5 Ways to Managing Virtual Teams Work Successfully

The age of virtual innovators is on the surge, and the need to create virtual teams comes with that. More businesses are accepting the power of a virtual team wherein some or all members of the team live and work remotely.

Virtual teams are an unusually large draw for companies as they cut the overhead expenses linked with an office place, and it thus builds a broader pool of potential candidates.

With virtualization, teams can live in the same geographic area, yet work from home. However, when it comes to managing virtual teams that are spread around different regions, countries, and time zones, the equation becomes a bit more complicated.

With this comes the question of how to effectively manage a virtual team. Managing virtual teams come further with a series of issues like:

• How to keep the employees motivated?
• What to do to establish effective communication?
• Above all, what tips and tools to use to ease the process?

Managing virtual teams is not that different from leading teams on-site. You need to put the same amount of effort or even more with a certain set of employees. Fortunately, with the help of digitization and the advancement of technology, it is possible to manage a team that is not physically in one place. Along with this, digital team management requires a specific set of tools, best practices, and an emphasis on excellent communication.

Also, Read: Work From Home: 17 Tools to Keep You Sorted

5 Ultimate Solution to Manage Your Virtual Team

If your company is struggling to figure out a smooth transition with virtualization, then you are in the right place with us. Below you will discover five ways to manage your virtual team correctly with remote access software that will address all your concerns and help to manage a remote team.

1. Use Effective Communication Tools

Nothing will beat clear, concise, and efficient communication when it comes to handling teams effectively. Communication is key to completing tasks promptly, which can be difficult for virtual teams. 

Nothing will beat clear, concise, and efficient communication when it comes to handling teams effectively, updates, and feedback in any manner via group chat, project management software, or email. The best way to approach virtual team communication is with the right communication tools that keep the team on the same page.

There are numerous benefits to employing communication tools. The team will be able to convey something that is urgently needed to be said or solved with the right communication tool.

Moreover, companies must remember to build harmony between what to share and on what channel to avoid overwhelming the inbox.

Slack

Slack is the perfect communication & collaboration tool for teams that span time zones and continents. Slack puts together the collaboration of the virtual team and provides a commonplace of work.

This remote access software integrates with hundreds of apps like Google Drive, Google Calendar, Outlook, RingCentral, etc. It synchronizes across systems, so your virtual team will be able to communicate, collaborate, and efficiently work together coherently. Whether individual, group or corporation-wide updates, it is an excellent hotspot for all different types of interactions.

2. Track Employee Work Hours

Monitoring work hours of employees are critical as it ensures that the employees are paid reasonably at the end of the month. It will also help the HR team to keep track of employees’ holidays and time off. 

If your company has a policy of paying employees based on the hours worked, then tracking the number of hours becomes more crucial. In an office setting, the punch clock records the time of entry and exit of the employee while it is tough to keep an eye on employee’s working hours in a virtual world the same way.

However, with the help of remote assistance software, employers and the HR team can monitor employee’s efficiency and productivity with a single click.

Clockify

With Clockify, the company will be able to check the number of hour’s team spends on work. It also helps in noting down what task takes the most time of the employee.

Clockify monitors time, produces reports, and helps the team to know their productive working hours. In terms of time tracking, it may have limited features because of its simplicity and sole emphasis on time tracking. But it is the perfect choice for businesses, freelancers, or startups searching for a specific but straightforward timetable app. 

3. Promote Virtual Engagement

Managing a virtual team and involving workers to communicate internally while working remotely is probably the most challenging task that needs to be addressed. Considering the advantages of keeping the employees engaged, virtual team leaders must concentrate on cultivating engagement.

Officevibe

Officevibe collects your team’s insights to help you not only recognize which workers are unhappy but also where the possibilities are to improve the productivity of your personnel. The tool allows you to submit automatically weekly polls of various tasks worked upon between the team members, start a discussion within the platform around their responses, and bundle findings into reports for communicating with the rest of the company. 

Also, Officevibe takes confidentiality as a serious business. The tool that provides a custom polling method helps you gauge the opinion of your team about different projects you might be hosting weekly, monthly, or annually. Such polls may be sent individually, or along with the broader employee engagement surveys. 

4. Effective Virtual Team and Project Management

Since operating remotely and effectively is not everyone’s cup of tea, a virtual team member is more likely to suffer from disconnected feelings. To tackle such interpersonal aspects, the responsibility falls on the project manager to effectively manage virtual teams by keeping everyone on the same page from time to time. You would need to put extra effort into keeping up on the progress of your team and helping them with timely feedback if changes take place. Maximize the use of communication systems, which are powered by technology. Also, make sure you have access to your consultants or virtual assistants anytime you need them.

Interactive communication devices are available everywhere on the web. Through these engaging devices, a manager can enable its team to mesh with each member to achieve their daily tasks and be successful in their weekly endeavors.

Project management software is imperative to such successful execution, as tasks require the involvement of multiple remote workers working in various areas.

Basecamp 

Basecamp is a remote assistance software and real-time interaction tool, which enables teams to stay on the same page. Basecamp allows the remote team to focus on one thing – to complete a project with secure project communication, coordination, task management, and reporting. Basecamp offers a way for organizations to keep on top of goals and actionable tasks with to-do-lists, schedules, and deadlines, and document sharing. 

Also, Read: How to Manage Employee Attendance and Time While Working Remotely

5. Keep Employees Productive and Motivated

A balanced, productive team not only has common goals and priorities, whether working together in a workplace or virtually, but they do have identified individual responsibilities. To keep the employees motivated to be productive and efficient remote teams, team members need to commit to personalized attention, empathy, and reliable direct communication.

If you are unable to see your remote workers during the day, it is necessary to overcome the inherent loss of visibility by keeping abreast of tasks and achievements. While there are many benefits of having a remote team, the greatest challenge to overcome is to keep this remote team engaged and exhilarated. It is not as though you have the choice to do team-building activities or to pop-in their office. But luckily, inspiring the virtual team from afar and helping them remain energized is convenient virtually as well today.

Idonethis

Idonethis is remote access software for personal users and teams that are available on both websites and email-based systems. The tool turns out the information of an entire day in a report. Using this virtualization software, each remote team member finishes their day with a simple email of the milestones of that day and starts their morning with a summary of the corresponding day of the entire team.

Wrapping up

Virtual teams bring their own set of opportunities and challenges to the table, and there are many ways to make sure that each member of your team remains encouraged and motivated to do its best. Apply some or all of the ways mentioned above to help your teams achieve their full potential.

Through these ways of managing virtual teams, you can ensure greater efficiency, collaboration, and sociability from your employees. The company will not only work on productivity levels but also get a chance to increase transparency and integrity among the cross-functional departments. Giving a sense of responsibility and pride to your remote team for the work they do will help you see changes in how they operate individually and together.