How to Manage High Performance Virtual Teams
A virtual team (a small number of people with complementary skills, who are committed to a common purpose and performance goals) is comprised of team members who share responsibility for achieving defined objectives and who perform from a flexible mix of stationary, mobile and/or remote work environments.
What is the difference between manage on site developers or virtual employees worldwide? Nowadays there is not a real difference and companies are improving new ways top manage virtual teams.
Virtual teams vs traditional teams
There are several important differences between traditional teams and virtual or remote ones:
- Meetings are not always face to face
- Workplaces of team members may be in different locations and time zones
- Culture – team members’ cultures can be vastly different
- Relationships tend to be more difficult to build as team members have different styles and behaviors and there is little or no time for personal interaction
- Communication may be hampered because it is not always possible to see body language, facial expressions or gestures and non-verbal cues.
Today with emerging technologies is usually companies have to adapt to new challenges and lifestyles, now people prefer stay at home and share with family, not waste time not is a life rule, with new technologies and new commercial trends.
What is the difference between Remote vs Virtual Teams?
A remote team works directly for their manager to deliver defined work, but members are not geographically co located. This means that time zone is similar and guaranteed a live communication and interaction between employees and managers.
Remote team members usually have specific functional role and experience, software development, designers and data science are part of remote teams worldwide.
Companies are open to contract remote position because is difficult get experienced talent.
Virtual Teams are brought together to perform specific tasks or resolve specific issues, virtual employees usually work inside the organization but have option of Work- from- home or inclusive freelance or part time jobs, but this can of position are the support team in specific tasks.
Virtual Assistance, Call Centers or Support Engineer are example of virtual teams and activities that they do.
A real advantage of virtual and remote teams is management in time and workflow that traditional employees not have, define KP’s is key tool to measure performance of this teams. Not means that can have control all the time, but can guaranteed analytical data about workflow and deadline.