Managing Remote Teams and How to Measure Team Success

Managing remote and hybrid work is now part of everyday life for tech and engineering teams. The flexibility is great, and the access to global talent has opened doors like never before. But leading remote teams that aren’t all in the same room comes with its own unique set of challenges.

If you’re leading distributed remote teams, you’ve probably already felt the pain of delayed responses, unclear expectations, or a dip in engagement. The good news is that with the right mindset, structure, and communication habits, your hybrid or remote team can thrive from anywhere.

This guide breaks down the challenges of managing remote teams and gives you practical ways to solve them. Whether you're refining your remote setup or starting from scratch, we’ll walk through the leadership practices, tools, and performance metrics that actually make a difference.

Challenges Every Distributed Team Leader Faces

Hybrid and remote work are now a big part of modern tech culture. Employees value flexibility, and businesses have embraced global talent pools.

However, tech and engineering teams must operate across different time zones, rely on digital communication tools, and maintain high remote team productivity while maintaining a sense of connection.

Despite these demands, hybrid setups offer unmatched opportunities to attract talent. Engineering leaders who address these challenges and use effective management practices can drive successful remote and hybrid teams.

Leading remote teams isn’t as simple as moving meetings to Zoom. It requires rethinking workflows, relationships, and how outcomes are measured. 

Below are some of the most common sticking points for tech leaders:

1. Communication Gaps and Time Zone Friction

Every remote leader knows the pain of scheduling a meeting across seven time zones or waiting hours for an urgent response. Miscommunication can spiral when written texts lack the detail of in-person interaction. Ultimately, gaps in communication can slow decision-making and create misunderstandings.

2. Maintaining Remote Team Engagement and Cohesion

Keeping team members connected can be difficult when people don’t see each other daily. Without casual office conversations or shared coffee breaks, people working remotely or in hybrid work environments may feel isolated or disconnected from the broader company culture. Over time, low remote team engagement can lead to demotivation and higher turnover.

Recent research suggests that 55% of remote workers reported difficulty feeling connected to coworkers, which can exacerbate communication gaps, highlighting the importance of remote team engagement and the need for effective remote and hybrid team management to build on communication.

3. Balancing Independence With Accountability

Remote work thrives on trust and autonomy, but independence doesn’t mean a lack of oversight. Engineering leaders must create a balance between trusting their teams and ensuring work gets done. Without clear structures, there’s a risk of uncertainty around roles and responsibilities.

Facing these challenges doesn’t have to be a struggle. Get the guidance and tools your team needs to thrive in a hybrid work environment. Our support and tailored software recruitment solutions can help you overcome obstacles and build a remote or hybrid tech and engineering team for sustained success.

Best Practices for Remote Team Leadership

Now that we understand the challenges, let’s focus on what works. Here, we expand on practical and proven methods to build trust and measure remote team productivity and performance. 

1. Set Clear, Shared Expectations

Unclear expectations can quickly slow progress. To build a successful remote or hybrid team, everyone should understand what’s expected of them. So, here’s how to ensure clarity:

• Define roles and responsibilities. Every team member, from developers to tech leads, should have a clear understanding of their tasks. Team charters at the project level can help clarify how cross-functional roles work and relate to one another.
• Establish objectives and milestones. These can include sprint goals, quarterly OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), or KPIs linked to larger business goals. Make it a two-way conversation to ensure alignment.
• Use shared documents or knowledge-sharing tools to build a “how we work” manual. Setting this up means you can make onboarding smoother and keep ongoing processes consistent.

2. Use Tools for Real-Time Collaboration

As you know, hybrid teams function across different contexts and environments.

Following the global COVID-19 pandemic, 78% of UK businesses found that video conferencing improved morale and mental well-being during remote and hybrid work. This figure showcases how essential these tools can be in maintaining team trust and remote team engagement even when working apart.

Here are some of the best tools to consider to ensure seamless communication and collaboration:

• Maintain async-friendly documentation. Use tools like Confluence, Notion, or Google Docs to capture meeting outcomes, technical approaches, or decisions. This makes it easier for employees in different time zones to catch up.
• Encourage open communication channels. Use platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams, but set guidelines to reduce the stress of constant online presence. Designate specific channels for project updates, brainstorming, and general team discourse.
• Invest in project lifecycle visibility. Jira, Trello, and ClickUp not only track progress but also enhance accountability by making tasks and ownership transparent.

Top Tip: Take inspiration from teams that “work out loud,” where tasks, updates, and hurdles are visible, ensuring everyone can identify opportunities for collaboration or troubleshooting.

