While allowing employees to work from anywhere is one thing, managing a distributed workforce is another level on its own. IT teams must ensure consistent access to company systems, visibility into usage of those systems and the latter for a workforce potentially scattered across different time zones, countries or continents. Remote desktop software is central to this, allowing distributed employees to access the specific computing environment they need virtually from anywhere.
The problem for IT leaders is that distributed workforce management is not a single pain point, nor can it be solved by the same system. Other tools are anything but tailored for a situation where most staff work in the office with only a few needed to work remotely. Some, like Others, work with a completely distributed workforce across multiple regions and require such a scale and diversity built from the ground up. Which of these situations actually describes your organization is critical to determining the right remote desktop solution for you.
Splashtop
Splashtop has positioned itself as a remote desktop platform built specifically with distributed teams in mind, emphasizing session reliability and centralized administrative control across a workforce that may never share a physical office. An overview of how the platform applies to dispersed teams is available through this remote desktop solution across dispersed workforces.
Centralized management is one of the strongest fit for real workforce management systems specifically designed with a minor people oriented look. Instead of needing to plan multiple management scenarios for different offices or regions, IT administrators can manage access permissions at a single dashboard, keep tabs on session activities and enforce security policies throughout the extended workforce. This is important for organizations where employees in a country would have to comply with different requirements as centralized visibility allows for consistent baseline controls, despite local nuances.
Splashtop supports a variety of device types and operating systems as well, which benefits distributed teams that are bound to have a combination of company issued and personal hardware based on local availability and preference.
RemotePC
RemotePC makes a more simplified approach emphasizing on reliable basic functionality as opposed to a long list of administration features. This simplicity can be an plus for distributed teams requiring reliable point to point access but with minimal personalization, because it lowers the bar on providing sufficient training as remote employees may not have in-person IT support.
Unattended access is one of its remarkable features in the context of distributed workforce, as it allows specific devices to be reachable for maintenance / support needs even when their respective users work in another time zone from you. This cuts down on the coordination overhead and potential bottlenecks as support windows have to queue the whole company across timezones.
The downside is that Teams on VDI comes with a limited set of default tools to manage a large geographic user base at scale, something which becomes more obvious as the distributed workforces gets bigger.
Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops
Citrix goes for a virtual desktop infrastructure style less of the simple point-to-point remote access that would interest larger distributed organizations where centralized application delivery is preferable to handling access to individual machines far flung from points of origin. This approach ensures employers are connecting employees to the same virtual environment, regardless of where that employee may be located which can alleviate some challenges for organizations with a global footprint and varying local IT capabilities.
This architecture also has data residency advantages for distributed workforces operating under different regional regulations, since sensitive data can remain centralized rather than spreading across devices in jurisdictions with different compliance requirements. Recent guidance on securing remote access patterns for distributed and hybrid government workforces, outlined in this overview of federal remote security guidelines, reflects similar thinking about centralizing visibility and control even as users connect from many different locations.
The infrastructure requirements and complexity of setup are often better suited to larger orgs with their own dedicated IT teams rather than a smaller distributed business.
Atera
Unlike conventional remote access tools, Atera combines remote support with full IT management capabilities that attract organizations managing a distributed workforce without needing dedicated IT staff in every region. Bringing these functions together in one platform minimizes the number of different tools a lean, distributed IT team has to manage in multiple locations.
Per-technician pricing, not per-device pricing, better supports distributed organizations with many endpoints dispersed geographically and relatively fewer centralized IT staff managing them. As the geographic footprint of a distributed workforce expands without rapidly increasing technician headcount, this pricing model scales even more predictably.
According to some organizations, customizing the platform for very localized compliance reporting requires more manual work than a purpose-built engine.
ConnectWise ScreenConnect
ConnectWise ScreenConnect is often adopted by organizations that manage a distributed support relationship, such as managed service providers working with clients at numerous sites. When support teams are distributed across locations and time zones, they must switch between multiple tools which stifles productivity but ticketing system integration enables free-flowing work by allowing teams to launch sessions from their existing workflow.
Being branded with your logo and customizable session windows can also ensure that organizations provide a much more consistent support experience across a distributed workforce that may otherwise interact with multiple regional support teams using inconsistent tools or branding. For larger distributed organizations that are trying to create a consistent IT support experience no matter where an employee works, this consistency can be paramount.
Broader workforce and labor market shifts continue to shape how distributed teams are organized and supported. Recent industry analysis on these future of work predictions highlights ongoing disruption in how organizations structure distributed teams, which has downstream implications for the IT tools supporting them.
Choosing for Your Distributed Workforce
Choosing the right remote desktop tools to manage a distributed worker depends on what that distribution looks like, with, say, a workforce spread over a few regional offices needing entirely different solutions than one fully scaled around the world in multiple countries or time zones and light centralized IT footprint. It is important for organizations to consider the trade off between level of centralized administrative control needed and the complexity and cost associated with a platform layer built at that scale, as over-provisioning for centralized control a smaller distributed team does not need can lead to time intensive overhead.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a distributed workforce need different remote desktop features than a hybrid one?
The distributed workforce particularly over multiple time zones tends to emphasize unattended access and centralized administrative visibility more than the hybrid workforce which is usually more involved at home with a single office. The technology stacks based on which those apps operate have a massive overlap, but the emphasis on some aspects is usually different.
How is Centralized Administration so important for the Distributed Team?
As the number of locations and regions a distributed workforce spans increases, centralized administration becomes more valuable as it reduces the burden on colleagues to coordinate all access and security policy management tasks independently in every region. This may be less pressing for smaller distributed teams with only one or two locations to oversee.
Can a remote desktop platform be used for an all across-the-globe workforce?
With modern Remote Desktop platforms, everything is designed to be globally accessible like this, without the need for region-specific deployments (though Admins will still want to double-check just how unattended access and support scheduling work across they time zones their workforce spans).