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Remote work stopped being a crisis response about two years ago. Now it’s just how you run your business. Work-from-home job listings increased fourfold across 20 countries from 2020 to 2023.
The numbers tell you what you already know. Remote is permanent. But permanent doesn’t mean simple. Adding remote employees is easy. Managing them at scale is where things get complicated.
In 2025, 26% of US workers are fully remote, according to Gallup. This massive transformation shows how much work has changed in just a few years and how much more change is on the horizon.
In this article, we’ll share the best practices for building a remote-friendly infrastructure that scales with you. From refining communication systems to fostering culture, we’ll guide you through the steps to future-proof your business.
Step 1: Assess Your Current Remote Work Setup
You can’t fix what you don’t measure. Start with a simple audit of how your team actually communicates. Are people using three different tools for the same conversation? Those gaps get wider as you add more people.
Check your onboarding process next. Pull up the last three remote hires and track what they experienced in their first two weeks. If it took five days to get system access, multiply that by twenty hires. That’s how you are losing weeks of productivity.
Now look at engagement. Fully remote workers globally show 31% engagement rates compared to 23% for hybrid employees and 19% for those on-site. Your remote team has real potential here. But only if you’re creating the right conditions.
Do your people know what’s expected? Can they see how their work connects to larger goals?
Your security setup needs the same level of scrutiny, mind you. Every remote employee is an endpoint. If you’re relying on VPNs alone or people are using personal devices without proper protocols, you’re building on shaky ground.
The point isn’t to find everything wrong. It’s to establish a baseline. Write down what’s working and what’s breaking. That clarity enables you to prioritize the changes that truly matter as you grow.
Step 2: Automate Repetitive Processes
Almost every business that cares about staying competitive has been adopting automation. From large enterprises to small businesses, the pattern is consistent. They’re removing manual work that slows them down.
One area where automation can truly make a difference is payroll management, which can quickly become a handful when scaling a remote workforce in different countries. Different tax codes, varying labor laws, multiple currencies – payroll management gets messy fast when you’re trying to coordinate all of that manually.
Automated payroll solutions can handle the complexity without requiring you to become an expert in employment law across twelve jurisdictions.
The practical benefit is consolidation, according to Remote, a global HR and payroll platform. You’re managing payroll, benefits, time off requests, tax filings, and HR records from one system instead of juggling multiple platforms. It saves time. More importantly, it reduces errors that come from transferring data between disconnected tools.
Apart from payroll, there are numerous other repetitive processes ripe for automation. For instance, automating time tracking and leave management can eliminate the manual effort of monitoring employee hours, vacation days, and sick leave, freeing up your HR team to focus on more strategic tasks.
Similarly, automating employee onboarding and offboarding processes ensures that new hires get up to speed quickly and that departing employees have all their exit procedures handled efficiently.
Step 3: Build Connection into Your Process
When your remote team was five people, you probably talked to everyone regularly. You knew what they were working on. You picked up on when someone was struggling. That gets harder as you add more people.
The data shows why this can’t be ignored. Remote workers report higher levels of anger at 25%, sadness at 30%, and loneliness at 27% compared to their hybrid and on-site counterparts. Those aren’t small differences. They’re warning signs about what happens when the connection breaks down at scale.
You need a structure that creates regular touchpoints without micromanaging. Weekly one-on-ones are a start, but they can’t be the only interaction someone has with their manager. Build in informal check-ins.
Create spaces where people can talk about things that aren’t project updates. Some teams do virtual coffee chats. Others have dedicated Slack channels for non-work conversations. The format doesn’t matter as much as the consistency.
Recognition becomes harder to do well when you’re managing more people remotely. Someone does good work, and it’s easy to miss if you’re not seeing it happen in real time. Set up a system where wins get shared publicly.
It can be as simple as a weekly roundup or a channel where people shout out their teammates. The point is making sure contributions don’t disappear into the void.
Step 4: Get Serious About Talent Verification
Hiring remotely means you’re often bringing people on board without ever meeting them face to face. This distance creates an opportunity for misrepresentation. Resume fraud is climbing.
According to a report shared by Forbes, 70% of individuals lie on their resume to some degree, often out of sheer desperation. People are looking for ways to game the system, and remote hiring makes it easier to slip through.
When you’re scaling fast and need to fill positions quickly, there’s pressure to move candidates through faster. That’s exactly when corners get cut. Background checks become something you mean to do thoroughly, but end up rushing. That’s a mistake that compounds as your team grows.
Background verification needs to be non-negotiable. Here’s what should be standard for every hire, according to Remote:
- Confirming previous job titles, employers, and how long they were there
- Checking sanctions lists and watchlist databases for any red flags
- Verifying their educational credentials, including the schools attended and graduation dates
- Running criminal history checks where legally permitted in your jurisdiction
These checks take time and cost money. However, hiring someone who lied about their qualifications is more expensive. It shows up in poor performance, missed deadlines, and eventually in the disruption of letting them go and starting the search over. When you’re managing a distributed team, you can’t afford that kind of setback.
Early Beats Perfect, As Always
You won’t get everything right on the first try. Remote operations at scale take time to refine. But the companies that do this well aren’t avoiding problems. They’re just catching them earlier. Focus on building systems that can grow with you instead of constantly putting out fires. The work you put in now saves you from scrambling later. And that difference compounds as your team gets bigger.
