Walking through your operation every day, especially the beginning of the day, is the best way to know what is going on.
When I ran a hotel, I walked the entire hotel every morning. By 7 am, I was aware of every issue and had checked in with most employees. Again, around lunch time and before I let for the day I would walk the operation again. Every employee saw me each day.
Lee Cockerell was part of the scenery in the hotel because people were so used to seeing me.
But what if your team is spread out geographically and it is not possible to walk the operation?
Begin with the phone. Have a short phone call with each member of your team every day.
Or, put them on the screen. Use Skype or Zoom.
Forget you are in a different location.
Keep notes to make sure you cover every item you want to talk about.
For messages that are not individual, you can use a podcast to put messages out to your entire team.
If you want to communicate and stay connected to your team, you can. If you don't want to, you can always find an excuse to keep you from communicating.