Managing remote employees across many locations can be a challenge. To keep remote teams working as efficiently and effectively as possible, managers have to rethink old strategies and be more flexible.

The work is worth it. Some data shows managers are responsible for up to 70% of the variance in employee engagement, which affects their performance and work outcomes. When managers develop their remote team management skills, they can increase employee productivity, encourage team collaboration and improve job satisfaction.

Remote work is here to stay. According to the data employees value flexible working options, with 90% planning to stick with remote work for the long haul. If organizations want to thrive as a remote workforce, managers have to update their leadership playbook to keep up with this new work reality.

Remote Team Management: The Good and The Bad

To create an effective remote team management framework, leaders must first understand the obstacles they face.

Challenges of Managing Remote Teams

Managing remote teams is not straightforward. There are unique challenges that require intentional strategies. One of the biggest hurdles is communication. While instant messaging platforms and video calls make it easier to connect, digital communication can still lead to misunderstandings. The impersonal nature of text, even with the occasional GIF or emoji to lighten the mood, often results in conversations getting lost in translation.

Another big challenge is team-wide productivity. While some employees excel in the comfort of their home office, others may struggle to stay focused. Balancing these varying productivity levels can be tricky for managers.

Lastly, building a team culture remotely is no easy feat. Without the benefit of in-person meetings and bonding, managers have to put in extra effort to create a sense of camaraderie and cohesion. This is even more difficult with time zone differences and asynchronous work schedules which add complexity to team dynamics.

Benefits of Effective Remote Team Management

Managing a remote team effectively can drive employee retention and job satisfaction but achieving these outcomes relies heavily on mutual trust between employers and employees. Without that trust it’s hard to maintain a productive and engaged team.

In fact, 61% of employees say a perceived lack of trust from their manager hinders their work performance. That lack of trust doesn’t just lower productivity, it pushes employees to look elsewhere. Improving remote team management can change that. When managers build trust, employees feel more engaged, perform better and are more likely to keep their roles even in a virtual setting.

Beyond increasing engagement, strong remote management opens up a global talent pool. With the right practices in place, companies can collaborate seamlessly with developers in Argentina, designers in Amsterdam and marketers in Australia, maximizing the potential of a diverse and distributed team.

Also, well managed remote teams see increased productivity. By working from home, employees can create their own workspaces that help them stay focused—free from the distractions of a busy office environment.

Establishing Clear Communication Channels

The heart of a great virtual team is clear, effective and respectful communication (along with a side of some light inter-employee roasting via the team Slack channel). Successful leaders provide the necessary guidelines for the who, what, when, where and why of their workplace to all employees.

Choosing the Right Communication Tools

Choosing the right communication tools can make or break your team’s workflow. With so many options available, leaders have to be smart about selecting tools that improve communication, enhance collaboration, and fit their teams’ unique needs.

Popular options like Zoom, Asana, Slack, Microsoft Teams and Google Suite come with some serious firepower. Need to hop on a video call and go over project details? Google Meet and Zoom have you covered, bringing remote teams together almost face to face. For daily chats, Slack and Microsoft Teams let you create channels for everything from deep project discussions to casual banter—plus they make it easy to send a quick DM when needed.

Project management tools like Asana, Jira and Basecamp may not be built for chit chat, but they’re essential for keeping teams organized. These platforms track progress, deadlines and tasks while also letting managers keep an eye on workloads. When you need to jump into a conversation, they make it easy to do so without leaving the app. Of cours,e no two teams are the same. Managers need to choose tools that match their team’s workflow and preferences. Don’t forget to consider integration capabilities, ease of use and whether these tools can grow with your team’s needs. After all, the right tools should make work easier, not harder.

Setting Expectations for Communication

Communication can be a team’s superpower or kryptonite. That’s why managers need to set clear expectations to keep things on track. Sure memes and GIFs can add some fun to the workday, but it’s important to draw the line between playful banter and serious business. Setting these boundaries helps strike the perfect balance between keeping things light and getting work done.

Response time expectations are equally important. Instant messaging is great for quick questions, but without clear guidelines, it can feel like you’re in a never-ending ping-pong match of messages. And let’s be honest, no one wants to feel like they have to reply instantly, especially after hours. Managers should work with their teams to define when people are available, when they need focused time and how meetings fit into the mix, so everyone is on the same page without the stress of constant interruptions.

