In my experience, teams or companies that have significant problems communicating with remote workers just aren't very good communicators. Physical proximity is a crutch that can help them overcome their disability/dysfunction, but they almost always still have major communication problems--they just have more problems with remote employees.
A team that's good at communicating with remote employees is usually just good at communication in general.
Oh, I definitely agree. Certainly my employer has plenty of communications problems. But whatever communications roadblocks exist are amplified tenfold from 800 miles away.
A team that's good at communicating with remote employees is usually just good at communication in general.