{"id":4424,"date":"2019-02-20T06:56:25","date_gmt":"2019-02-20T11:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/?p=4424"},"modified":"2020-12-19T20:32:02","modified_gmt":"2020-12-20T01:32:02","slug":"whats-the-best-way-to-manage-and-communicate-with-virtual-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/whats-the-best-way-to-manage-and-communicate-with-virtual-teams\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s the Best Way to Manage and Communicate with Virtual Teams?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The number of people working remotely has been increasing progressively across the globe. \u00a0An employee benefits report narrates that around 60% companies in the US offer telecommuting opportunities.\u00a0 Telecommuting not only benefits people but also presents several advantages for organizations.\u00a0 Research has attributed an increase in savings of around $2000 per employee each year on real estate costs, enhanced productivity, and lower attrition rates to telecommuting.\u00a0 Employees have been found to focus better on work and take less days off while operating remotely.<\/p>\n

Building effective teams<\/a> is difficult, more so when these teams are remotely managed.\u00a0 For managers and leaders who constantly deal with virtual teams, it is communication that is one of their biggest concerns, in the absence of face-to-face settings.\u00a0 Some of their other concerns include ensuring all team members are connected and striving towards the same organizational goal, recording accurate hours, assigning appropriate tasks, trust, and teamwork.\u00a0 Therefore, having a\u00a0Communications Strategy<\/a> and structured approach becomes critical.<\/p>\n

Addressing these challenges and properly managing a virtual team requires the managers to establish clear goals, conduct frequent team meetings, leverage team members\u2019 strengths, and communicate clearly.\u00a0 However, most leaders believe that the increasing sophistication and proliferation of collaborative technologies enable better virtual communication.\u00a0 On the other hand, studies on globally scattered teams relate performance not with technologies but with effective utilization of these technologies.<\/p>\n

Research has revealed 5 best practices to enable effective communication between virtual teams<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 The teams who embraced these communication approaches were found to produce quality deliverables, complete tasks timely, collaborate productively, and meet or exceed their targets:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Select the Fitting Technology<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. Be Clear<\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. Stay in Sync<\/strong><\/li>\n
  4. Be Responsive<\/strong><\/li>\n
  5. Be Inclusive<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    Now, let\u2019s take a deeper look at the first 3 approaches to facilitate effective communication with virtual teams.<\/p>\n

    Select the Fitting Technology<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    To enable proper interaction between virtual teams, leaders need to develop communication protocols and choose appropriate communication technologies.\u00a0 A variety of communication tools are available to teams\u2014e.g., email, chat platforms, web conferencing, and videoconferencing\u2014yet most people prefer those that they are proficient in instead of other better-suited options, which causes problems.<\/p>\n

    The selection of technology should complement the purpose of communication. \u00a0Text-based media\u2014e.g., email or chat\u2014should be used to convey routine information, ideas, and to gather simple data.\u00a0 For more complex tasks\u2014including problem solving<\/a>, negotiations, or to settle arguable interpersonal matters\u2014richer media tools such as web conferencing and videoconferencing should be preferred.\u00a0 Team managers need to arrange proper training of their people to ensure all the team members can use the tools to their best.<\/p>\n

    Be Clear<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    A major portion of communication around the globe is text-based.\u00a0 While using email communication, the intentions of the sender are often misunderstood by the recipient, causing assumptions, biases, and disputes that are not destructive for team performance.\u00a0 The reasons for this misinterpretation can be attributed to unintentional negative tone by the sender, absence of nonverbal cues, and difference in perceptions of the sender and recipient.<\/p>\n

    To avoid misinterpretation, biases, and disputes, virtual teams should try and outline their intentions as clearly as possible in the message, ensure appropriateness of the message tone, use emojis to convey emotions, and emphasize the important information.<\/p>\n

    Stay in Sync<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    Virtual teams are more likely to lose track of each other and become out of sync due to a number of reasons.\u00a0 This could be due to the absence of in-person meetings, the inability to tell if the messages have been received and read, unintentional exclusion of certain team members from an email, and the inability to keep the virtual coworkers constantly informed of all in-office events.<\/p>\n

    Globally dispersed teams can overcome these challenges and effectively in sync with each other by maintaining consistent flow of information to all teammates, avoiding silence, acknowledging the receipt of important messages, clarifying others\u2019 intentions, maintaining a favorable opinion about others, and keeping negativity at bay.<\/p>\n

    Interested in learning more about the 5 best practices to effective communication with virtual teams?\u00a0 You can download an <\/u>editable PowerPoint on Effective Communication with Virtual Teams<\/strong> here<\/u><\/a> on the Flevy documents marketplace<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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    \u2013 Omar Hern\u00e1n Montes Parra, CEO at Quantum SFE<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The number of people working remotely has been increasing progressively across the globe. \u00a0An employee benefits report narrates that around 60% companies in the US offer telecommuting opportunities.\u00a0 Telecommuting not only benefits people but also presents several advantages for organizations.\u00a0 Research has attributed an increase in savings of around $2000 per employee each year on… What’s the Best Way to Manage and Communicate with Virtual Teams?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":4427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[114,408],"tags":[636,1469,1470,106,1468,1017],"class_list":["post-4424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corporate-communications","category-management-leadership","tag-communication","tag-communication-strategies","tag-communication-tools","tag-leadership","tag-telecommuting","tag-virtual-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4424"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7911,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4424\/revisions\/7911"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}