Transparency is the final piece of the puzzle. Open, honest communication builds trust and keeps the team humming along smoothly. When everyone provides regular updates and shares the obstacles they’re facing, it creates accountability and keeps things moving forward, avoiding those dreaded bottlenecks that slow down progress.

Encouraging Open and Transparent Communication

Everything people say about the importance of communication in teamwork is true. Healthy, open and transparent communication practices are the cornerstone of thriving remote teams. Team members should always feel safe and welcome when sharing ideas or concerns with their teams and leaders. Feedback loops and regular check-ins help with this and give shy employees a chance to speak up.

Beyond making every employee feel seen and heard, open communication also helps address the emotional challenges of remote work. Instead of letting feelings of isolation or disengagement go unnoticed transparent communication allows managers to spot issues early and provide support. This atmosphere of collaboration and trust leads to stronger team bonds better problem solving and a more engaged and connected team overall.

Virtual Trust Falls: Building Trust and Accountability in a Remote Team

Accountability is the foundation of trust in both workplace and personal relationships. Building a company culture of mutual respect between employer and employee starts with setting clear goals for everyone to succeed.

Setting Clear Goals and Objectives

Some managers struggle with setting clear goals and objectives. For example, some set expectations without providing the necessary tools, training and information to achieve those goals. Others overemphasize output without considering the quality of the work which could lead to a decline in work standards. Lack of feedback can also leave team members wondering about their performance.

Many managers turn to the SMART framework—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound—to simplify this process. SMART provides a clear checklist for defining tasks and objectives making them easier to understand and achieve.

Aligning individual goals with team and company objectives sets clear milestones for each person. Like players on a sports team, employees need to know their roles and how their contributions help the team win. This means everyone knows what they’re accountable for and how their efforts contribute to the company’s overall success.

Tracking Progress and Performance

Parents know how powerful a sticker chart can be for motivating kids and tracking their progress—in the same way software and applications are like digital sticker charts for leaders to track progress and motivate remote employees. Tools like Trello, Monday.com, Asana and Jira offer features that make managing projects much easier for remote teams.

Constructive feedback is part of this tracking process. Regular one-on-one performance reviews allow managers to give feedback and celebrate employee achievements. These meetings also give the chance to identify areas for improvement, highlight strengths and set clear goals for the next review.

When combined with solid tracking methods, supportive feedback helps keep employees motivated and focused on delivering their best work.

Building Trust

We all agree that trust isn’t automatic; it’s earned. Fully virtual teams where face-to-face interactions and casual conversations are rare, make building trust even harder. Remote team managers have to work harder than in-office managers to build trust within their teams.To overcome these virtual barriers, managers should fully adopt two-way accountability and transparency. For example, a manager might share not only the team’s recent project success but also an unexpected challenge like missing a deadline. By being open about what went wrong and how the team can improve, the manager sets the tone for openness. This encourages employees to share their own challenges without fear, knowing it’s a safe space for growth not blame.

When managers excel at remote team management, employees feel empowered to achieve their goals and manage their work independently. Employees should feel comfortable asking for help and bringing issues to their leaders and peers. Building a culture of trust takes time, but the long-term result is a more united, motivated and confident team that thrives in remote environments.

Building Positive Team Culture from a Distance

From coach and playbook maker to cheerleader and mentor, managers fill many roles to create a positive remote team culture.

Defining Team Values and Mission

Like a national flag, a clear mission and set of values give remote teams something to rally around. A shared mission statement inspires and guides the team towards common goals while core values create a sense of accountability and belonging.

These shouldn’t be tucked away in an employee handbook. Effective leaders regularly remind the team of their values and mission—whether in meetings or casual instant messaging chats or team-wide emails. By revisiting and reinforcing these ideas leaders can strengthen team cohesion and keep everyone aligned.

Encouraging Social Interaction and Team Bonding

Team-building activities may earn managers a few unenthusiastic eye rolls, but these events help build positive team cultures. Don’t worry, though. These activities don’t have to include matching shirts and cliche awards. Team building can be as simple as online gaming sessions, virtual book clubs, new skill workshops or digital trivia games.

Beyond organized events, informal communication channels also play a big role in fostering social interaction. Private Slack and Microsoft channels allow remote employees to chat about things outside work to relax and connect personally. This could be virtually celebrating a team member’s birthday or sharing personal achievements like running a marathon. These small but meaningful interactions strengthen relationships, which ultimately improve collaboration and team performance.

