How to Manage a Remote Team (and Actually Keep People Engaged)
Table of contents
- What makes managing remote teams different from managing in-office teams
- Nine essential tips for managing a remote team
- Common remote management mistakes (and how to avoid them)
- Tools for managing remote teams that actually work
- Long-term engagement strategies for remote teams
- FAQs about managing remote teams
- Remote management is about trust, not tactics
With how things stand right now, remote work isn’t going away soon. In fact, in the Evolution of Work report, Workhuman® surveyed 4,100 full-time employees across the US, UK, Canada, and Ireland and found that over 50% of the workforce is either hybrid or fully remote.
One of the biggest risks at times like this — when the spread of teams across diverse locations causes a lot of change and uncertainty — is for business leaders to assume managing a remote team is something you just figure out as you go.
Given that the Gallup study, Are Remote Workers and Their Organizations Drifting Apart?Opens in a new tab states that only 28% of remote workers feel engaged in their organization’s mission, it’s clear that remote team management isn’t instinctive. It’s a skill that requires intention.
The mindset of “just make it work” could lead to disengagement, a fragmented culture, missed signals, and a burned-out team. To lead a distributed workforce effectively, you have to treat remote team management as a learnable leadership discipline built on deliberate structures and consistent effort.
This guide walks you through tested systems that address real-world challenges in how to manage a remote team.
What makes managing remote teams different from managing in-office teams
Even with all your team's experience, remote work presents several challenges you should consider.
Trust must be built intentionally
Without regular face-to-face interactions, your team members can easily feel disconnected. Put in the legwork to build trust by identifying what your team needs to thrive:
- Regularly check in with team members to understand who they are, not just align them with your company’s goals.
- Create the “we’re all in this together” mindset by building a space for conversations.
- Share goals, decisions, and progress to keep every team member in sync.
Lack of visibility = trust gap, unless managed
PwC’s US business trust survey shows that while 86% of executives say they trust their employees, only 60% of workers feel highly trusted. And 61% of employees agree that the perceived lack of trust impacts their ability to do their job.
Remote workers can easily feel overlooked or unsupported, leading to disengagement. You can help close this trust gap by creating opportunities for team members to showcase their work and progress.
No body language = communication blockers
In the office, physical interactions let you pick up non-verbal cues that give insights into how your team feels about a project. Quick hallway chats, team meetings, lunch outings, or group coffee breaks often surface valuable signals you can use to interpret your team’s morale or progress.
In a remote setting, you don’t get all these natural interactions and opportunities for non-biased feedback. Intentionally ask direct questions and seek feedback to overcome communication blind spots.
Engagement = culture + systems, not perks
In the office, you probably keep an eye on your team’s morale and challenges, but that’s particularly acute when managing virtual teams. You don’t want to end up with remote employees feeling burnt out or isolated. If your workforce feels trapped or loses their sense of support, it’ll extend to their work and interactions.
You can create a culture and design online processes that support inclusivity, feedback, growth opportunities, and work-life balance while working from home.
Culture and collaboration can’t be left to chance
It’s easy for remote relationships to fall into the trap of dismissing small talk and getting straight to business. Such a culture can’t allow you to bring out the best in your employees, as you won’t know them as individuals.
You have to create an environment where employees feel safe to show their weaknesses and strengths without fear of being judged. Provide remote work collaboration tools and processes for remote team members to work together.
Performance can’t be tied to presence
For teams in a remote environment, output is more important than online availability at certain hours. To that end, focus more on performance-based results instead of time spent in front of a screen.
Remote ≠ hybrid: the dynamics are different
Remote teams operate exclusively outside the office, which presents different challenges from hybrid teams. Hybrid teams often benefit from occasional in-person interactions, which can strengthen relationships and communication.
A remote team will require a more structured approach to communication, engagement, and team-building, which makes it challenging to build relationships without intentional effort.
Nine essential tips for managing a remote team
These remote team management tips will help your team members stay on task and produce their best work.
1. Set clear communication expectations (not just tools)
Clear and open communication lines ensure everyone in the organization is on the same page. To an extent, regular, timely email updates, video calls, and group chats will do the heavy lifting for you. However, communication is more than relaying information. You need to provide clear communication guidance when employees work online.
Who should be contacted for specific matters? Are there particular times of the day you’d expect workers to be immediately available? Which communication tools should your employees use for different types of messages? Setting clear communication expectations can help you avoid confusion. Here is an example of a communication charter.
| Communication practice | Details |
| Availability expectations | 9 AM-3 PM (UTC), Monday through Friday |
| Weekly status updates | Share updates every Friday in the Weekly Sync channel on Slack by 3 PM (UTC). |
| Schedule changes | Notify via email if you're unable to work or if there are any schedule changes (for example, personal time or illness). |
| Email usage | If the email exceeds three paragraphs, opt for a Zoom meeting instead. Avoid using email for casual questions. |
| Communication frequency | Check and respond to Slack messages within four hours during work hours; email responses within 24 hours. |
2. Replace “visibility” with outcome-based accountability
In the traditional office, physical visibility often means an employee is open and accessible to the rest of the team. With remote work, visibility doesn’t always translate to productivity.
