Managing Virtual Teams

Managing Virtual Teams Workshop Oakbrook, IL May 12, 2009

Shelli Nelson

Partner, Human Resources and Business Development with Voyageur One – an Organizational Development Consulting Firm specializing in strategic planning, team development, facilitation, mediation, professional seminars and executive retreats.

Experience in retail, marketing and finance industries. Has worked for such diverse firms as Levi Strauss & Co., Seven Worldwide, Morningstar and Spot Trading.

PHR certified, Master’s Degree in Human Resources Management and brings over 15 years of Human Resources experience which includes strategic planning, mergers & acquisitions, performance management, and training & development.

Voyageur One has been a flexible & virtual workplace for over 20 years.

As a Partner in Voyageur One, Shelli is responsible for leveraging her diverse work experience to offer Outplacement Services, Talent Discovery and Human Resources Consulting.

©Life Meets Work, 2009

Kyra Cavanaugh

President, Life Meets Work --a consultancy and online community that helps organizations drive bottom line results by implementing and optimizing flexible workforce strategies.

Flexible worker for last 10 years (telecommuting, part-time, contract, compressed work weeks).

Currently manages a virtual team.

Career in consumer packaged goods for nearly 20 years: Quaker, Keebler, Dominick’s Finer Foods, Willard Bishop Consulting

Member of Workplace Excellence Committee, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, and spearheading flexible workforce project with the Women’s Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor.

Speaker at upcoming 2009 Illinois State SHRM Conference and recently honored as a finalist in the AWLP Work-Life Rising Star awards.

Goals for this workshop

Our goal is to provide practical advice that empowers you to implement or optimize your virtual team starting tomorrow .

What is your goal for today?

Common concerns

How can I manage what I can’t see?

Won’t they run errands/do laundry when they should work?

What if some employees don’t want to work from home?

What if I need someone and they’re not available?

How do I schedule a meeting if we live all over the world?

How do I train virtual workers?

Will productivity decrease?

What if everyone wants to do this and no one’s in the office?

Will this work for hourly as well as managerial? Vice versa?

How do I ensure that work will get done on time?

Are virtual workers as committed as onsite ones?

Won’t customer service levels decrease?

The value of virtual teams

Increased productivity

Increased customer satisfaction/retention and service levels

Increased employee retention/engagement

Reduced absenteeism rates

Reduced real estate costs, overhead

“ Employer of Choice” recruitment and retention strategy

Employees closer to customer locations

Coordination with virtual offices

Supports green/CSR initiatives

Offsets commuting costs in time and money

Disability accommodation

Supports work/life and flexible workplace initiatives

Business continuity/disaster planning

Need more?

60% of teleworkers are less likely to look for another job. --2008 Clean Air Campaign study

87% of employees and managers agreed telecommuters’ productivity improved or stayed the same. --2008 Study by National Science Foundation

Teleworkers were more engaged and had more favorable opinions of senior management.

--2008 study of 10,000 workers by Kenexa Research Institute

Case in Point: Sun Microsystems

Open Work: a network of people, places and technologies started in 1995

56% of their employees work remotely at least 2 days/week

$387 million saved over six yrs in real estate and utility costs

60% of the time employees used to spend commuting, they now spend working

85% of employees say they’d recommend Sun as an employer

$1700 in fuel costs is saved annually by the average employee telecommuting 2.5 days per week

Telecommuters score higher on performance ratings than their on-site counterparts

Lower turnover, higher employee satisfaction ratings

What is a virtual team?

Arrangements vary:

Emergency (snow storm, sick child at home)

Occasional (1-2 days per week)

Consistent (at least 3 days)

Ongoing (no on-site office)

Locations vary:

Home office

Co-working site

Coffee shop, library, etc.

What’s the secret of managing virtual teams?

The skills you need to manage a virtual team are the same ones you need to successfully manage an on-site team.

It calls you to leadership, goal-setting, performance management and communication. It requires you to spend time deliberately managing your team.

In the end, both offsite and onsite team members benefit.

Create a high performing team

What does that look like?

Collaboration

Productive meetings

Communication/Info-sharing

Individual accountability

Trust/respect for one another

Recognition/Celebration

Opportunities for learning

Transparency

Great people

No silos

Shared goals

Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.