Inclusivity and Diversity

Inclusivity and diversity are key to building a positive and vibrant culture among remote team members. Every team member—regardless of race, religion or ability—should feel welcome, heard and understood by their peers and leaders. When everyone feels included and valued, teams not only achieve their goals but also experience higher job satisfaction.

To create a diverse and inclusive team culture, leaders can encourage more open conversations to welcome different perspectives and give each employee a chance to shine. For example, hosting regular team discussions where employees can share how their cultural backgrounds impact their work or approach to problem solving can create a space for learning and respect.

Additionally, subtle efforts like celebrating cultural differences and making sure team building activities are accessible and well timed for all members further promote inclusivity.

The Juggle: Managing Productivity and Work-Life Balance

For remote workers, there’s no office to leave behind at the end of the day. Instead, the work computer sits nearby, quietly reminding them of tomorrow’s tasks, today’s problems and yesterday’s stressors. Mastering the juggle between work life and real life requires intentional self-discipline supported by leadership.

Setting Boundaries and Expectations

Maintaining a healthy work-life balance starts with setting clear work hours and availability expectations for the team or company. These boundaries prevent remote employees from overworking and ensure everyone knows when they are on “company time.” Just as employees are expected to respect work hours, managers should equally respect employees’ non-working time.

To reduce the risk of burnout, managers can encourage regular breaks—like stepping outside for a quick walk to stretch between tasks or eating lunch away from the computer—and taking time off. Managers can model these behaviors themselves by taking their own breaks and vacations demonstrating the importance of rest and recovery for long term productivity and well-being.

Productivity Tools and Techniques

Sometimes productivity management requires external tools and techniques rather than just relying on willpower. Project management programs like Trello and Notion help keep tasks organized with easy to use to-do lists or boards. Time management apps like Time Doctor, HubStaff, Clockify and RescueTime track how team members spend their hours so they maximize productive work time. When combined with time management techniques, productivity goes into overdrive. The Pomodoro method, for example, involves working in short, focused bursts followed by breaks to stay effective. Time blocking, where employees dedicate specific time slots on their calendars to particular tasks, is another popular technique. Together, these strategies and tools keep teams on track while managing work and stress better.

Tracking Team Productivity

Technology makes it easy to track productivity on remote teams without micromanaging. Project management software allows managers to track overall project progress and employee work and set goals. Meanwhile, these tools enable team members to manage their own time.

In addition to these tools, regular team meetings and one-on-one check-ins help leaders track productivity, adjust work strategies as needed and leave room for open communication.

Supporting Remote Team Members Growth and Development

Top leaders prioritize helping their team members excel in their current roles and prepare for the future. Being a coach for the short term and a mentor (which sadly doesn’t come with a cool hat) for the long term sets employees up for success in their careers.

Professional Development Opportunities

Providing professional development opportunities keeps employees engaged helps them grow in their current roles and fuels excitement for the future. Companies can support this by offering access to online courses and certifications through Udemy or Coursera.

Continuous learning helps individual skill sets while overall team performance improves. Investing in team members professional growth and development shows a leader’s support which can boost long term retention and job satisfaction.

Regular Feedback and Coaching

Pairing constructive feedback with mentorship boosts individual employee growth and motivation.

Instead of making negative or discouraging comments, managers should make every feedback conversation feel supportive. One-on-one video calls are usually the most effective way to deliver feedback in a virtual environment. Managers should focus on providing specific, actionable insights and follow up with written summaries to reinforce clarity and understanding.

Career Advancement and Growth

Growth requires change and once employees have learned all they can from their current role they may feel ready to move on to the next step in their career. Managers can support this by outlining career paths and promotion opportunities and providing guidance on how to progress.

Encouraging career growth motivates, engages, and makes remote employees feel valued. Rewarding high-performing employees through pay raises, new responsibilities, and promotions not only encourages individual growth but also motivates others to excel.

Time Zones and Asynchronous Work

Managing virtual teams across time zones requires organisation determination and great scheduling tools.

Scheduling and Time Management

Scheduling and time management across time zones is a big challenge for asynchronous teams. Scheduling tools like Google Calendar and online time zone converters make meeting and deadline coordination easier for managers. Flexibility is the name of the game though. Allowing deadline adjustments based on individual time zones and scheduling meetings at different times helps dispersed team members avoid burnout. No one wants to attend an all-hands meeting at 3 a.m.

