How to Manage Remote Team Performance Without Losing Your Mind (or Your Best People)

by | Jul 1, 2025 | News

6 proven strategies to improve the performance of hybrid and remote working work for your business

Managing performance is tough enough face-to-face. But when your team’s scattered across dining tables, garden offices, and the odd beach hut (you hope it’s a working holiday), things can get messy, fast.

The most successful remote-friendly businesses aren’t chasing people for updates or obsessing over online presence. They focus on what matters: outcomes, not optics.

At Go HR, we help owner-led businesses create simple, practical systems that get results, without micromanaging or creating drama. If you’re navigating remote or hybrid working, here are six ways to take back control, support your team, and protect your bottom line.

1. Clarity is king: make expectations painfully clear

Remote work demands more clarity, not less. Your team need to know:

  • What they’re expected to deliver

  • When it needs to be done by

  • How success will be measured

  • Who’s holding them accountable

It’s not about breathing down their necks. It’s about replacing guesswork with structure. Because where clarity is missing, confusion, and conflict, rush in to fill the gap.

Want to reduce performance issues before they even start? Start with this conversation.

2. Talk about performance before it’s urgent

Too many remote managers wait until performance dips to start talking. By then, it’s firefighting. Instead, build regular 1:1s into your rhythm:

  • Weekly or fortnightly check-ins

  • Short, sharp and consistent

  • Space to talk about work and wellbeing

  • Adapted to suit different roles

This isn’t a tick-box exercise, it’s your early warning system. A quick 15-minute video chat often prevents a month of frustration.

3. Track the work performance, not the person

You don’t need spy software or clock-in tools. You need transparency.

That might look like:

  • Project management tools like Trello, Asana or ClickUp

  • Shared dashboards showing progress and priorities

  • Simple weekly templates for status updates

  • A team huddle where people share wins and blockers

The goal? Visibility without admin overload. When everyone knows what’s happening, accountability becomes part of the culture, not a forced check.

4. Make inclusion non-negotiable

In hybrid teams, those off-site can easily become afterthoughts. That’s when resentment sets in.

Stop it before it starts:

  • Keep decisions and updates out of private side chats

  • Use shared platforms like Slack or Teams for visibility

  • Vary meeting times so no one’s always the one dialling in after hours

  • Share written notes and decisions clearly

One golden rule: if one person is remote, the whole meeting is remote. No side-room whispers. No half-hearted speakerphones.

5. Bridge the physical gap

When people work apart, silos build up fast. That’s bad for collaboration and worse for culture.

Bridge the gap by:

  • Creating project groups that mix remote and on-site team members

  • Encouraging cross-training or skill-sharing sessions

  • Using tools like Miro or Notion for real-time collaboration

  • Planning the occasional in-person get-together (yes, it’s worth the cost)

Remote work can still feel connected, but you have to design for it.

6. Recognise results, wherever they happen

Out of sight shouldn’t mean out of mind. But recognition often skews towards the most vocal or visible. Here’s how to fix that:

  • Publicly celebrate great work, especially the behind-the-scenes wins

  • Include remote team members in shout-outs, thank-yous and reward schemes

  • Regularly review who’s progressing and why, are you being fair?

  • Ask your team how they want to be recognised

The most engaged remote employees aren’t the ones who work the longest hours. They’re the ones who feel seen and valued.

Remote doesn’t mean disconnected

Performance management for remote teams isn’t about control. It’s about creating clarity, communication and connection, so your people can thrive, not just survive.

Get it right, and you’ll unlock loyalty, productivity and flexibility. Get it wrong, and you’ll lose your best people while wondering what went wrong.

At Go HR, we help business owners design simple performance systems that work for their teams, wherever they’re based.

Want support to make remote working actually work? Let’s talk.