8 Effective Ways to Manage Your Virtual Teams

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Advancement is Technology and Technology is Convenience!

If you look around, you will find yourself living in the technological planet where every matter of life is somewhat associated with technology.This is the technological generation where, for your survival you need to think and take every step technologically.It has created a virtual world around us and wealso feel quite comfortable in dealing within this circle, making virtual a reality and simultaneously keeping physical world far away in personal as well as business dealings.

The Magic of the Virtual World is so CaptivatingThat Almost All Kinds of BusinessesAre Getting Magnetic ToIt

Organizations are keen on managing their staff/ team virtually because of variety of reasons. According to a survey of workforce2020, more than 80 % of the businesses would be moving towards virtual staffing in the next couple of years.Though, managing virtual teams is not as easy as it sounds to be, if you follow some stratagems, you will be able to deal with prevailing issues very successfully.Here are some useful guidelines for you to manage your virtual staff effectively and successfully.

1: Explain Your Work ToYour Team Working from a Distant Location

Understanding your business is easier than explaining others exactly in the same way you want them to understand it. Every workplace has its own system and it becomes really easy if you set some standard procedures of work. This will allow workers to follow the standard procedures and they will learn more quickly as the things keep onrepeating. Hence, you need to do the following:

Communicate your thoughts into words to get the work done exactly the way you want, but you should also keep in mind that giving a flexible environment to the staff helps them work more effectively.
A little bit of autonomy to work in your own way motivates the staff to accept the challenge and accomplish the given work successfully.

2: Use Most Effective Communication Tools to Get Job Done Efficiently

Keeping in view that we are talking about managing virtual teams, you should be well aware that you must have essential tools for making your communication easier.

The media via you communicate your word is the essential key. If it is not effective then the receiver may get distorted messages which will end up in inefficiency of the work.
Furthermore, the procedure unifies when you define clearly about the tools that should be used for communication, whether it is an electronic mail, conference call or video call.
This will also generate the internal feeling of working together as a team.
Something to remember: You should have alternative tools of communication to maintain a proper flow of work and run your virtual staff smoothly.

3: Schedule Daily/Weekly/ Monthly Completion of Projects

It becomes easier to work if you already know the things to do today, or if you know the tasks to be done in the current week.Scheduling down the tasks is important as it preparesyour mind and you can manage your routine work accordingly.We recommend you the following:

First plan out the tasks that are to be assigned to your team then arrange a meeting that is of course on conference or video call to explain the things.
These virtual meeting should be made on regular basis so that it keeps your team active to as you do not want to give the impression that you are working remotely and you do not have easy access to them to get the updates.
Besides, you can also put an email to maintain the records of assignment.

4: Give Project Related Instructions As Clearly As Possible

This is obvious that you need to give instruction in a clear manner. But simply giving instructions right away is not an effective way to get a job done. Employees today are more comfortable in a decentralize environment and when we talk about running virtual staff then it gives a perception of some sort of freedom.You should try to follow the following recommendations:

Try to communicate your instruction with some sort of live example or you may provide some samples that how your work must look like in the end.
The best way is to let your employees accomplish the things in their own way, as discussed above, a little bit of autonomy is necessary to encourage the employees.
If you get the final outcome as desired then it’s best to let the team execute the things in their domain of potentiality.

5: Regardless of Time Zone Differences, Bring Your Team Together

We are talking about managing virtual staff which means our staff could be at any place with different time zones. That is not a big deal today in era of technology! That is how technology has turned the world into a global village by bringing people together from all over the world. Distance is just a matter of conference or video call via Skype, Hangouts and a lot more and you can reduce your level of proximity within few seconds. However, the thing which you must keep in mind that:

There should be a certain time range when all the team members should show themselves online even if they are not in need of each other, as this will maintain the feeling of connectivity with each other.

6: Resolve Communication and Other Issues Immediately

With an access to too many apps, making connection is just a matter seconds. Email is a common tool of communication but video calls and chats are most effective in dealing with virtual teams. WhatsApp chat and Skype calling are the examples that are most commonly used today. How these apps are effective?

You can immediately connect to other person by dropping a text on whatsapp and resolve your issue.
These application also allows you to maintain a group which makes the communication really easy.
You can even share files via using these group chat. Moreover, these chats brings the members of team closer to each other.

7: Establish a Reward System to Keep Your Team Motivated

People are encouraged when they see that they are going to be paid off for their work. In order to maintain a smooth working environment, follow the below tips:

You need to keep your team motivated and that can be done by introducing a reward system, which could be in form of incentives and recognition as well.
Being recognized, encourage the employees to work hard and efficiently.This also makes them responsible for their work.

8: Utilized Tracking Tools to Manage Virtually Assigned Projects

The existence of virtual world have introduced so many tracking tools that help you to track your virtual team and their assigned project. Go through below points:

A great example of this can be Google Docs that helps to keep track on the projects that are assigned to various members of team.
Such sort of apps keep you fully updated by sending you reminders and notifications.
You can have a proper follow up system by using such applications.

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Kaitlin Patrick

Kaitlin is a professional teacher. She is also works as a content developer at ENOSITE Inc. which is a leading and easy website builder; her passion is writing blog and magazine columns.