Managing remote workers: Guide, Best Practices & Tools [2025]

Looking for a guide to managing your remote workers? You’re in the right place. While managing remote workers - especially remote workers in different time zones - can be tricky, there are tools out there to help.

Join us as we explore some of the best tools for managing remote workers across communication, collaborations and more - including Wise Business as a great way to pay employees globally, with low fees and the mid-market rate.

Sign up for the Wise Business account! 🚀

Challenges of managing remote workers

Before we move on to look at possible tools for managing remote workers, let’s consider why managing a distributed team can present challenges for any Australian business:

• Compliance - employment law in different countries can vary, but you must remain compliant in both Australia and the employees home country
• Expectation setting, including deadlines and prioritising - without regular face to face contact, establishing different communication mechanics is essential
• Building a sense of team - if you have distributed teams, or even just one or two people working outside your full team, finding ways to include everyone can be a challenge
• Choosing appropriate communication tools - written communications can lose a lot of nuance, but arranging video conferences and calls across time zones can also be difficult
• Time management - both in terms of ensuring remote workers complete their scheduled hours, and in terms of helping them set boundaries to avoid burn out
• Being consistent with all team members - rules about important issues like meeting attendance, data security and use of company equipment need to apply equally to everyone, as far as practically possible
• Payroll and admin - Paying people in foreign countries and keeping on top of tax and other legal administration can prove a challenge. We’ve got some great tools to help, like Wise Business, in just a moment.

Top tools for managing remote workers

There are plenty of tools for managing remote workers out there, but as the needs of one team won’t be quite the same as the next, you’ll need to start by researching your options to decide what will actually add value.

We’ve covered some of the core remote team needs here - communication, project management, and HR and payroll. Depending on your business and the type of work you do, you may also need support with file sharing, secure log ins and team authentication, time tracking, legal compliance and so on.

To kick start your research, here are a few popular providers which offer tools to help remote and distributed teams across core business needs.

Communication, calls and meetings

Keeping in touch with your team takes on a whole new aspect when you’re not physically located in the same office, or even the same country or timezone. This is likely to mean you need new tools. Some popular options to consider include:

Slack¹: Create Slack channels which allow different team members to communicate about specific projects or problems, and use Slack Connect tools when working with external agencies. You can message, host video or audio calls, and record messages to upload. This gives a good suite of options even when you’re working across very varied timezones and non-synchronious communication is required.

Microsoft Teams²: Use Microsoft Teams for online messaging and chat, as well as video calls, screen sharing, webinars and ‘town hall’ type meetings which can include a larger group of people. There are also VOIP call tools which can help reduce call costs and allow people to join calls and meetings from wherever they happen to be. If you already use Microsoft tools for your business, this can be a good add on.

Google Workspace³: Google Workspace - formerly G Suite - captures lots of Google’s tools in one place, with useful add ons for business use. There are communication tools like group calls with options for call recording and joining by phone, with extras like live streaming to YouTube, breakout rooms and polls. This offers flexible solutions for a variety of teams, alongside Google’s other products.

Project management

Helping your remote team keep up with each other, the projects they’re collaborating on, and the short, medium and long term task requirements can be harder with a remote team. There are some great project management tools out there to help. Here are a couple which have broad appeal across Australian businesses:

Asana⁴: Asana has an extremely broad range of offerings and also integrates with hundreds of other apps which can help you build a connected suite of tools for your business. With AI tools built in, you can use Asana to plan projects, set goals, assign and manage tasks - allowing you and everyone else involved to keep on top of everything your team might be doing, all in one place.

Trello⁵: Trello has project management and communication tools which are visually appealing and easy to use, and offers a specific remote teams hub with tools designed for distributed team use. From your remote team hub you can see who is doing what, progress on different tasks and projects, and access collaboration and communication tools to keep things moving in the right direction.

HR and payroll

The final core business requirement sits around paying your team and remaining compliant with the law, and the ATO’s tax requirements.

You might choose to get payroll software for your small business to produce compliant payslips and comply with ATP Single Touch Payroll (STP) rules, and for payment, providers like Wise Business can help with low cost international transfers.

We’ll look at Wise Business in just a moment - first, some payroll tools you may like:

Easy Payslip⁶: Get STP compliant payslips, with local support teams if you ever need help. Easy Payslip lets you manage employee time and hours, such as adding in days off, overtime, allowances and deductions, to produce payslips instantly with little fuss. Plus you can get files for batch payments to pay employees in one go through a provider like Wise Business.

Xero⁷: If you would prefer to have your payroll functions as part of a full suite of cloud accounting solutions and tools, Xero might have a plan which suits your needs. There are several different plan options to suit everything from sole traders through to enterprise level businesses, with accountancy, invoicing, bill pay and other financial tools included alongside payroll. One highlight is the Xero employee facing app which allows your team to download payslips, book time off and manage their own schedule - ideal for remote workers.

Make paying remote workers simple, with Wise Business

Once you’ve arranged how to run payroll for your distributed team, you need an efficient and low cost way to make salary payments. Meet Wise Business.

If your team is based abroad, paying in foreign currencies can mean incurring unexpected fees and getting stung by poor exchange rates. Wise Business is the perfect solution. Open a Wise Business account to send low cost payments to 140+ countries, with the mid market rate and low, transparent fees. Payments can arrive quickly or even instantly - and you can pay up to 1,000 people at a time with batch transfers.

Need more? Wise Business can help you manage your remote team with employee expense cards to allow for easy and controlled business spending around the world, with mid-market rates and no surprise costs.

Wise Business helps streamline overseas business payments without foreign transaction fees, saving up to 3x compared to other providers.

• Free to register — Send money to 140+ currencies with no hidden exchange rate markups
• Make up to 1,000 transfers at once with the Wise batch payments feature
• Fast, low-cost payouts to customers, freelancers, employees, investors, and suppliers globally
• Automate invoice payments, recurring transfers, and international payroll
• Fast and fully secure payments through Wise, even for large amounts

Tired of hidden fees and complex processes when making overseas payments?

Start sending with a Wise Business account! 🚀

Best practices for managing remote workers in different time zones

Let’s round out with a few best practices for managing remote workers in different time zones - one of the trickiest elements of managing a remote team:

• Arrange regular one to ones at a time that suits you and your employees, giving structure to your communication
• Help your team members set realistic boundaries, so they’re not trying to keep up with work communications 24/7
• Agree on expectations, goals and project milestones, and realign periodically so your employees don’t feel unsure
• Let your team know your working hours, and when you’ll be available for impromptu requests, calls or check ins
• Trust your team - micromanaging a team in another time zone is exhausting for all involved

Sources:

1. Slack
2. Microsoft Teams
3. Google Workspace
4. Asana
5. Trello
6. Easy Payslip
7. Xero payroll