IT Advice: What Is The Best Way To Manage Remote Workers?

Remote work has been an awful, wonderful, productive, productivity-killing, marvellously terrible trend, depending on who you talk to about it. While many companies have tried their hardest to put the brakes on remote work over the last year or two, one thing has become abundantly clear: there’s no going back. 

Studies consistently show that remote teams can be happier, more productive, and more likely to stick around than their office-bound counterparts (in fact, they’ve been showing this since at least as far back as 2014). But with this shift comes a new set of challenges: maintaining productivity without surveillance, building genuine team connections through screens, and ensuring your staff are actually where they say they are (and sticking with those rigid compliance requirements).

This guide will walk you through the essential elements of effective remote team management. We’ll take all the emotion out of it and come at the issues from an IT perspective, covering everything from setting up effective communication frameworks to handling the delicate balance between trust and oversight. 

By the end, you’ll have a nice collection of practical strategies you can use to keep your remote team productive, connected, and sticking to security best practices. Most importantly, you’ll learn how to achieve all this without turning into the kind of manager who makes everyone dread turning their webcam on in the morning.

Always Set Clear Expectations When Managing Remote Workers

Remote work amplifies the importance of clear communication. When someone can’t pop by your desk to clarify a deadline or project scope, your instructions need to be crystal clear from the start. This means documenting everything—processes, expectations, deadlines, and deliverables, the lot. 

From an IT standpoint, it also means creating comprehensive technical documentation that’s actually usable. Our teams have found that wikis with standardised templates work wonders. Each project gets its own space with defined sections for requirements, access permissions, milestones, and technical specifications. 

Git-based documentation systems allow version control of your specs, while automation tools can notify team members of critical updates. If you haven’t encountered them before, these are documentation platforms that track every change made to documents. They show who changed what and when, similar to how Google Docs tracks edits but more powerful and far better suited to technical teams.

When setting up infrastructure for remote teams, configure notification systems with appropriate urgency levels. Drawing from IT as an example, critical server alerts merit immediate attention, while minor bug reports can wait until morning. Remote workers need this hierarchy spelled out explicitly, particularly when they’re working across different time zones or schedules.

Build a Communication Framework That Actually Works 

Different messages need different channels. Quick questions might suit Slack, while lengthy project discussions probably deserve a proper video call. To ensure your team is always on point with these choices, create guidelines about which channels to use when—and stick to them! Nothing breeds confusion quite so quickly as having conversations spread across email, chat, video calls, and carrier pigeon.

Some practical rules we’ve seen work well:

• Urgent matters go to chat or phone
• Project updates belong in your project management tool
• Important decisions get documented in email (if they were arrived at in a phone or video call, this means following up with an email to confirm)
• Team bonding happens in video calls
• Personal matters warrant one-on-one conversations

The IT infrastructure supporting this framework needs careful attention. Your communication stack should integrate seamlessly (e.g. when someone creates a ticket in your project management system, relevant Slack channels should receive notifications). 

Automate the Basics

Calendar invites need to respect time zones automatically. Video conferencing tools should connect directly to your identity management system for seamless authentication.

Establish Response Time Expectations

Consider implementing communication SLAs (service level agreements) within your team. These are basically agreements about how quickly people should respond to messages—like promising to answer Slack messages within 2 hours during workdays. You can have some flexibility around SLAs and give team members autonomy over what theirs will be. But once they’ve set them, they should be sticking to them.

Define Core Hours and Time Zones

Build on this by having core hours when everyone must be responsive on primary channels. This is an easy way to maintain productivity while allowing flexibility. If you’re working with a remote team spread across time zones, configure your collaboration tools to display local times beside names, preventing those awkward 3 AM meeting requests.

Trust Your Team (But Verify Their Results) 

Micromanaging remote workers is about as effective as trying to herd cats via Zoom. Instead of tracking every minute of their day, focus on outcomes. Set clear KPIs, have regular check-ins, and help them establish measurable goals. This gives your team the autonomy they crave while ensuring you maintain visibility of their progress.

Learn from Your High Performers

Have open discussions about workload and efficiency. If someone’s consistently delivering excellent work, ask them about their processes. Understanding how they achieve their results is the best way to determine whether those methods could benefit the wider team. 

Smart employees who streamline their work deserve to reap some rewards from their efficiency. At the same time, businesses need to ensure they’re getting fair value for their investment. To walk this fine line with your team, maintain regular dialogue about capacity and output. 

If someone has automated significant portions of their role, this creates an opportunity for growth. Perhaps they could take on additional responsibilities, lead process improvement initiatives, or mentor others (with appropriate compensation, of course). This approach allows high-performers to benefit from their innovations while ensuring the business captures appropriate value from its payroll.

Make Reviews About Growth, Not Surveillance

Regular workload reviews help identify both overwork and underutilisation without resorting to invasive monitoring. These conversations should focus on career development and mutual benefit rather than surveillance. The goal is to create an environment where efficiency is rewarded, and excess capacity becomes an opportunity for both personal and organisational growth.

