The Virtual Team – Managing people virtually in the new business reality
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By Claire Sookman |
Claire Sookman helps geographically dispersed teams work more effectively through training, coaching and consulting. Contact Claire to discover your team’s top three challenges and receive a complementary needs assessment for your team.
• info@virtualteambuilders.com.
Are you facing the challenge of doing more with less? Are you trying to improve productivity while lowering expenses? Is your business capable of surviving an economic crisis? Will you be able to manage your staff to not only weather the storm but to effectively return to “business as usual?” Hurricane Katrina gave us a wake-up call and taught some valuable lessons. Now, with the state of the economy hanging over 
us like the sword of Damocles, the time to start thinking about things we’d rather not think about is now. How an economic nosedive will affect individual businesses varies. However, the potential hiring freeze, layoffs and restricted travel could certainly lead to kneecapped communications systems and a fragmented international workforce; a devastating reality for many businesses.
Yet, with some foresight and careful planning, the worst storm can be weathered. Virtual teams offer a compelling way to offset potential risks. A virtual team is a collection of individuals who are geographically dispersed and who collaborate via communication and information technologies in order to accomplish a specific goal.
How virtual teams can help
The economy is changing and successful companies are responding by investing in programs that will position them to maximize their human resource potential. By understanding how to manage people virtually you can lower expenses and improve your return on investment.
Smart planning and looking at creative alternatives can minimize the new reality of reduced travel, hiring freezes and budget reductions. Virtual teams is a life jacket for companies who want to do business as usual but do not have the travel budget to do it.
While virtual teams can’t function without people, these teams are in a unique position to enable and get a business up and rolling when the lights do come back on. Since travel presents no issues or obstacles for virtual teams, all that is needed to reconnect the business is the technology and the virtual team skills. The role played by managers is crucial and it goes without saying that they must have the highest level of training and expertise to weather this storm.
According to a recent study by the Institute for Corporate Productivity, 77 per cent of the respondents said that offering virtual leadership development is important/very important, yet more than a full 25 per cent of these organizations do not offer any training and development opportunities to improve their virtual leadership skills.
Communication has the greatest impact on the success of virtual teams. Team leaders are justifiably concerned about the impact of unclear communication on productivity, efficiency and the bottom line.
Virtually the same
Many argue that virtual teams are not as effective or as efficient as collocated teams. To them, face-to-face contact is important. However, what many fail to realize is that the benefits typically associated with face-to-face teams can be achieved more conveniently and at a fraction of the cost by using virtual teams. The delivery may differ, but the results are the same.
Tradition and technology are the foundations
To be successful, virtual teams need to grasp the importance of frequent, open communication. Trying to duplicate the workings of a collocated team in a virtual environment was proving to be both frustrating and unproductive for many companies trying to make the leap. Traditional teams and virtual teams face many of the same challenges. However, small problems that would pose a mere inconvenience to traditional teams can prove to be major hurdles for virtual teams. Understanding the new dynamic of the virtual world takes more than a bit of getting used to.
Meeting planners beware
There are many benefits to conducting meetings and conferences virtually including cost savings, better work/life balance, the ability to record your meetings so it is available for those who would like to access it at a later date and, of course, being able to offer the conference to people regardless of their geographic location. There are also potential pitfalls if you don’t take the necessary precautions. Let’s look at two categories of challenges: technology and keeping people engaged.
Technology isn’t perfect
Be assured at one point that technology will fail, so always have a back-up plan. Have a technology person on the call so you can focus on conducting the meeting and they can focus on any technical glitches that may happen. Have an alternative call-in number available. Ensure participants understand how to use the technology. Confirm that the technology you are using is appropriate for the meeting you are having.
Keep people engaged
Often we have meetings or conferences where some of the attendees are working from home while others are in the same room during the meeting. This can create a feeling of isolation for the team members who are working from home. Try to have everyone work remotely. If you are unable to do so, make others who are outside of the main forum feel valued and involved. Establish a team operating agreement (rules of engagement) for meeting behaviours and attach it to the meeting agenda.
Look for opportunities to verify that the person on the other end of the line is engaged and understands what was being discussed. A simple way to do this is to check in with people every three slides or every 10 minutes. Have multiple presenters. A change of voice and pitch can help keep people engaged. Be aware of myths such as “multi-tasking is more productive” – it is not.
Whether you are a meeting planner or transitioning your team from being collocated to the virtual world, many familiar obstacles will surface, but the rewards for your team and your organization are worth the effort.