Work challenges have been of primary concern during the pandemic lockdown. Several companies have switched to remote working and for all the right reasons. They are encouraging self-isolation in their employees while keeping them safe and stopping the spread.
While virtual teams have recently become a hero due to the benefit of personal safety, but that’s not it. Virtual teams have numerous other features and can help enterprises in tons of different ways.
What Is A Virtual Team?
A virtual team is, in simple words, a geographically dispersed or distributed team. In other words, they do not share the same office space. While some may be working from home, some from a distant office.
Virtual teams can be as handy and productive as any other in-office team. Virtual teams in offices are generally used for departments like R&D, where they do not need to be present physically. Not only do virtual teams drive technology, but they also strike the right work-life balance.
How Have The Various Industries Adapted Virtual Teams?
Not a very fine way to start a new culture, but the pandemic did teach the workforce to shift and follow a no-office-space work culture completely. There are way too many collaboration and communication applications that have made working from a distant place almost effortless.
It is great to see that various service providers have taken a considerable number of initiatives to continue their services even during this lockdown period.
Take the example of Arcler Desk. Needless to say, they have shown their primary priority during the lockdown, which is providing service to their clients. And even during this period, Arcler Desk has been active 24×7, offering all sorts of technical and support help to their customers.
Not just providing support service but also engaging on a lighter note with the new and fresh blogs coming in every other day. Most of all, they even give you quick links, alerts, and FAQs regarding COVID-19 on their official website. Arcler Desk is one of those enterprises which has utilized the virtual teams’ culture in the most beneficial ways.
Virtual teams have no doubt become more popular than we had imagined a couple of years back. Let’s breakdown the benefits to understand how it works better.
Benefits of Virtual Teams
As far as the benefits of Virtual Teams are concerned, we can summarize them differently as follows:
- Safety – This is undoubtedly a paramount requirement. Virtual teams rule out the probability of being affected by the virus in the office space. So, with virtual teams, not only do you keep employees safe but also stabilize the business, so it has minimum impact post-pandemic.
- Cost-Efficient And Global Talent – one of the primary benefits of Virtual teams is their cost-effectiveness. Several overhead costs are saved like office rent and maintenance, transport for employees, electricity, or even office equipment.
Also, remote teams are not location restricted. This means you now have a better range of talent from across the globe. You can hire anybody living in any part of the world, and employees do not necessarily have to be in the same city.
- 24×7 Availability – when employers take up remote work culture and hire anybody from across the globe. They are also opening up the opportunity to hire employees across different time zones.
This can only be beneficial for a company as it will help in operating round the clock.
- Better Job Satisfaction And Rise In Productivity – remote work culture can have a massive impact on the productivity of employees. Most employees save by not having to commute daily, or use the flexible hours to its best, and staying home always encourages healthier food.
That way, employees are happier and show better productivity when provided flexibility like remote work.
Managing Virtual Teams
Virtual teams are packed with tools which make solves all your telecommunication problems. Let’s have a closer take on them:
- Communication Tools – Tools like messaging tools, video-calling tools, are the most common communication tools we use. Remote team collaboration is much smoother and more comfortable with these tools.
- Project Management Tools – project management can be a task when everyone works from different workspaces and is not on the same page. Project management tools help get all the necessary info in a unified space that can be accessed by all.
- Performance Monitoring Tools – when engaging in remote work culture, it is but evident that employers have to monitor the productivity of the employees by keeping track of their work hours and others.
- Scheduling Tools – scheduling tools are the saviors when it comes to coordinating with people from all time zones. Schedule appointments and meetings or even set reminders for teams, virtual teams let you take on it.
- Document Management Tools – accessing files or having a common location for files or data is exceptionally crucial for remote work culture. Most virtual teams have cloud storage platforms like Dropbox or Drive.
Bottom Line
The upsides of virtual teams are far more than their shortfalls. But, unless you have a proper idea of the virtual teams, you cannot randomly push with it. Know the tools, and the requirements, so you have no trouble hiring or managing your geographically dispersed team.
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