Effective communication protocols for remote teams: Why they matter, and how to create them
Remote work has changed the dynamics of workplace communication. Without the casual interactions of office life, remote teams face unique challenges that can hinder efficiency and collaboration if left unaddressed. Communication protocols are vital to overcoming these obstacles, providing a shared framework that ensures clarity, consistency, and inclusion.
Establishing effective communication protocols goes beyond picking tools; it requires understanding your team’s specific needs, workflows, and goals. Let’s explore why communication protocols matter, how to create them, and how to make them work in practice.
Incidentally: This guidance is aimed at remote teams, in which I include teams in which any proportion of the members are off-site or working from a different location, for any proportion of time. Once your team has remote elements, adopting a remote-first approach is the formula for success.
Why communication protocols are essential in remote
In a remote setting, the absence of face-to-face interaction means that misunderstandings can escalate quickly. If a project update or a change in procedure is buried in an email thread, it inevitably leads to missed deadlines and confusion. This can easily be avoided with clear rules and shared understanding, about where and how updates are communicated.
Protocols eliminate guesswork. They help teams decide how to use tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, email, and video calls effectively, alongside communication within the workflow itself (like project management systems, or comments and replies within documents and products.) They also prevent overcommunication, where constant messages disrupt focus, and undercommunication, where team members feel isolated and information is lacking.
For example, a design team may benefit from daily synchronous stand-ups over video calls to align quickly on projects, while a finance team might rely more on asynchronous written updates that allow for detailed documentation and time to process information. The key is ensuring everyone understands the expectations.
Factors to consider when developing team communications protocols
Creating communication protocols starts with analysing your team’s workflows, priorities, and individual roles. While every team is unique, several core considerations can guide the process.
Understanding communication contexts
Different types of communication require different tools and approaches. Quick questions or clarifications might work best over instant messaging, while strategic discussions or decision-making often need video calls or well-structured collaborative documents.
For instance, a product development team might need a tool like Trello or Asana to document progress asynchronously, reserving synchronous video meetings for brainstorming or resolving roadblocks. Meanwhile, customer support teams may lean on instant messaging for real-time problem-solving. Mapping these contexts to the right channels avoids inefficiencies and confusion.
A crucial point to understand in relation to context is the persistence (or not) of the issue.
Will someone else need to answer the same question, or will the solution fix it for good?
Would it be helpful for somebody to find this information via search afterwards, or will the quick sync make it obsolete? (If it’s the latter, are you going to add an AI summary of the call to your documentation?
Balancing urgency and accessibility
Setting clear expectations around urgency is critical. Not every message needs an immediate response, but team members must know how to handle high-priority issues, and how to ensure they are escalated urgently
Take a marketing team working on a campaign launch. Urgent updates about errors in published materials might require a response within minutes via instant messaging, while routine performance reports can be handled in the weekly asynchronous team update. Communicating these distinctions ensures no one feels overwhelmed or unsure about priorities.
Or IT support. A browser compatibility issue affecting a small proportion of users requires a ticket raising, and prompt attention when the engineer is next on shift. No-one needs to wake them up at night. However if the whole server goes down, there’s a huge data breach, or something is actually on fire, then someone MAY need to wake up somebody very senior - and they need to know exactly how to go about that.
Accessibility is equally important. Remote teams often span multiple time zones, so asynchronous tools like Notion or Google Docs can help bridge gaps when synchronous discussions aren’t possible. Similarly, ensuring tools are accessible to all team members, including those with disabilities or limited bandwidth, fosters inclusion.
You don’t write a letter to the fire brigade or the alarm response company. And you don’t WhatsApp the CEO with that brilliant new product idea, when it’s 3am where she is working.
Synchronous vs asynchronous workflows
One of the most critical decisions for remote teams is deciding when to communicate synchronously (in real-time) versus asynchronously (on a time delay). The choice often depends on the task.
