Distributed teams are the reality for many organizations. The struggles related to managing such teams are also real. Whether you have remote employees or outsourced teams, organizing communication and establishing smooth workflows can be tricky.
To reduce these risks, make sure that project goals and tasks are written down in a shared space. Everyone on the team will know what they have to do and what results you expect. This will keep the entire team on the same page, even if some members miss a sync meeting for reasons beyond their control.
I also recommend having your project managers take extra measures to smooth out time zone–related differences, such as: