Virtual Collaboration Success

Today’s digital workplace environment is increasingly centred around collaborating, communicating and connecting with others virtually across the globe.

44% of respondents believe that face-to-face meetings will decrease in the future.

There has been an increase in the creation of technology platforms for workforce collaboration to create agile and productive business relationships and enable rapid knowledge sharing.

workers-will-spend-more-time-on-platforms

70% believe that workers will spend more time on collaboration platforms.

67% percent see growth in “work-based social media”.

62% percent predict an increase in instant messaging.

Many of the mobile-enabled tools resemble social networking platforms, letting employees post pictures and create groups and alerts, and are designed to facilitate team-based communication in ways email can’t.

Source: Deloitte Human Capital Trends Report

The expected use of communications channels in the next three to five years

8 tips for virtual team success:

1. Pick the right tools

With a wide range of communications tools out there you will need to decide what is going to used and when. Decide what will work best for your team to assign, track, and analyse tasks and results. There should also be a system for calls, video conferencing, and everyday instant messaging.

2. Create some team rules

3. Cross-cultural awareness

If you’re collaborating across the globe, then it is important to tackle the potential difficulties that language barriers and time zones can create. There should be increased understanding and empathy for all members of the virtual team, and allowances made to include everyone.

4. Communication – more is more

Don’t make assumptions that the offsite teams all have the same information. It is easy for details to fall through the cracks so be sure to give plenty of context and back stories to everything. It is better to overexplain than to leave people in the dark.

5. Who is who?

It is much easier to build trust and communicate with someone you may never meet when you have some prior information about them. Create team bios with their picture, career overview and some interesting personal aspects. This will help to make communicating easier.

6. Make a ‘water cooler’ area

In what can be an impersonal online environment, it is even more important that teams have an opportunity to bond together. This can be done by having a news feed and recognising birthdays and discussing everyday updates about each other’s lives that aren’t work related.

7. Ready player one

When choosing a virtual team, you will need to pick people that work well in this environment. Employees will need to be able to manage their time effectively as their manger and/or teammates may be in a different city or continent. Not everyone is cut out for a virtual workplace and this should be taken into consideration in the hiring process.

8. Always improve

Ask the team at regular intervals about what is working and what isn’t and improve communication where possible. The team will need to be agile enough to make these changes while maintaining consistency.

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