Tapping into global talent by leveraging remote work arrangements can be highly beneficial for tech teams. But communication limitations, life distractions and feelings of isolation can all reduce a team’s output and motivation.
Developing a supportive and empowering team culture is important for every organization, but especially vital—and uniquely challenging—for remote tech teams. Below, members of Forbes Technology Council share their best strategies for boosting productivity and engagement within remote tech teams. These approaches can help ensure your team members have everything they need to maximize their potential.
1. Encourage Transparent, Direct Communication
Optimizing workplace productivity is an ongoing process that integrates people, processes and tools. Team members should be encouraged to communicate transparently and directly, which helps make productivity more predictable and boosts employee engagement. By cultivating a culture of creativity, teams with high synergies are inspired to find innovative ways to increase efficiency over time. – Bhupesh Timsina, StrataLean Consulting Inc.
2. Cultivate A Shared Vision And Culture
Align everyone around a vision. Include social goals that are beyond business goals, which will motivate and bring together a highly aligned team. Provide the freedom to be autonomous, and cultivate an ownership culture. Lead by example. – Sindhu Joseph, CogniCor
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3. Provide Regular Updates
For tech teams, transparent overcommunication is crucial due to complex projects with many moving parts. You might think, “I already communicate enough,” but for remote teams, more is better. Regular updates via previously recorded standups or dynamic progress reports ensure status updates are visible across time zones, keeping everyone aligned and informed and reducing errors and miscommunication. – Craig Crisler, SupportNinja
4. Ask Employees How They Prefer To Communicate
How we communicate remotely doesn’t need to be one-size-fits-all. For example, while many remote and hybrid leaders may feel comfortable using live video for sensitive conversations, their employees may not. By getting your team members’ feedback, you can build trust, encourage openness and ultimately optimize productivity and engagement. – Andrew Higashi, ChangeEngine
5. Encourage Discussions In Shared Channels
In a remote setting, a common problem is the apparent lack of transparency, which hinders both productivity and engagement. Encouraging discussions in shared channels versus private chats is a good practice. More people join each conversation, which leads to better engagement and, often, increased productivity. However, there should be a specific owner of the discussion who makes the final decision. – Georgiy Nefedov, Synoptic Technologies Inc.
6. Define Outcome-Based Goals And Performance Metrics
Establish clear, outcome-based goals, and implement Agile methodologies. It is also important to define key performance and quality metrics. This approach ensures that everyone stays aligned and maintains focus on deliverables, and it enables regular monitoring of progress and quality. – Sebastian Avila, Novatech
7. Hold Daily Huddles
Keeping remote teammates connected through daily huddles is essential. Communication is often more challenging for those who work on tech teams, and having daily sessions with the cameras on helps to keep everyone aligned with group goals and the company culture. As always, good communication is key. – Paul Blough, BloughTech
8. Plan Work Around Global Holidays
It’s very important to keep your calendar updated with the holidays of all of the different countries your remote teams work in. It can be easy to overlook overseas holidays when planning work, and they can really catch you by surprise. – Syed Ahmed, Act-On Software
9. Incorporate Social Challenges
I’ve found that incorporating remote social challenges, like coding competitions or virtual team games, increases engagement and strengthens team culture. We’re always exploring new ways to reduce isolation and keep our remote team motivated while supporting key value drivers like work-life balance and team engagement. – Brett Husak, PayBlox
10. Allow Your IT Team To Determine Tech Use Policies
Empowering IT departments to determine use policies, including those for SaaS and artificial intelligence, and backing them up with enforcement authority is a good start. Armed with tools for remote monitoring and management, mobile device management, and network management, IT teams are in a good position to enable an agile culture that operates within established guardrails. – Douglas Murray, Auvik
11. Ensure Flexibility In How The Team Communicates, But Set Clear Protocols For WhenCommunication flexibility is key. We have all endured hours of Zoom and Teams calls; these are necessary. But we need to be flexible in how we communicate, which may be via email, messaging apps like Slack, text messaging and even real phone calls. And create communication protocols—with different time zones and family situations, teams need to be clear on the parameters. – Guy Courtin, Tecsys Inc.
12. Schedule Both Team And Individual Stand-Ups
Scheduling regular stand-ups, both with the team as a whole and individuals, is a great way to check in with staff and uncover any blockers. One of the advantages to remote working is that you can check in with everyone, regardless of geography. Another advantage is how much easier it is to document things; Slack, email and meeting transcripts help you capture valuable insights from employees more easily. – Ramesh Ramani, ExpertusONE
13. Create One-On-One Cross-Training Opportunities
Formalize a one-on-one cross-training program that drives engagement across geographies, including, but not limited to, basic mentoring. The structure must include deliverables with checkpoints for progress and evaluation of final results in performance assessments. This strategy ensures competence development, succession planning and backups to tech SMEs, resulting in a more closely knit failsafe team. – Philip Samson, Spherycle Thinking
14. Trust Your Team Members
At PAR, I’ve found that the secret sauce to remote work is trust: Give people ownership, set clear goals and then get out of their way. Micromanaging kills innovation. Instead, we focus on smart communication—just enough to stay aligned without stifling creativity. Tech teams thrive on autonomy, so let them run with it. – Savneet Singh, PAR
15. Hire High-Performing, Motivated People
One key strategy is hiring high performers whose values and intrinsic motivation align with the company’s goals. Clear task setting and trust from management are also crucial. Whether your team is remote or in the office, this approach ensures alignment around a shared vision. This benefits tech teams and the business, fostering both innovation and long-term success. – Andre Reitenbach, Gcore
16. Empower Your Employees To Own Their Work
When leading remote, geographically distributed teams, focus on three key strategies: 1. Hire top talents who excel without constant oversight, 2. empower them to own their areas independently, and 3. streamline communication using offline channels like docs and chats. This approach is especially effective for tech teams, as it promotes autonomy, reduces bottlenecks and ensures clarity. – Praveen Gujar, LinkedIn
17. Focus On Results Over Hours Logged
As CEO, I’ve been leading a remote team for over four years, focusing on results over hours worked. My team has flexibility in their schedules as long as deadlines are met. We minimize meetings, keeping them task-focused. By using various tools for communication and task tracking and emphasizing kindness and transparency, we drive strong engagement and productivity. – Jacob (Yakup) Kalvo, Live Proxies
18. Leverage Asynchronous Communication Tools
To manage remote teams across time zones, we rely on asynchronous tools like Slack and Loom. We use Slack’s scheduling feature to send messages at the right times for team members in different time zones, and we use Loom to record updates that can be viewed at any time. We also record meetings for easy access. This approach fosters flexibility, uninterrupted focus and better team engagement. – Ginger Dhaliwal, Upflex
19. Try Pair Programming Rotations
My favorite strategy is pair programming rotations, where developers regularly switch partners while working on critical tasks. This encourages collaboration, knowledge sharing and accountability. For tech teams, it’s effective because it reduces silos, improves code quality and fosters continuous learning, keeping remote team members engaged and aligned on common goals. – Sarah Choudhary, Ice Innovations
20. Reduce Your Meeting Cadence
Remote technology teams are often operating in many time zones, so reducing the meeting cadence is the most important element of success. Have the outcomes defined prior to any planned communication. Also, create synergy with team-building initiatives, and allow travel for this purpose—this goes a long way toward helping team members learn to trust each other. Finally, for all important decisions, make sure to seek and consider the team’s opinion. – Erum Manzoor, Citigroup
