From a remote management perspective, when your presence is felt in an office, it reminds people to do the small things that keep the ship sailing smoothly - things that are outside of the scope of the current project, so they're on another to-do list, but still need to get done.

When you're a remote manager competing for staff time to get these things done with on-site managers it gets even trickier, as people want to please the people they have to face every day, even if they see them just in passing. You need to take extra steps (more reminders) to keep secondary projects moving.