It’s been more than three years since a huge percentage of the global workforce was thrust into virtual work conditions. Since then, working remotely has become the norm for millions of people. And in the face of this sudden and across-the-board shift , most companies and nonprofits struggled to adjust training and career development to reflect the new virtual workplace and ensure that employees developed the skills they need to be successful.

This is especially true for team managers. Virtual management has emerged as a core competency for leaders across all sectors and industries. But few managers have received training on how to be strong leaders in a remote environment, and many have learned the hard way that it’s not effective to simply apply their brick-and-mortar approach to leadership to a virtual team.

Many managers find virtual leadership challenging, particularly when it comes to building trust, which is critical in any manager-employee relationship. Beyond trust building, remote managers often find that it’s just harder and more time-consuming to manage a team that’s not in front of them day in and day out.

However, with some minor—and maybe a few major—adjustments, managers can up their virtual management skillset, making the arrangement more productive and rewarding for all. Below are five tips that can help.

1. Be strategic and disciplined about meetings.

This is probably the single most important element of successful virtual management. Virtual meetings are often less productive, less personal, and much less engaging than in-person interactions. And they are much easier to be late for or skip entirely. But for virtual managers and their teams, meetings are critical for all aspects of work.

• Build informal time into every meeting, even if it’s just two minutes. Research at MIT's Human Dynamics Lab found that informal time was the number-one determinant of success in a team. For virtual teams, this means that however you communicate, whether by phone or video, you should include a set time for informal connection. Sacrifice some efficiency now for effectiveness later.
• Implement a structure for updates. Ask team members to send an agenda in advance (or send one yourself), or work with your team to come up with a structure, even a loose one, that enables productive meetings.
• Give feedback! Employees at all levels need and want feedback, especially critical feedback. It’s easy to send a quick note of thanks in a virtual environment, but these need to be balanced by clear, directive, in-the-moment feedback on performance.

2. Create clear guidelines and guardrails around communications systems and norms.

Agree on how you’ll use communications platforms, and what expected response times look like. When will you be on video? When does a call suffice? Recognize the need for uninterrupted work, both for you as a manager and for your team members, and resist the urge to send a constant barrage of quick notes and progress check-ins, which may be helpful to you but can create unnecessary stress and interruptions for your team members. You might want to try agreeing on a few meeting- or message-free work blocks each week.

3. Be mindful of time zones and preferences.

In addition to appreciating the need for uninterrupted work blocks, do your best to be thoughtful about time zones and personal preferences when scheduling. Many people value virtual work because it enables greater work-life balance. But if their managers are scheduling meetings during off hours or when employees prefer to be focused on other responsibilities, this can quickly backfire. Encourage team members to be open and share their preferences with you, and then do everything you can to respect them.

4. Seek virtual opportunities to learn as a team.

Part of what makes teams successful is the process of learning and growing together. But this is particularly challenging in a virtual environment. Find micro-learning opportunities to experience as a team. Maybe it’s a book club, where you read and discuss a relevant book or article once a quarter, or perhaps you could go through an online professional development module as a team or invite a guest speaker from another department.

5. Don’t forget about yourself.

Virtual team management can be isolating and even lonely. It can feel like you spend much of your day directing traffic or flying from one Zoom call to another. Use some of the techniques above on yourself to ensure that your workdays are as balanced as possible. Try to connect with peers at your organization, even on a monthly or quarterly basis, and build a cohort of others who are navigating through similar challenges.

Virtual work is clearly here to stay in some form or another, which means that managing and working in a remote environment is a competency that everyone will need to focus on developing to be successful. By planning meetings strategically and considerately, setting clear expectations and norms for internal communications, learning together as a team, and sharing with peers, managers can make the virtual workplace more productive and rewarding for all.

Molly Brennan is founding partner at executive search firm Koya Partners, which is part of the Diversified Search Group, where she is also the nonprofit practice lead. A frequent contributor to Philanthropy News Digest and other publications, Brennan also authored The Governance Gap: Examining Diversity and Equity on Nonprofit Boards of Directors.