Tackling IT challenges of managing a distributed workforce

Although some major corporations are bringing teams back into the office, for most businesses, the reality is that remote and hybrid work continues to grow. And as a result, these businesses are seeing substantial gains in productivity, engagement, and overall performance.

However, to realize these benefits, organizations need a connected, intelligent digital infrastructure designed for complex IT landscapes, increasingly scattered teams, and a seamless employee experience. And not all IT teams are equipped to deliver this.

We’ve explored the meaning of the distributed digital workforce, critical challenges faced by IT in managing it, and key strategies for overcoming these challenges. Read on to learn how you can optimize your digital infrastructure to help people work effortlessly from anywhere.

In this article

• What is a distributed digital workforce?
• Challenges of managing a distributed workforce
• 3 tips to tackle the challenges of managing a distributed workforce
• Summary

What is a distributed digital workforce?

A distributed digital workforce is a team of employees who work and collaborate from different locations using digital tools. While often used interchangeably with “remote workers”, the term “distributed workforce” is broader, typically referring to a combination of office-based, remote, and/or hybrid arrangements. Distributed work models have been shown to improve productivity, engagement, and financial performance.

A connected, intelligent technological infrastructure lays the groundwork for a successful distributed workforce, as it empowers employees to work efficiently and reliably from anywhere.

How people work and perform using this infrastructure is what we call digital employee experience, or DEX. To paraphrase our VP of Strategic Technology, Andrew Hewitt, good DEX lets technology fade into the background, allowing employees to focus fully on their work.

A core challenge of managing a distributed digital workforce is delivering a resilient infrastructure alongside a smooth employee experience. But more on that in the next section.

Challenges of managing a distributed digital workforce

While most companies have embraced a distributed workforce, many haven’t quite cracked the code when it comes to delivering the digital infrastructure to support it. Here are some of the challenges they’re facing. 

Delivering a seamless experience

Managing the digital infrastructure is about more than just provisioning tools. It’s about providing the correct set of tools to each employee, optimizing performance, resolving issues, and offering reliable support. In short, it’s about delivering good DEX.

However, DEX requires real-time visibility of the digital infrastructure, which is something many organizations lack. Without actionable insights into device and application performance, IT teams often struggle to proactively address employee pain points and are left to fire-fight problems instead.

Managing complexity

In a distributed digital workforce where every department, team, and individual requires a tailored set of tools, the number and variety of digital assets add up quickly. To illustrate, the average organization used 106 software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps in 2024.

This growing complexity introduces new concerns, such as unauthorized device or software usage (a.k.a. Shadow IT), inefficient license utilization, and configuration drift. But managing and controlling an increasingly complex infrastructure takes a lot of time and effort, especially if done manually.

Maintaining security and compliance

More than a quarter of business leaders cite cybersecurity as their biggest digital challenge. In a traditional office setting, IT admins could regulate every aspect of the infrastructure, from device settings to network access. But with a distributed digital workforce, they typically don’t have this level of control.

Enforcing security policies, protecting sensitive data, and ensuring compliance is far more challenging when users are scattered across different locations, sometimes using public networks and personal devices.

Operating at scale

While workforces are becoming more scattered, IT teams are increasingly forced to do more with less. In fact, a recent study found that the average IT person-to-employee ratio in enterprises has reached 1:108, increasing 31% from 2024.

Siloed workflows, disconnected systems, and a lack of visibility only intensify the challenge. As a result, many IT teams are dealing with crushing workloads and difficulties scaling their operations to accommodate growing employee needs.

3 tips to tackle the challenges of managing a distributed workforce

Is your organization experiencing these challenges? Then you’re certainly not alone. But with the right strategy and tools, you can overcome these difficulties and set your workforce up for success. Here are three practical tips to help you do just that. 

Shift from reactive to proactive

The best problems are the ones that never happen, or at least never get noticed. With a digital workplace platform that gives you real-time insights into device performance and employee experience, you can find and fix issues before they affect users.

This helps reduce disruptions and increase productivity, giving employees back up to 2.83 hours per week. Which ultimately leads to better engagement and retention across your digital workforce: 93% of employees with a high employee experience score plan to stay with their organization.

Not to mention that with real-time visibility, IT can start fixing problems “forever”. In other words, spot common issues and put preventative measures in place so that the same problems don’t occur again in the future.

The result: a more manageable workload, reduced operational costs, and better scalability across your IT organization.

Embrace automation and AI

Once you’ve got visibility into your distributed infrastructure, you can start to automate processes with the help of AI. It can handle menial tasks, freeing up your IT team to focus on high-value work.

With automation, IT can set up fixes for routine issues, like reconfiguring device settings when they drift out of policy. As a result, IT saves time and keeps the infrastructure secure and running smoothly. Employees experience fewer, shorter disruptions, leading to improved overall productivity and satisfaction.

In addition, AI accelerates processes like data analysis, research, and documentation. For instance, TeamViewer Intelligence analyzes device data and errors, offers real-time recommendations, and generates support session reports with minimal human input.

To sum up, these tools reduce repetitive work, so IT has more time to innovate and deliver meaningful support. It also makes IT operations more agile and easier to scale to support a growing distributed workforce.

Consolidate tools into platforms

Let’s say you have visibility into what’s happening in your infrastructure, and a suite of tools to keep things running smoothly. Now, you need to make sure your internal IT processes are efficient and aligned, and you’re getting the most from your own digital setup.

This is where tool consolidation comes in. To increase efficiency, improve ease of use, and optimize costs, organizations are increasingly combining digital tools into unified platforms.

When it comes to managing your distributed digital infrastructure, that means consolidating key tools like DEX, automation, AI, and remote access software. TeamViewer ONE, for instance, combines all these technologies in one place.

This doesn’t just help your team save time switching between apps—up to five weeks per year per employee—but also removes process and data silos. With all workflows within the same platform, you prevent double work and allow data to flow seamlessly between different users and tasks.

Summary: Intelligent, proactive IT for the win

As work becomes more distributed, IT teams face new difficulties when managing digital infrastructures. From highly complex IT ecosystems and growing security concerns to the increasing importance of DEX, IT challenges are quickly evolving, and some teams struggle to keep up.

But by shifting from a reactive approach to a proactive one, IT can create a disruption-free employee experience, reducing the need for ad-hoc support. And with AI and automation, IT can streamline routine tasks, enhancing speed and agility.

Finally, utilizing a platform that consolidates these essential tools enables IT to maximize value while optimizing the digital infrastructure. TeamViewer delivers this with TeamViewer ONE, helping you manage your distributed digital workforce with ease.