Communication in a virtual environment isn’t just about sending emails and hopping on Zoom calls—it’s about connecting, aligning, and ensuring everyone feels heard and valued.
The primary mistake in managing a remote employee is the perception that communication will simply come naturally. It won’t.
According to Culture Wizard’s 2018 Virtual Teams Survey, two main challenges for remote teams are time zone differences (88%) and difficulty in communication (86%).
There’s no water cooler where you can casually ask how the latest project is going. Your desk is not just a few steps away so that employees can come to you with questions. And you probably can’t just call a meeting on a Wednesday afternoon when all you have for leverage is an email address.
But that doesn’t mean you aren’t able to build connections and effective communication just because everyone is miles away from you.
Good remote communication is about having the right tools, strategies, and leadership philosophy, as well as building trust and transparency. If you don’t do it properly, you will lose clarity, employees will become unmotivated, and you will find it much harder to run a results-driven organization.
I am going to show you all the secrets of how to communicate effectively with your virtual team and build a remote workplace where everyone stays aligned, productive, and motivated.
Why Effective Communication Matters in Virtual Teams
Healthy communication is key to productivity in any area of our lives, including our offices. In a virtual team, however, it is essential. Without it, problems can arise, such as low employee retention, lack of direction, misunderstandings among workers, low-quality services and products, and an overall loss of profit.
Researchers from INTI International University studied many remote teams, analyzed 221 valid responses, and found that information accuracy, clarity, and accessibility significantly affect project success in remote settings, while timeliness did not show a significant direct impact.
Without strong communication strategies, your team will lose focus, slowing down your company plan and forcing last-minute hiring processes to compensate for a slow workflow.
You already know this. How will you interact and engage with employees from different time zones?
Seven Ways to Improve Virtual Team Communication
You are already aware that communication at your organization could use some improvement. Here we have seven valuable solutions for you to implement your remote communications strategies ASAP – yes, that’s how important they are.
1. Set Expectations Early On
When you hire remote workers, the best way to increase the potential of open and effective communication is to set your expectations upfront.
A Gallup study suggests that if employees have clear expectations, productivity could increase by 10%, turnover could decrease by 22%, and safety incidents could be reduced by 29%.
Be clear about what you’re looking for in an employee and what your company culture is like. Do you want them working at set hours or having more flexibility? Would you prefer an end-of-day or end-of-week virtual check-in? How much guidance are you willing to provide upfront and on an ongoing basis?
These are all critical questions to ask to set the tone for your working relationship. Make sure you’re communicating well and precisely what you want so that your virtual team can follow your lead.
Be specific when assigning tasks and provide detailed guidelines so there’s no room or tolerance for guesswork. Address mistakes or any issues early on to prevent the problem from continuing in the future.
Here are some tips you may follow to ensure your expectations:
- Use a proper tool and set a deadline: Be it a simple calendar, a Kanban board, or a Gantt chart; be sure that they have a due date.
- Set a definition of “ready”: People tell you that ”everything is ready, they just have to make some adjustments”. The thing is, the need for adjustments means that the task is not ready. To properly ensure readiness, you will write the definition of ready in their task.
- For example, let’s say you are telling your remote marketing team that they need to prepare a script for remarketing. You will tell them, “The task will be considered done when I have a script for remarketing that is written, reviewed, and approved.”
- Set a goal: People need to know the context of their task, or they will assume your expectations wrongly. Set them examples, so they won’t misunderstand anything.
- Using the same example as prior, the remarketing script. You will tell them: “The goal of this script is to approach old customers with new offers. You will identify them, create a personalized greeting, present the offer, anticipate their objections, and include a Call To Action.” Then, you will brief them about the audience, and the benefits of your product, present possible objections and their answers, and maybe even include an example of CTA.
Communicating legitimate and clear expectations early on is the way to go if you want to have harmony in your virtual workplace – and put your remote team on the right track.
2. Consider the Right Communication Tools
According to Zogby Analytics, 41% of virtual teams still coordinate their work via text, Skype and even Facebook messenger.
One of the best things about working with a remote team is all the cutting-edge tools and apps you can use. In virtual teams, you won’t see each other in person daily. So, we must reach the gap for that missing personal connection by choosing the right tools for your business.
If project management is your concern, consider using project management tools to keep track of the team activities and create projects. We have valuable tools like Asana, Basecamp, or Trello that help you organize the workflow, reminding you of deadlines and completing tasks. These tools are necessary to give a full picture of what is going on, facilitating communication across departments.
If you need to set up a conference call with employees, consider using tools like:
- Discord
- Google Hangouts
- UberConference
- Zoom.
Or, if you prefer to chat throughout the day or address urgent needs and concerns, you can ask everyone to sign up for Slack (who is not using Slack nowadays?) and be online for a specific set of hours each day.