While tracking the green dot is one trend in remote work, it causes green light anxiety. When you make it your focus, you’ll pressure your remote team to maintain an active status instead of paying attention to real work. Instead of worrying about whether employees are online or available all the time, shift the focus to what they are achieving.
When you emphasize outcomes, you’ll empower employees to manage their schedules and work style.
You can focus on outcome-based accountability with a few best practices:
Weekly check-ins
The check-ins can be short, structured meetings where employees report their progress, challenges, and what they plan to achieve next. From the reports, you can assess performance, offer support, and realign priorities without micromanaging.
Objective and key results (OKRs)
OKRs help you set clear, measurable goals that employees can work toward. As a leader, you need to have high intent and then push your team relentlessly and consistently to take small steps toward your company’s mission, trusting them along the way. When you focus on the progress of key results, you encourage team members to realize their contribution to the broader company mission.
3. Use rituals to replace spontaneous connection
According to PubMed Central (PMC), psychological disconnectednessOpens in a new tab is a common side effect of remote work because of the lack of natural, spontaneous interactions that happen in an office. While it’s easy to use the feeling of loneliness as a scapegoat for why your employees should work in the office five times a week, you can introduce some virtual activities for team building.
For example, you could:
- Have a Monday kickoff to set the tone for the week
- Celebrate Friday wins to acknowledge accomplishments
- Schedule monthly off-sites for bonding and reflections
- Organize virtual lunches to encourage casual connection and conversation
- Host team games for fun and camaraderie
- Create a rotating spotlight where team members share personal stories, hobbies, or achievements to help everyone get to know each other better.
These rituals encourage social interactions and help employees connect for work-related matters and learn about each other, their projects, departments, and opportunities.
4. Make 1:1s sacred — and not just status updates
One-on-one remote meetings are your chances to be honest and direct like you never have before. So, instead of reducing them to progress check-ins or task updates, use them to establish deeper personal and professional connections with your team.
For instance, if you have a poor performer, you can encourage them to improve by communicating that they have a chance to turn things around. In a virtual 1:1, you can tell them, “I’m concerned because I want to trust you to handle Y, but I’m not confident it’ll go smoothly. Can you help me think of ideas on how we can make things work?” If the employee tries to improve, you should recognize the effort, even if the results aren’t perfect at first.
Apart from honest conversation, use 1:1s to coach, listen actively, and take emotional pulse checks. They can help you build trust and improve engagement in ways not possible in group meetings.
5. Recognize great work publicly and often
A study on building organizational cultures, jointly conducted by Gallup and Workhuman, found that employees who receive high-quality recognition are 45% less likely to leave their jobs. For remote employees who have done so much for the company, you can acknowledge their efforts by sharing their wins with your team.
Public recognition helps remote workers feel noticed, appreciated, engaged, and connected to your organization.
When you are managing remotely, you can use digital features like virtual recognition boards, online leaderboards, or social media shout-outs to do the recognition.
A platform like Workhuman goes beyond manager-to-employee recognition and allows employees to participate in giving kudos. You can also use it to tie praise to your company values and track recognition across time and teams.
Workhuman is the #1 provider of employee recognition software. When you opt for recognition done right from Workhuman, you don't have to settle for second-rate recognition.
6. Document everything that matters
By documenting everything that matters — decisions, processes, and goals — you create a central source of truth. You can then share what you’ve documented in a relevant channel so everyone can access the same information. You won’t always be there for most of what your remote employees are doing.
So, documentation makes what matters available even for new hires, as you’ll just share what you previously documented.
7. Keep meetings minimal and meaningful
According to an HBR research on managers holding too many meetings, reducing meetings by 40% can increase productivity by 71%. And if you remove 60% of meetings, you can improve cooperation by 55%.
Yet, without the physical connection with your team members in a remote setting, it is easy to feel extra pressure to build connections digitally with more meetings. Back-to-back online meetings will leave your team feeling drained and unfocused. Instead, treat meetings as a last resort, not the default.
When necessary, keep meetings remote-first and intentional. Use a checklist to make sure you’re not wasting time:
- Is there a clear agenda and goal?
- Who needs to be there?
- Are action items being documented and followed up?
- Can the discussion be recorded or summarized for those who can’t join?
Instead of filling calendars with live meetings for every update, use tools like Loom or asynchronous communication platforms to share progress updates or explain decisions.
8. Invest in remote-friendly tools that serve real use cases
The right project management tools don’t just facilitate remote work — they shape culture. But tech overload is real. Focus on tools that support real needs, such as project management, employee recognition, and async video communication. We’ll discuss remote tools in detail in the next section. However, the goal should be to use fewer tools more intentionally.
