Here’s a quick summary of our ultimate guide to virtual teams. Click on the links if you want a more in-depth look at each section.

• What Is a Virtual Team? A virtual team is a group of people who come together from different locations to achieve a common goal.
• Benefits of Virtual Teams for Employers: Lower costs, access to a greater talent pool, easier to grow, happier and more productive employees, and extended hour coverage.
• Benefits of Virtual Teams for Employees: Save time, save money, avoid rush hour, and a healthier lifestyle
• The Pitfalls of Virtual Teams: Lack of social interaction, lack of trust, difficult to troubleshoot, and communication conflicts
• How Can You Work Effectively in Virtual Teams? Get together face to face, develop communication guidelines, meet regularly, develop leadership in members.

What Is a Virtual Team?

A virtual team is a group of people who come together from different locations to achieve a common goal. The members can be located in the same office, at home, in different cities, in different countries, and even different time zones. They can also be comprised of people from various cultures, backgrounds and levels of expertise.

Because of the widespread use of the internet and the recent COVID-19 pandemic which made working from home a necessity, virtual teams are growing in popularity.

Benefits of Virtual Teams for Employers

1. You Can Cut Costs:

One of the top advantages to having virtual teams is the cost savings. Allowing your employees to work from home means that you can save on:

• Office rental space and maintenance
• Transportation costs for your employees
• Office equipment and furniture
• Cost of utilities such as water, gas, electricity, and WIFI

Allowing your employees to work from home means that you can save on office space expenses

2. You Have Access to a Greater Talent Pool

Having employees who don’t have to be located near your physical business means that you now have access to a global talent pool. You can actually hire people from anywhere in the world. If you have had difficulty in the past hiring people with the skills that you need, now you have a much larger pool to draw from.

3. You Can Grow Easier and Faster

As your company grows and you want to hire new staff, it takes time to add more office space and get new equipment and supplies for your new employees. If you have virtual teams, your new staff members are responsible for setting up their own offices so you can get them started much faster than if they had to be physically located at your facility.

Virtual teams allow you to hire skilled labour from around the world

4. Your Employees Will Be Happier

People who work from home are usually happier and more satisfied with their jobs. They are less stressed-out because they don’t have to be rushing to get to work on time, worried about balancing home life and work life, and they can set a more relaxed schedule.

5. Your Employees Will Be More Productive

When employees are happier, they tend to be much more productive which is great news for employers. In fact a study done by Oxford University’s Said Business School in collaboration with British multinational telecoms firm BT found that workers are “13% more productive when they are happy.”

6. You Can Extend Your Hour Coverage

Having a virtual team means that you have the potential to hire staff who live in different time zones around the world. This means for example that you could extend your customer service hours so you have coverage 24 hours a day which your customers would certainly like.

Virtual teams allow you to hire skilled labour from around the world

Benefits of Virtual Teams for Employees

1. You Will Save Time

Not having to drive into work everyday can be a huge time saver. Just think of what you can do with the extra time you save driving in and out of work each day.

2. You Will Save Money

It will also save you money as you won’t be spending money on gas as well as wear and tear on your vehicle.

3. You Will Avoid the Headache of Rush Hour Traffic

Working from home also means that you won’t have to be stuck in rush hour traffic every day. You can instead sleep in a bit longer in the mornings and have some extra time with your family each evening.

4. You Can Enjoy a Healthier Lifestyle

Working from home means that you will have extra time to include exercise in your work day. You will also be home so you can have access to healthier food choices.

Being part of a virtual team means you will have more time to take care of yourself

The Pitfalls of Virtual Teams

1. Lack of Social Interaction:

One of the biggest downsides of working in a virtual team is the lack of face-to-face interactions. Your job is one of the key areas of our lives for interacting with our colleagues and forming close friendships.

It’s very difficult to do that online when most of the communications are more task-oriented and not social. You could begin to feel isolated and stressed, especially if you have no other avenues for social interaction.

2. Lack of Trust:

In order for virtual teams to be successful, management must be able to trust that you and your colleagues will do the assigned work in the assigned time without having to be closely supervised. This is a difficult thing for some people to do.

3. Difficult to Troubleshoot in Emergencies:

If your virtual team works flexible hours, it may be difficult to call a meeting of the people that you need to troubleshoot in emergency situations.

For example, if there is a major IT issue, the staff members that you need to solve the issue may not be available to meet as soon as you need them in order to fix the problem.

4. Conflicts Caused by Remote Communication:

It is difficult to portray the non-verbal cues such as smiling, tone of voice and other positive forms of body language in written communication. As a result, a straightforward email could be perceived as impolite and cause conflict or bad feelings among your team members.

It’s hard to convey non-verbal cues when you are communicating online

How Can You Work Effectively in Virtual Teams?

1. If Possible, Get Together Face to Face

It may seem strange to suggest that your virtual team meet face to face, however, even though there are many benefits to working virtually, getting together physically will help your team to build better relationships with each other. There is something about meeting face to face that you just can’t accomplish over the internet.

Try, if at all possible, to have regular, in-person meetings with your team. It doesn’t have to be every week, but even meeting quarterly, semi-annually and annually can make a huge difference to helping your team get to know each other both personally and professionally.

2. Create Communication Guidelines

Effective communication is key to the success of virtual teams, however, it is more difficult to achieve when you are online as opposed to communicating in person. It will help if you can create some communication guidelines for your team to follow. These could include:

• Limiting background noises during a meeting
• Avoiding side conversations
• Being attentive and listening well when others are talking
• Trying not to do all of the talking and encouraging others to share as well
• Being aware of how fast you are speaking and adjusting your pace as needed
• Talking clearly

Create some communication guidelines for your team to follow

3. Have Regular Meetings

It is a good idea to have regular meetings so that your members don’t feel isolated. Schedule theses meetings at the same time each week or month in order to create a regular rhythm to your work days.

It would also be helpful to have a “check-in” at your meetings. Allow team members to briefly share what they are doing, what is working, and what isn’t. This will help you feel more connected and less isolated.

4. Be Aware of Different Time Zones

If your team members are working in different time zones, try to spread out your meeting times so that each member has a turn at having a meeting scheduled at a convenient time instead of always favouring one particular time zone.

5. Develop Leadership Within Your Team

Developing leadership skills among your team members will not only help them as an individual, but it will also help them take ownership and feel more connected to their team.

Ways in which you can help to develop leadership skills include:

• Having members coach others in areas where they excel
• Assigning areas of training of new employees to current team members
• Getting individuals to head up a special project
• Taking turns leading weekly meetings
• Having members lead a virtual team-building exercise
• Sharing best practices with the team

Help your team members develop their leadership skills