Each team is unique. Do some research based on your communication goals to determine which tools would be best for smoothing out communication with remote workers.
Consider factors like:
your team size,
communication needs,
industry,
budget,
desired features (like file sharing, video conferencing and others),
ease of use,
mobile accessibility,
integrations with other tools you use,
data security
scalability
Don’t forget to assess your employees’ technical proficiency and preferred communication methods to ensure widespread adoption. If everyone already knows how to use Discord, use Discord. Why not?
3. Organize Regular Meetings
Meetings are probably the most basic and standard workplace activity, and it’s understandable why. They act as the common ground to bring everyone together and discuss relevant topics as a team.
When you manage a remote team, you can still host regular team meetings, and you’ll probably want to, as it can be the best way to keep lines of communication open and meet synchronously.
Choose a platform, whether it’s Slack Huddles, Zoom, or Google Hangouts, and set a clear purpose to make sure your meeting is productive and a good use of everyone’s time.
Too many meetings or too long can lead to feelings of interruption, fatigue, and reduced focus on individual tasks; the key is to strike a balance with well-structured, purposeful meetings held at an appropriate cadence depending on the team’s needs.
Research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development indicates that while regular meetings can be beneficial for team alignment and communication, excessive meeting frequency can negatively impact employee productivity, satisfaction, and well-being.
Harvard Business Review surveyed 182 senior managers in many industries:
- 65% said meetings keep them from completing their work.
- 71% said meetings are unproductive and inefficient.
- 64% said meetings come at the expense of deep thinking.
- 62% said meetings miss opportunities to bring the team closer together.
Consider the following:
Click below to compare different meeting approaches.
❌ 60-Minute Meeting Each Week
Why it doesn’t work: Long meetings are difficult for **busy, full-time remote employees** spread across different time zones.
💡 Problem: Expecting global team members to be available for an **hour-long** call is unrealistic.
⏰ Better Alternative: **Record the meeting** for those who can’t attend.
✅ 25-Minute Meeting Each Week
Why this works best: A **shorter, focused meeting** ensures team connectivity **without disrupting work schedules.**
📌 Benefit: Easier to schedule across **time zones** and can be **recorded & shared** for those who miss it.
🎯 **Pro Tip:** If a longer meeting is needed, **don’t expect full attendance—just record it for later access.**
4. Create Opportunities to Connect Your Virtual Team as People
Remember: the faces on the screen you see belong to real people. People have issues, opinions, and hobbies. In short, they also have a life besides their job. Especially in virtual teams, you should create occasions to share personal interests and bond through casual conversations.
For instance, you may be interested in scheduling a micro-mentoring week every three months, when you randomly pick a “mentor” and an “apprentice” from your team.
The mentor has to teach something to the apprentice. It is not supposed to be a long and tedious task, but something short-lived (limited to a single encounter). Focus on a single skill for 30 minutes at the most.
It can be something related to work or something else: they can teach basics about a tool (even Excel is on the table, many people are terrible with all those sheets) or a single feat (for example, easy ways to emulate Python functions in JavaScript). If you feel bold, you can forget the work and let people teach whatever they want. The purpose is to create a connection between teammates.
While I haven’t found data about “micro-mentoring”, research shows that 97% of individuals with a mentor find mentoring experiences valuable, and 89% of those mentored say they’ll mentor others.
If you can implement mentoring into your business, that’s way better, but micro-mentoring is less expensive and is a suitable alternative.
5. Forget the Time Zones, Focus on Results
Instead of getting everyone working at the same time frame or micromanaging everyone to know if they are doing their jobs, just focus on tasks being done and if there are no bottlenecks.
Earlier in the article, you saw research from INTI, where clear communication trumps timeliness. The lack of timeliness is expected in any project. Extend the deadline when needed (as long as it doesn’t become a bottleneck).
While punctuality is desirable, reaching our financial goals is our true goal: increasing revenue, profit, margin, or sales.
Even if your remote team doesn’t impact these goals directly, you can always use a metric to measure your team’s performance.
For example, Netflix uses the total hours viewed by subscribers to measure retention. Even if this North Star Metric doesn’t directly impact sales, it’s safe to assume this metric matters. The more one watches it, the more one will keep watching the streaming service. And likely will keep paying the subscription fee.
With a well-chosen metric and proper communication, time zones won’t be a problem.
6. Master Conflict-Solving Techniques
According to Renée Evenson, a corporate training consultant specializing in organizational psychology, powerful phrases with meaningful actions lead to successful professional relationships. This is a fancy statement, but what does it mean?
That means you can communicate effectively if you know what to say and how to act. We will give more examples later.
