5 Best Ways To Build A High-Level Virtual Team

If the current pandemic we are facing has taught us anything, it’s that people can work together just as well from the safety of their homes. Cue: virtual teams.

Virtual teams, popularly referred to as distributed teams or remote teams are groups of individuals who collaborate together from different locations and time zones by relying on virtual communication tools.

Virtual teams have become a necessity for businesses now. What are your options to make it run effectively as ever? Here are a few of our favorites:

5 Tips For Building A High-Level Virtual Team

(Credits: Unsplash)

1. Set up an effective communication strategy

It is rightly said that:

Communication is "the oxygen of a distributed company."

A good communication strategy will be as fundamental as keeping your stakeholders on board. Without such plans in place, there will be a complete lack of coordination and transparency among the dispersed team members. Even if you create virtual breakout rooms, make sure you do it right.

After that, it is only a matter of time before your virtual team is treading the deep waters of not getting successful outcomes.

A good communication strategy should mainly focus on four major points:

• Make sure to share information that is factually correct or relevant.
• The projected information gets delivered to everyone intended.
• The data is easily understandable by the recipients.
• The recipients or the team should be encouraged to display/practice a certain level of communication skills.

2. Invest in the right communication technology

Unless you are part of a virtual team, it is easy to underestimate the importance of communication for team building and engagement. When you can’t any longer pop into each other’s cubicles to discuss the smallest things, you learn to appreciate how good communication keeps a team functioning smoothly.

Without their usual face to face interactions, the overall team performance will most likely take a significant hit.

That is why having a functioning communication toolbox is perhaps one of the essential requirements of a dispersed team. A well-planned communication toolbox should at least have these basics:

• An excellent video conference tool is a must for conducting virtual meetings among remote workers. Some of the great tools for virtual teams to connect over is Zoom, Google Meet, or Google Hangouts.
• A chat tool for a virtual team to help continue their relationship building. Slack and Skype are extremely helpful for virtual knowledge sharing.
• A virtual meeting scheduling app (such as Google Calendar) for remote team members to stay updated on each other’s schedules.
• Document/Resources accessibility is a massive part of making remote work feasible and to share information. Services to share documents are provided by many, but the more popular ones seem to be Google Drive and Dropbox.
• An agile project management tool is the best thing that you can invest in right now. Not only will it help your team keep track of the upcoming projects, but it will also hold everyone accountable for their goals and tasks.

3. Track goals and commitments

In a study of 70 virtual teams, almost 82% fell short of their goals, and 33% rated themselves as mostly unsuccessful.

A considerable part of this is because of the lack of the right productivity measures. Having a virtual team doesn’t throw accountability out of the window. Now it’s even more relevant to business success.

Thus, managers should set clear employee goals and commitments to achieve for remote workers. It is important to set SMART Goals and make sure that employees are aware of the expectations. It can also get facilitated by holding regular “status virtual meetings.”

Simultaneously, it is also equally necessary to have a precise system to assess the employees’ performance.

Tracking performance will allow you to hold an employee accountable to his remote work and help you gather data about which tactics helped to maximize productivity. However, managers should never indulge in micro-managing.

Try to encourage the dispersed team to stay true to their commitments. Not only will it help to build trust, but it also will help in relationship building.

4. Appreciation matters!

Remote team members require as much as, if not more, recognition. While remote workers have a better work-life balance, they still need connection and appreciation from the rest of the team.

A regular 9-5 employee is “in the moment” while working and is well aware of his significance to the team’s success.

Now that we are collectively going through a pandemic, it’s necessary to acknowledge the positives more than ever. Any employee working through such times and managing to deliver excellent results should be appreciated timely and frequently. Even a few words of appreciation can turn the day around for most of the remote workers.

Not only will appreciating your remote workers make their day a little easier, but it will also help you to establish that you care from them.

5. The right leader

A recent study pointed out that managers with previous experience of leading a virtual team will show better success when doing it again.

Even though if you are a novice to managing virtual teams, having the right leadership qualities will help you gain some traction over it:

Build Trust

It might be frustrating to know that you can’t control the team or circumstances but always be respectful towards the virtual team members. Also, don’t leave empathy far behind.

Encourage open communication practices

Once you’ve established and built trust among your dispersed team, it’s essential to encourage open dialogues. A good practice is to ask before any virtual meeting an open icebreaker question about their day so far.

Be There

It is perhaps the more important of them all. Be there to guide the remote team members through any difficulties. You might be doing remote work, but it’s your job to be present.

Conclusion: Virtual Teams Are Crucial To The “New Normal”

Are there any additional ways through which you engage your virtual team? Let us know in the comments below.

Recommended Read: 6 Proven Types of Team-Building Every Company Must Explore

This article is written by Barasha Medhi who is a part of the marketing team at Vantage Circle. Barasha can be found either searching for interesting HR, company culture, and corporate buzzwords to write about or looking at pictures of cozy Bel Air mansions. For any related queries, contact editor@vantagecircle.com.