Asynchronous Communication

Mastering asynchronous communication is key to coordinating efforts across teams in different time zones. This means exchanging information without requiring everyone to be present at the same time. It allows international team members to contribute during their peak productivity hours rather than struggling with overnight schedules. By embracing this communication approach teams can work more efficiently and minimise the need for real time meetings.

To maximize these benefits, leaders should ensure clear documentation and require regular project updates to keep everyone informed. Tools like Google Workspace and Basecamp make this process easier by tracking progress and keeping communication organised.

Global Team Culture

Managing a globally distributed team comes with unique challenges and opportunities including different cultural perspectives. To build a global team culture and morale, managers can organize team building activities that highlight different cultures traditions languages and holidays. For example, a virtual cultural exchange session where team members give short presentations about a significant festival or tradition from their country can create engaging and educational interactions.

When managers promote open communication and inclusivity rather than treating cultural differences as taboo, they encourage employees to share their cultural experiences and ask questions about others’ backgrounds. This approach to inclusivity promotes mutual learning and understanding and team cohesion.

Conclusion

Remote team management requires managers to think outside the box and find new ways to motivate and lead teams. The added challenge is all teams are different so managers need to tailor their approach to their remote team members strengths weaknesses and cultures. Communication is one of the biggest challenges for remote management as the risk of misunderstandings is high. Team building also requires extra effort as managers need to organize different digital events to bring the team together. And establishing and maintaining trust takes time and transparency from managers.

If organizations want to boost their remote team’s effectiveness and morale leaders need to adapt to a fully digital workforce. This might mean brainstorming new ideas for virtual team building activities, a more streamlined project management system or ways to stop employees from feeling isolated during the workday. Small changes can snowball into big positive effects for a remote team over time.

FAQ

How do I onboard new remote employees?

Onboarding new remote employees requires a more structured approach than in-person jobs. Alongside training sessions and a thorough introduction to tools and workflows remote-specific onboarding plans should include scheduled virtual meet-and-greets and ice-breaking sessions.

Assigning new hires to a mentor or buddy can also help them settle in faster, giving them a go-to person to ask. The best remote employee onboarding tip is for leaders to make the new hires feel supported from day one.

What are the most common challenges in managing remote teams?

The most common challenges in managing remote teams are:

• Communication. Without clear communication tools, expectations and guidelines, remote teams miss deadlines, cause escalating misunderstandings and reduce productivity.
• Trust and Accountability. A lack of trust and accountability in a virtual office causes friction between managers and employees and reduces the team’s overall effectiveness.
• Timing. Asynchronous communication across time zones leaves room for misunderstandings and extended timelines. Scheduling difficulties result in some employees being left out of events or having to attend work meetings at inconvenient hours.
• Team Culture. Building a remote team culture in a virtual environment requires much more effort than building a fairly organic culture in a traditional office. This includes challenges like planning digital team-building activities and creating virtual spaces for bonding.

How do I improve communication in my remote team?

Improving communication in a remote team means choosing the right communication tools and setting expectations. Some teams may need more video calls via Zoom, while others may thrive with text-based communication like Microsoft Teams. In addition to providing expectations for availability and response times, managers need to encourage open and transparent conversations to make these efforts more effective.

How do I handle conflicts in a remote team?

Dealing with conflicts in remote teams is tricky because of the lack of face-to-face interaction. Leaders should set clear communication protocols to prevent problems from happening in the first place such as acknowledging issues immediately and creating an action plan. Mediation tools or a neutral third party can help de-escalate situations if needed. But clear communication policies prevent many issues in remote teams.

What tools do I need for remote team management?

Although the exact tools will depend on the remote team, the most popular team management tools are:

• Project management tools like Jira, Basecamp and Monday.com make it easy to manage projects and track progress remotely.
• Clockify, RescueTime and other time-tracking and productivity-monitoring tools balance monitoring productivity with respecting team members’ time and privacy.
• Communication and collaboration tools make digital communication more seamless. These include instant messaging apps, video calling platforms, and remote storage and collaboration tools.

How do I stay productive in a remote team?

To stay productive in a remote team leaders should set boundaries and expectations for the workday such as setting clear working hours and encouraging breaks. Productivity tools like Trello and time management techniques help managers optimize work time and track progress. And regular reviews allow teams to adjust to stay productive.

How do I build trust in a remote team?

Trust is built over time and effort. Transparency and accountability are the two most important for both employer and employee. Regular performance reviews, constructive feedback and feedback loops help build trust in remote teams by making employees accountable and employers transparent.