9. Keep learning: Remote leadership is a skill to develop
Managing employees from a distance requires leadership skills that don’t come naturally and aren’t often taught in business schools. In fact, although managers want to work from home more than employees, 70% of them say it’s easier to supervise employees in person. You can take a free course on managing remote employees to exercise good remote leadership.
Alternatively, you can read books on how to lead remote teams, like Leading From Anywhere: The Essential Guide to Managing Remote Teams by David Burkus. You can also download a free PDFOpens in a new tab on remote team management best practices from Johns Hopkins University.
Common remote management mistakes (and how to avoid them)
Even if you’ve spent years in leadership positions, the best practices you worked so hard to develop may not relate well to a remote team. Be careful to avoid some of the more common mistakes of remote team management.
Micromanaging due to a lack of trust
It’s easy to confuse micromanagement with essential follow-ups. Let’s assume you’ve recently shifted to remote work. Because you no longer see remote workers, contacting them frequently for project updates can seem logical. However, calling or messaging employees again and again can hinder productivity, put workers under stress, and lead to a toxic work environment.
Track outcomes instead of hours of availability. Set clear OKRs, give your team time to deliver, and use check-ins to offer support.
Defaulting to office-based habits
Old habits die hard. One company tried to replicate its in-office culture by requiring every employee to stay live on Zoom from 9 to 5. The goal was to collaborate spontaneously, but the outcome was the opposite. Employees felt watched and exhausted, and it bred contempt.
A great solution is to embrace asynchronous work. Let outcomes, not screen time, guide your team’s success.
Overloading meetings instead of fixing workflows
When you note a misalignment after going remote, it’s easy to think that more meetings will fix the issue. However, more meetings can lead to burnout.
Instead of overwhelming employees with constant meetings, you can audit your meetings and fix workflows. For instance, you can replace status updates with asynchronous tools and keep live calls for decision-making, brainstorming, and complex problem-solving.
Ignoring cultural decay
Shifting to remote work will impact your organizational culture. However, that doesn’t mean that if you see a decline in your organization's culture, you should overlook it. Introduce virtual activities such as casual team hangouts, cross-department pairing, virtual workshops, or online games to maintain a remotely connected culture.
Waiting too long to course-correct
Another common mistake managers make is seeing early signs of disengagement or productivity drops and assuming their employees are just adjusting.
You can avoid delaying necessary changes by prioritizing regular 1:1s with struggling employees to understand blockers early, clarify goals, and reconnect emotionally.
Tools for managing remote teams that actually work
Remote tools should support processes, not overwhelm your team with noise. While the best tool is only as good as the process it supports, the table below highlights the most common solutions to manage and collaborate virtually:
| Purpose | Tool |
| Project & Task Management | Asana, ClickUp, Linear |
| Async Communication & Updates | Loom, Threads |
| Recognition & Engagement | Workhuman |
| Docs & Process Clarity | Notion, Slite |
| Collaboration | Miro, Figma, Google Workspace |
Long-term engagement strategies for remote teams
As your company embraces the flexibility and benefits of remote work, you want to maintain engagement and morale among geographically far-flung teams. Workhuman's recent study reveals that disengagement can be costly.
Here are some long-term strategies to prevent disengagement past the first six months of remote work:
- Revisit roles and growth paths
- Reinforce team identity and shared mission
- Create “non-work” social time intentionally
- Let team members lead initiatives (distributed ownership)
- Normalize recognition as a cultural muscle
FAQs about managing remote teams
What is the best way to manage remote employees?
The best way to manage remote employees is to set clear expectations. While you should be flexible, create engagement expectations by setting a specific time for employees to be available for work. Beyond availability, make an effort to know your team members at an individual level and set up a remote work environment that will bring out the best in them.
How do you build trust in remote teams?
Trust in a remote team starts with effective communication, transparency, accountability, and acts of kindness:
- Be clear about expectations
- Regularly check in without micromanaging
- Encourage open and honest dialogue
- Watch for new stressors in your remote team
How do you track productivity without micromanaging?
You can track productivity without micromanaging your team by letting every team member know what’s expected of them and how their work ties into your company’s bigger mission. Shift from availability-based tracking to outcome-based accountability.
Remote management is about trust, not tactics
What works for a remote team are things that work for all humans — clear communication, transparency, trust, clear expectations, mutual respect, camaraderie, and accountability. Most principles that apply in the office still matter when managing a remote team and are often magnified.
However, when physical distance and limited face-to-face interactions get in the way, you want to shift your mindset from control to trust. Replicating your in-office expectations, such as constant availability, rigid work hours, and constant check-ins, could lead to micromanagement and a burned-out team.
Remote leadership isn’t about tighter controls. It’s a craft you build with deliberate systems and emotional intelligence.