3. Maintain a Structured Rhythm of Check-Ins and Retros

Regular check-ins are pivotal for remote work best practices and are one of the most important things you can do to keep your team engaged and productive. Here’s how to elevate these touchpoints:

• Start team meetings with a human element. Begin with personal updates or something as simple as “What’s one small win this week?” to build connection.
• Use retrospectives for actionable improvements. When wrapping up a sprint, encourage team members to openly discuss challenges and learnings. Keep retros focused on solutions, not finger-pointing.
• Adapt 1-on-1 sessions based on individual needs. Use structured tools like feedback frameworks (e.g., Start/Stop/Continue) or keep them as open-ended conversations to assess remote team engagement levels.

How to Measure Success in Remote and Hybrid Teams

Measuring success in hybrid teams requires focusing on outcomes and productivity without overwhelming your engineers. Metrics should reflect technical and digital performance, workflows, and remote team engagement. 

Here’s a simplified approach for engineering leaders:

1. Track Task Delivery and Output

When managing engineering teams, effective tracking focuses on results and workflow efficiency. Evaluating team performance is the best way to gain an insight into what is and is not working well for your remote and hybrid teams.

Below are some of the most effective methods for evaluating team performance and tracking delivery and output for your tech and engineering teams:

• Sprint completion rates: Use tools like Jira or Linear to monitor if sprints close on time or if tickets frequently roll over. Spot inefficiencies early.
• Release frequency: Regular feature releases highlight smooth collaboration. If releases slow, look for blockers in processes or review loops.
• Cycle time: Watch how quickly tasks move from “in progress” to “done.” Shorter cycles indicate streamlined workflows and fewer difficulties.

If deadlines slip, retrospectives can help uncover what’s slowing things down, whether it’s resource gaps or unclear priorities.

2. Monitor Remote Team Engagement

Like any team, engineer engagement impacts performance and team morale. Disconnected team members contribute less and risk delaying projects. 

Here’s why evaluating team performance in terms of engagement is essential and how you can do it effectively:

• Meeting engagement: Active contributions during stand-ups, retrospectives, and planning meetings show alignment and focus.
• Surveys for feedback: Use anonymous surveys to ask direct questions like, “Do you feel supported?” or “Is your workload manageable?”
• Retention rates: High engineer turnover signals internal issues. Exit feedback can provide insights into frustration caused by unclear goals or unrealistic expectations.

3. Measure Collaboration

The success of tech and engineering teams heavily depends on strong collaboration. Focusing on how well the team works together is usually the key to solving problems.

What are the best ways to measure collaboration amongst your tech and engineering team? Take a look at the following steps:

• Pull request activity: Review code contributions to ensure timely collaboration. Are engineers providing constructive feedback in peer reviews?
• Sprint velocity: Analyse how much work gets done in each sprint. Sudden drops may signal burnout or unclear expectations.
• Cross-functional communication: Keep tabs on how smooth integrations and collaborations are between teams like back-end, QA, and DevOps.

Use tools like GitHub Insights to visualise code collaboration trends and identify areas needing attention. A collaborative team builds better, faster.

4.  Monitor Well-Being

Burnout is one of the most pressing concerns for tech leaders. Avoiding burnout is extremely important to maintaining consistent team performance. A balanced approach keeps engineers motivated without sacrificing mental or emotional health.

Here’s an approach that can help to keep your team happy:

• Workload check-ins: Use tools like Harvest to monitor workloads. Unbalanced hours can lead to burnout, so distributing the workload evenly is crucial.
• Encourage collaboration: Prevent functional silos by encouraging cross-team communication. Problems often arise when teams stop sharing knowledge.
• Real-time feedback: Use informal Slack channels or regular check-ins to surface frustrations before they grow into significant problems.

Include occasional in-person meetups or offsites to build connections within the team. Stronger relationships translate to better hybrid and remote team productivity and trust.

Final Advice on Managing Remote Teams

Leading a hybrid or remote team can be challenging, but when done right, it’s incredibly rewarding. Of course, there are hurdles, including time zones that never align, engagement dips, or trying to balance autonomy with accountability. But these challenges are also chances to rethink how you work and build something stronger.

By using the right tools, setting clear expectations, and keeping communication open (whether through Slack, Zoom, or a quick call), you can create an environment where your team feels connected and empowered. In addition, don’t underestimate the importance of check-ins, retros, and those occasional in-person meetups to bring everyone back together. It’s this mix of technology and human connection that really keeps everything clicking.

Ultimately, your leadership sets the tone. When you focus on outcomes, collaboration, and mental well-being, you’re setting your team up for success. The future of work doesn’t have to be uncertain, it’s just different. And with the right mindset and tools, there’s no reason your team can’t thrive.

Start Building and Managing Remote Teams Today

Ready to take your tech and engineering remote or hybrid team to the next level? Whether you need guidance on managing remote teams, building the best remote workforce, overcoming challenges, exploring the best tools, or implementing strategies that truly work, now’s the perfect time to act.

With our unrivalled insights, global talent pools and trusted software recruitment services, we can help you build and lead successful remote teams.

Contact us today to discover how we can help you.