For example, a remote HR team conducting candidate interviews may rely on synchronous video calls to gauge personality and fit. On the other hand, a software development team debugging a system may use asynchronous communication to allow deep focus and cross-time-zone collaboration, ensuring that the work is driven by intrinsic urgency and need rather than the loudest voice.
Balancing these modes ensures that synchronous communication doesn’t overwhelm schedules, while asynchronous workflows don’t delay critical decisions.
This may also vary within the team, and within the workflow. A team leader may require focus for deep work for several time blocks daily while a crucial launch is ramping up, and indicate that interruptions need to be at the server fire or above level, within those periods. However, they open an hour and a half every afternoon as ‘office hours’ to respond to messages received, or take immediate queries on any matter. And once the product is shipped, they revert to a more collaborative style of management, catching up on any non-urgent or lingering unresolved issues in the team.
Role-specific communication needs
Not all roles in a team require the same level of interaction. For example, a project manager may need frequent updates from multiple stakeholders, while a back-end developer or writer might work largely independently. Defining who communicates with whom, how often, and for what purpose prevents unnecessary interruptions and promotes efficiency.
For example, a sales team may rely on daily updates to adjust their pitches based on customer feedback. Meanwhile, the content creation team might only need weekly check-ins to ensure alignment with overall campaign goals, or their output may speak for itself - updating a project management system, uploading created assets, etc., replacing the need to have a meeting about it at all.
Tailoring communication protocols to these specific roles ensures that everyone’s time is respected, and that everyone can actually get on and DO the work instead of talking about it.
A framework for deciding how to communicate
A simple decision-making framework can help teams determine the best mode of communication for different situations. This framework should consider five key questions:
What’s the purpose of the communication? For example, is it to update, collaborate, or make a decision? Does everyone share a view on the answer to this question /expect the same kind of outcome? (You cannot always take this for granted, even if it seems obvious.)
How urgent is it? Urgent matters may require immediate communication, while non-urgent topics can wait. However, immediacy does not always mean synchronous input is required, that is a different decision.
Who needs to be involved? Including the right people ensures efficiency without overwhelming others. Do all stakeholders need to input at every stage - or it would it make sense for one group to thrash out the detailed issues due to their intimate involvement, while someone else just needs to sign off on the solution once consensus is reached.
How complex is the topic? How are you going to gather information, enable interaction, document the decision-making criteria, process, and outcome?
What tools are best suited to the task? Different tools excel in different scenarios—instant messaging for quick exchanges, email for detailed updates, or video calls for in-depth discussions (followed as necessary by updating documentation.)
Putting protocols into practice
Creating a protocol is only the first step. Teams must also ensure these rules are understood and followed. Documenting the protocols in an easily accessible location, such as a shared company wiki or team handbook, is essential. Onboarding sessions for new team members can help establish familiarity, while regular reviews ensure the protocols evolve alongside team needs.
Feedback is critical to success. If team members find the protocols cumbersome or unclear, addressing these concerns promptly can prevent frustration. For example, a software company that noticed delays in decision-making during asynchronous workflows might introduce a weekly synchronous check-in to address unresolved issues.
If communication is causing problems in any remote team, the heart of the problem often lies in a lack of shared understanding about how, when and where to communicate in the first place, and any troubleshooting must start with the protocol.
If you don’t address this, then people may be sat wherever they are, wondering where to find information, who to ask, whether they’re supposed to know something already, or figure it out for themselves, or have their best shot and guess, or bug their manager (again) even though she seems really busy…
Times change, activities change, and the tools we use change. But the essential protocols and priorities should be persistent, clear, and universally understood.
Need help developing your remote team communications protocols?
Or troubleshooting them, when something’s not working in practice?
Every remote team is unique, and building the right communication protocol can feel daunting. Whether you’re starting from scratch, or fixing an existing setup, having an experienced facilitator can make all the difference. With expertise in tailoring protocols to your team’s specific needs, I can help map your present information flow, identify bottlenecks and uncertainties, consult stakeholders, and ultimately ensure that your remote team communicates effectively and stays productive - no matter where they’re located.
Let’s work together to build a system that works for you.