Implement Smart Metrics

From an IT perspective, your Managed Service Provider or in-house IT department can very easily implement dashboards that display meaningful metrics without intrusive oversight. They can set up systems to track work outputs like completed tasks, document updates, and project milestones that provide passive productivity indicators. 

Properly configured, these tools offer visibility without micromanagement. The biggest challenge your IT team will help you solve is aggregating these metrics meaningfully—team members shouldn’t feel like they’re competing on raw numbers. The tone should be more one of contributing to shared goals. 

Create a Virtual Water Cooler 

Remote work can be lonely. Without those spontaneous office conversations about weekend plans or which obscure documentary everyone needs to watch next, team connections can wither. 

To keep the office culture alive, create spaces for non-work chat, but make them optional. Some people will love virtual coffee breaks; others would rather spend that time actually drinking their coffee in peace.

The technical implementation matters here. Dedicated Slack channels for interests provide structure without forcing engagement. Collaborative digital whiteboards where everyone contributes to ongoing creative projects (like team playlists or bucket list maps) create genuine bonding opportunities.

Some teams benefit from ambient connection tools. These platforms create video rooms where people can work “alongside” colleagues virtually. They require a bit of bandwidth, though. So you’ll need to ensure your infrastructure can handle the load without compromising business-critical applications.

For companies with physical offices and remote workers, consider setting up always-on portal screens. These displays show a live feed between offices, creating a visual connection between distributed teams. The technical setup requires dedicated hardware, stable internet connections, and careful audio configuration to prevent feedback loops. But it’s all very doable with the right IT services. 

Tools and Tech That Don’t Make Everyone Want to Scream 

Your tech stack needs to be robust enough to support remote work, but simple enough that it doesn’t require a PhD in computer science to use. Essential components include:

• A reliable video conferencing platform
• Project management software
• Easy to use team chat tools
• Cloud-based document sharing
• Time zone management tools for global teams

Make sure everyone knows how to use these tools effectively. Nothing kills productivity quite like spending the first 15 minutes of every meeting troubleshooting audio issues.

The specific technical considerations extend beyond just having these tools. For example, your video conferencing needs proper fallback protocols—when bandwidth becomes constrained, the system should automatically disable video while preserving audio quality.

Endpoint security also becomes crucial with remote and hybrid teams. Devices used by your off-site workers need comprehensive protection profiles that don’t hamstring performance.

Cloud document systems need careful permission structures. Create standardised templates with pre-configured sharing settings that maintain security while enabling collaboration. Automatic indexing and search capabilities transform document repositories from chaotic dumping grounds into usable knowledge bases.

Want help with these technical tweaks that can take your remote team from functioning to phenomenal? Contact Invotec for a free consultation. Our IT experts love perfecting every layer of an IT ecosystem, and we can help you figure out precisely what yours needs. 

Handle Time Zones With Grace 

If your team spans multiple time zones, rotating meeting times can share the pain of early mornings or late nights. To do this gracefully, you’ll need a scheduling system that understands time zone constraints. Your calendar should visualise working hours across teams, highlighting optimal meeting windows automatically. 

Even if you’re not working across time zones, this is an excellent opportunity to honour your team’s personal preferences—some people function well early in the morning, others hit their stride later in the day. Remote work, when scheduled thoughtfully, can allow people to shine at their perfect times. 

This can benefit your business greatly. With different team members working different hours, you can create “follow-the-sun” workflows for critical functions. Your IT team can set it up so that unresolved tasks automatically transfer to people coming online as others sign off. This requires sophisticated routing rules and clear handoff documentation templates. But it can be done. 

Keep Security Tight When Managing Remote Workers

At the bare minimum, you’ll want to equip your team with VPNs, ensure they use secure passwords, and set up two-factor authentication. 

Of course, one person opening a sketchy email can be all it takes to compromise your entire network. So, education remains your best security tool. And it doesn’t have to be boring. 

Talk to your IT department or MSP about running phishing simulations and other IT security training scenarios that are relevant to your team’s remote work lifestyle. Security training tends to work best when delivered in digestible micro-learning modules rather than marathon sessions.

For more details on the IT security side of things, check out our tech tips for remote and hybrid teams.

Flexibility and Structure: Finding the Perfect Balance

Successful remote team management balances structure with flexibility. Your systems should be solid enough to keep everything running smoothly, but flexible enough to accommodate real life. Sometimes a team member will need to handle an emergency plumber visit during work hours—that’s fine, as long as they communicate and get their work done.

In our experience, remote teams can actually outshine their office-based counterparts, but you have to nail the details for this to happen. Thoughtful systems, clear communication, and security that works without getting in anyone’s way—these are the ingredients that count. 

Every remote team has its own unique rhythm and needs. At Invotec, we love discovering what makes your team tick and crafting the technical environment to match. Give us a call or fill out your details below, and we’ll set up a time to chat about your remote work vision.