Read the A Distributed Workforce Toolkit for the Long Haul guide to learn how to give your remote teams the tools they need for success over the long haul.

You can take steps to help ensure that your remote employees hit your targets for individual performance and contributions to team success. Through both cultural initiatives and use of the right tools and technologies, your company can encourage interaction, knowledge-sharing, and collaborative problem-solving. Among the ways to make it work:

• Plug into project management tools. When you’re leading a remote workforce, mobile, cloud, and collaboration technologies all have a role in supporting your project management priorities and objectives. Knowing what you need can help you to understand dashboard capabilities, identify the right project management solutions, and equip your project heads to remain focused on team leadership rather than transactional micromanagement.

• Encourage innovation. Remote employees need a means of expressing opinions, offering critiques, and proposing new ideas. At the same time, virtual managers must use a combination of technology and techniques to demonstrate that the company welcomes this input and recognizes and rewards those who promote innovation.

• Manage competition and conflict. Even when you succeed in creating a collaborative culture, you’ll inevitably encounter instances of in-house rivalry and disagreement. In the face of those challenges, it’s essential to build consensus and keep the team cohesive and on course. Periodic in-person gatherings, monitoring the way team members are communicating via various platforms, and managing group dynamics in virtual meetings all help.

These issues and their related solutions all play a role in converting a group of people employed by the same company into a true virtual team.