitor and keyboard. I thought I’d use it for a couple of weeks, a month at most – then we’d all be back in the office.

Of course, most of our team is still working from home eight months later … and that will continue to be the case for years to come. Maybe forever!

This book contains all of the advice I would have wanted in moving to permanent remote work. It covers common scenarios like maintaining the line between work and the rest of your life (when your office is also your bedroom or kitchen), combating loneliness and isolation, and overcoming the “out of sight, out of mind” effect. If you are a parent, a freelancer, or a manager, there is specific advice just for you.

When you’re done, you will know everything you need to be successful and happy as a remote worker.

3. The Holloway’s Guide to Remote Work

By Juan Pablo Buriticá and Katie Womersley with authors

This guide is designed to assist executives with common remote work challenges and decisions, including the hiring, onboarding, and remuneration of remote workers. Creation of communication channels and setting expectations; Implementation of a healthy corporate culture across time zones; and more.

Buriticá and Womersley draw on their experience as leaders of distributed engineering teams at Splice and Buffer, respectively. Employees from Angel List, Doist, Remote.com, and other remote organizations also contributed. Therefore, any recommendation is practical, realistic and is often backed by case studies, examples and / or data.

4th REMOTE CONTROL: Office not required

By Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the founders of Basecamp

If you are looking for a manifesto on the benefits of working remotely, this is for you. Fried and Hansson spend most of REMOTE: Office Not Required refuting arguments that people are not allowed to work from just about anywhere, such as:

• You don’t need an office for collaboration
• Your company size and industry does not matter
• Your pool of potential employees won’t shrink – it will grow

Do you already believe in remote work? Are you looking for practical tips on how to do it well? I would suggest other books like Work-From-Home Hacks or the Holloway Guide.

5. Subtle acts of exclusion: how to understand, identify and stop microaggressions

By Tiffany Jana and Michael Baran

Microaggressions – or Subtle Acts of Exclusion (SAEs) as Jana and Baran call them – happen whether you’re away or in the same place.

But SAEs are harder to deal with when you’re not all in the same room: you can’t stop by a desk to let them know what they said was hurtful or interrupt a conversation by asking the perpetrator to leave .

What if you are the one who committed the SAE? The relationship damage is harder to undo without the rapport-building effects of sharing an office.

That makes Jana and Baran’s book indispensable reading for distributed teams. Learn how to recognize, deal with, and most importantly prevent SAEs so that everyone feels safe and included.

6th Act like a leader, think like a leader

From Herminia Ibarra

If you’re like me – or any of the other managers I’ve spoken to – your professional confidence can suffer after a remote control.

Why? Because you lose a lot of positive feedback. You no longer bump into your colleagues in the hall, see their smiles and nods when you present, hear their cheers when you win a big account, or have celebratory drinks after a big quarter.

All the subtle signs that said You are doing a great job! are away.

This book will help you restore your confidence. According to Ibarra the best way to feeling like a leader is too action like one. In other words, your thoughts follow your actions, not the other way around.

She gives you actionable recommendations on how to do just that. Whether you are an individual employee, an executive, or someone in between, you will find ways to improve your job and increase your self-esteem.

7th The Pocket Guide of the Remote Facilitator

By Kirsten Clacey and Jay-Allen Morris

Conducting remote meetings is both a science and an art. As Clacey and Morris point out in their introduction, virtual meetings are:

1. More intimidating than personal, as participants feel isolated from each other and cannot read all of the faces
2. Harder to concentrate; Eight out of ten people multitask
3. More depending on the mood and style of the presenter

To combat these problems, the authors have summarized research, personal anecdotes, and strategies in a short but powerful book. Get a true PhD in remote meeting moderation in just 153 pages. One GoodReads reviewer said“Everyone who conducts online meetings should read this book.”

8th. The ultimate guide to remote work

By Wade Foster with content by Danny Schreiber, Matthew Guay, Melanie Pinola, Bethany Hills, Alison Groves, Jeremey DuVall and Belle Cooper

Zapier has been a remote-first company since its inception in 2011. The team has certainly spent a lot of time thinking about common remote work issues and finding scalable solutions.

This guide (which is available online for free) is divided into fifteen chapters. First, you’ll learn how to hire and manage remote workers. Next, you’ll look at building and maintaining a strong virtual culture, followed by tips on productivity, collaborating across time zones, and avoiding burnout.

And finally, you will learn how to get a remote job (probably easier than when the e-book was first written) and work smarter, not harder with the remote work tool kit.

Hopefully this remote work reading list will help you avoid many of the pitfalls of working from home while maximizing the benefits.