At Mobile Jazz (7 years old now) and Bugfender (4-5 years old now) we always had the rule, that people could choose to work as much as they want and when they went. As long as the output and quality was there. Obviously to achieve high quality output you need to be there at certain times (overlap with other team members) and you need to do a certain amount of hours. The problems we had because of this are almost no-existent (specific people that then ended up not staying very long in the company) and the advantages by far outweigh the "loss of control". In the end myself as a business owner and managers have far less stress by trusting people and empowering them to do great work.
With this framework, people will take breaks whenever they feel like. They go doing sports, play with their kids, run errands. They even take whole days off to go surfing or skiing. And I really don't mind. Because I do the same.
But then, if a server goes down late at night, people all the sudden show up by themselves and fix problems. Also on a rainy Saturday or Sunday, people will all the sudden be online and working.
Give people the opportunity to be in charge of their own work schedule, give them the responsibility, make them feel that they're actually responsible and they will shine.
We also just released our company handbook which goes in a lot of detail on how we run a 20+ people remote business:
* https://mobilejazz.com/company-handbook (landing page, if you want to get email updates)
* https://mobilejazz.com/docs/company-handbook/mobile-jazz-com... (direct link to the PDF)
EDIT: Added some more details
With this framework, people will take breaks whenever they feel like. They go doing sports, play with their kids, run errands. They even take whole days off to go surfing or skiing. And I really don't mind. Because I do the same.
But then, if a server goes down late at night, people all the sudden show up by themselves and fix problems. Also on a rainy Saturday or Sunday, people will all the sudden be online and working.
Give people the opportunity to be in charge of their own work schedule, give them the responsibility, make them feel that they're actually responsible and they will shine.
We also just released our company handbook which goes in a lot of detail on how we run a 20+ people remote business:
* https://mobilejazz.com/company-handbook (landing page, if you want to get email updates)
* https://mobilejazz.com/docs/company-handbook/mobile-jazz-com... (direct link to the PDF)
EDIT: Added some more details