First, let’s focus on each step of effective communication in conflict-solving:
- First step: Think before saying anything
- Take a step back, examine the situation from all perspectives, and keep the focus on the problem and not on the person.
- Second step: Try to understand better what is happening
- Talk before taking any precipitated conclusions, encourage people to tell their version, listen attentively, and control your emotions. If the other is still upset or on the verge of losing control, calm them down and postpone the conversation until everyone is ready.
- Third step: Assess the problem
- Tell your point of view of what you think the problem is and let them tell their point of view as well.
- Fourth step: Offer the best solution to compromise
- Try to find common ground between everyone, let them propose their solutions, respect everyone, and do not look for someone to blame.
- Fifth step: Agreeing with the resolution
- Ask everyone to agree with the solution and listen for feedback.
To do all those steps effectively, here are some phrases that may help you to solve conflicts.
🗣 Effective Conflict Resolution Phrases
Click on a category to see helpful phrases for resolving conflicts.
Why it’s important: Using “I” statements focuses on **how you feel** rather than blaming the other person.
✅ Example: “I feel upset when you try to micromanage all my tasks.”
Why it’s important: These phrases show **empathy and understanding**, making it easier to de-escalate conflicts.
✅ Example: “I know you didn’t do that on purpose to hurt me.”
Why it’s important: Acknowledging mistakes helps **resolve conflicts faster** by accepting accountability.
✅ Example: “I’m sorry if I didn’t understand what had happened.”
Why it’s important: These phrases show **willingness to negotiate** and find a compromise.
✅ Example: “Let’s talk in private and try to solve that.”
Why it’s important: After a solution is found, reinforcing agreement builds **trust and cooperation**.
✅ Example: “I’m happy that we could have solved that.”
Why it’s important: Ending conflicts on a **positive note** maintains **healthy professional relationships**.
✅ Example: “I value our professional relationship and hope we can keep working together in the future.”
It’s not about memorizing messages or catchphrases but communicating the best messages to solve the conflict.
Actions mean more than words, including your body language, facial expressions, and voice tone. While dealing with virtual teams, misunderstandings may often happen since we cannot notice these non-verbal cues (except when using a webcam).
A study found that 31% of adults have been frustrated while chatting through text-only and 42% don’t get sarcasm through text.
But there is an action that shows even while chatting in text: Assertivity.
When you talk with respect, calm, confidence, objectively, clearly, and concisely, you show assertiveness even through text.
So here are the actions you must master to solve conflicts effectively:
| Actions | Why it’s relevant in remote work | What you should do |
| Body Language | Your posture is also a good indicator of your mood, especially the shoulders. | Relax the shoulders and keep your posture erect. |
| Facial Expressions | Your face is the biggest giveaway of your feelings, especially in remote. | Keep a healthy dose of eye contact, smile, and keep your mouth in a neutral position while not smiling. |
| Voice Tone | The way you say it can change your message completely. Think of different ways to say “I need to talk to you”, and you will realize it. | Try to sound professional and empathetic, talking in a calm and warmth voice tone. |
| Assertivity | It shows you care about your ideas without stepping on other people’s toes. People often respect those who show them respect first. | Talk with confidence, and be clear and concise. Avoid apologizing too often. Do not retreat or allow people to attack or tease you, but avoid attacking and teasing them back. Instead, set some boundaries. |
7. Master Asynchronous Communication
Asynchronous communication means you and your team are not communicating in real time.
(Yeah, I agree that Asynchronous is not a pretty word and it feels confusing, but I guarantee you that it’s not that hard.)
We’re always communicating asynchronously with our families and friends on social media. Do you remember posting that meme that others laughed at after a day? Do you remember liking a photo posted a week ago? When you use Snapchat with your family, don’t you sometimes answer after 1 hour?
It’s the same thing while communicating with your remote team. Congratulations, you already have mastered asynchronous communication.
As stated before by the INTI study I shared with you earlier, information accuracy, clarity, and accessibility significantly affect project success in remote settings, while timeliness did not show a significant direct impact.
It’s more important to communicate with accurate information than to communicate on time.
So, instead of saying “The meeting will be at that hour as we previously agreed”, please state the hour correctly: a.m., p.m., according to the GMT of your remote team member (not yours).
Give your remote team all the definitions they need, the objective of their tasks, examples, and metrics, as you have learned when we discussed how to set expectations earlier. Let them ask questions and do not make them feel ashamed when you answer them.
That’s What You Need to Know About Communication in Remote Teams
Ask your remote team members about their needs and desires. Explore different communication strategies and balance what you find out with your existing team. Remote is all about transformation; don’t be afraid to implement and change your communication strategies!
If you do it for your team, it won’t ever be a limit but only an improvement. And if you still have doubts about tools and methods to communicate with your remote team, let us know!
