You’ve got a team to lead, which is tough enough. Besides keeping everyone on task, you’ve got to engage, inspire and mentor. You’re juggling the roles of supervisor, advocate, change agent and confidant while taking care not to micromanage. But when you throw in the caveat of leading a remote team, traditional successful tactics don’t always fly.

How do you build rapport when you’ve never met in person? Trust and communication can also become stumbling blocks that seem impossible to get over. Don’t forget the group might be working asynchronously across various time zones. Leaders of virtual staff have their work cut out for them, but the challenges can be overcome with a few tweaks. Below are some tips on how to effectively manage a remote team.

In-person teams have it easy. They can gather around the water cooler or organically jump into a brainstorming session. Physical proximity not only keeps pertinent information flowing but also builds camaraderie.

While remote teams don’t come with the advantages of in-person presence, you can still build trust and relationships. But you do need to make a conscious, consistent effort by leveraging the tools at your disposal, including technology. Examples include virtual lunch or coffee hours, exchanging non-work-related information during team huddles and group social media pages.

An internal social media page can be a dedicated space where the group posts snippets about themselves. You can also set up informal and formal team chats on platforms such as Slack. These spaces take the place of the office water cooler, letting members exchange details about their lives and work-related questions. Ensure cameras are on during team meetings so non-verbal cues and “physical” presence are present during live conversations.

Communicate Clear Expectations

Clear expectations are a must for any team. Yet, when employees work on tasks from various locations, having everyone on the same page is even more critical. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a bunch of one-person shows. It’ll be difficult to sync tasks and priorities, increasing the chance that projects and group cohesion will fall apart.

Not having well-defined, understandable goals is one of the reasons remote teams fail. You can’t expect a good outcome when the boundaries of roles and responsibilities are fuzzy. Similarly, if team members have different ideas about what the goal posts are, confusion will ensue.

Progress won’t happen, no matter how well everyone executes what they think they should be doing. It might seem like overkill, but outline objectives in addition to expected outcomes and deliverables. Define who’s responsible for each task in a project’s pipeline. Lay out expectations for working hours, hand-off deadlines and team communication. Go over expectations in companywide meetings and one-on-one meetings. Then, document these meetings for reference in a shared virtual space, so everyone on the team can easily access them when needed.

Remote work may have happened before web-based software tools came on the scene. However, 100% virtual teams were far from the norm. Relying on phone conversations to exchange important details and move tasks along isn’t going to set the team up for success. At best, information will become disjointed and challenging to track.

Email will also likely produce the same results. Leveraging improved tools for communication and collaboration is the way to go instead, as these types of tools can help to simplify how everyone on the team works together. Naturally, this gives them the opportunity to spend less time on back-and-forth and more time on the essential tasks at hand. Think cloud-based task and project management software. Better yet, an all-in-one platform can facilitate video meetings, chats, asynchronous communications and project-based work.

With the right tools, remote teams can collaborate, seek out answers to questions that can’t wait and get on the same page. Teams will be able to submit deliverables for review, see how projects are progressing and realize when it’s time to jump in. Regardless of different work schedules or time zones, each employee can stay engaged and exchange the information needed. All-in-one tools also help streamline key details, allowing everyone to get up to speed should they miss a live conversation.

Setting Virtual Teams Up For Success

Leaders aren’t limited to relying on internal team cohesiveness when managing remote groups. They may also be coordinating the efforts of external vendors with those of their employees. While this adds another layer of complexity, I’ve seen it happen.

Syncing the work of my Utah-based remote team with outsourced contractors and clients from various states or countries proves it’s possible. You can build trust virtually, communicate clear expectations and move tasks through the pipeline efficiently. But you need to adopt the right mindset and tools.