I have worked remotely for 4 years. I posted this on another thread but it seems relevant here:
Start by creating a remote-first culture. Everyone should think "remote" first. Thus it should never matter if a local employee is working from home, the HQ, from the other side of the world. Make all work processes remote friendly. That should be step zero when considering hiring a remote person regardless of the reason. The goal should be to avoid a two-tiered culture. Some differences will always be there but if the spirit of the remote-friendly culture is there integration is pretty fluid.
Thus (near) all communication happens in Slack/Hipchat/etc. Group meetings, when including remote people, happen in video conf / Hangouts. Shared Google docs to collaborate on. Have in-person meetups 2-4 x a year for beneficial face-time and for people to get to know each other better on a personal level. When a new person is hired, have them do 20 min 1-on-1's with all team members to get to know each other and their job role. Have monthly video conf/hangouts on non-work technical topics where people rotate presenting.
The biggest element is the decision to be a fully remote team. Which honestly is a major retention benefit as well. Why should local employees not enjoy the same flexibility to work as needed remotely?
Start by creating a remote-first culture. Everyone should think "remote" first. Thus it should never matter if a local employee is working from home, the HQ, from the other side of the world. Make all work processes remote friendly. That should be step zero when considering hiring a remote person regardless of the reason. The goal should be to avoid a two-tiered culture. Some differences will always be there but if the spirit of the remote-friendly culture is there integration is pretty fluid. Thus (near) all communication happens in Slack/Hipchat/etc. Group meetings, when including remote people, happen in video conf / Hangouts. Shared Google docs to collaborate on. Have in-person meetups 2-4 x a year for beneficial face-time and for people to get to know each other better on a personal level. When a new person is hired, have them do 20 min 1-on-1's with all team members to get to know each other and their job role. Have monthly video conf/hangouts on non-work technical topics where people rotate presenting. The biggest element is the decision to be a fully remote team. Which honestly is a major retention benefit as well. Why should local employees not enjoy the same flexibility to work as needed remotely?