George S. Patton

What is a team?

Group of individuals with common goals and a mission

The manager’s goal is to harness the collective energy and intelligence of a “potentially” disparate group of individuals and direct it at a fixed set of objectives

Success is highly reliant on “The Sum” of the parts being materially greater than the parts individually

©Voyageur One, 2009

Getting to the “The Sum“

Hire the “right people”

+ Create a common thread based on a singular mission

+ Adopt a common view of group and individual expectations

+ Empower the individuals AND the group

+ Encourage individual and collective communications

+ Foster adoption of a spirit of trust

____________________________________________

Highly Successful, Productive, and Effective Virtual Teams

©Voyageur One, 2009

Setting up a virtual team

Two different ways to approach the establishment of a virtual team.

Approach A:

Create a proposal and offer telecommuting/flexible work options to eligible team members.

Offer a pilot program for 3 to 6 months with an evaluation, and option for ongoing arrangement.

Approach B:

Allow entire organization, department, team to work flexibly.

Team establishes and agrees to rules and signs a Virtual Work Agreement that is reviewed and renewed every six months.

Recommendation: Regardless of method, establish ground rules and agreed upon behaviors in advance of implementation.

Virtual Teams Agreement

An agreement that outlines the “rules of engagement” and includes things like:

How quickly team members are expected to reply to voice mails/emails

The agreement is reciprocal-”we flex you, you flex us back”

How often team members should report their activities, progress toward goals

How often team members should input information into project tracking systems, customer updates, shared calendars, etc.

Core hours

Days/times everyone should be in the office

Frequency of regularly scheduled team meetings, 1:1 meetings, etc.

Whether new employees have to work in the office for 3 mos/6 mos. first

Attendance at retreats

How decisions will be made and documented

Conflict-resolution procedures

Managing a virtual team

Key Components:

Execute a Virtual Teams Agreement

Realize management style influences outcome

Create a sense of place

Communicate deliberately

Set goals and track performance

Choose the right people

Global teams have extra needs

Your management style matters

Trust vs. Control

?

?

Where do you fit?

The ubiquitous water cooler ©Life Meets Work, 2009

If I can’t see you…

… how do I know you’re working?

The average office worker wastes 1.7 hours/day surfing the internet, socializing with co-workers, tending to personal business, and running errands.

Why?

Not enough work: 17.7%

Hours too long: 13.9%

Underpaid: 11.8%

Lack of challenging work: 11.1%

2007 Wasting Time Survey, Salary.com ©Life Meets Work, 2009

Create a new sense of place

Meet every morning on Campfire (group IM chat) to say good morning, socialize and talk about any pressing issues for the day.

Conduct virtual coffees/happy hours/birthday parties where no work discussion is allowed.

Encourage team members to post their photo, photo of their home office, pets, and info about their likes/dislikes/hobbies/etc.

Plan quarterly retreats devoted to team-building and getting to know each other.

Welcome new members in group conference calls.

Assign an onsite “buddy” to each virtual team member to keep them up on the latest gossip, happenings, etc.

Celebrate successes, recognize great work, communicate with all team members electronically so remote workers aren’t left out of the loop.

Take 15 minute water cooler breaks during the day.

Deliberate communication

“ Don’t spend more than 30 seconds being angry without telling someone.”

James Tyree, Chairman & CEO, Mesirow Financial

Deliberate communication

Set guidelines for how and when to communicate.

Be open and honest.

Greet every team member every day via IM, email, or phone.

Schedule a regular 1:1 meeting and stick to it. Don’t reschedule.

Cultivate diversity of opinion.

Record meetings for team members who miss.

Publish all team members’ contact info in an easily retrievable place.

Consider personality profiles and preferred communication styles of each team member. Customize your communication style to fit each employee.

Pay close attention to written communication. Look for emoticons, changes in tone or length of communication.

Ask about how team members are feeling. You don’t have the benefit of non-verbal cues, so you have to ask.

Ask more questions of virtual team members to be sure you know where they stand.

Technology for virtual teams

Technology democratizes communication.

These tech tools facilitate communication for virtual teams:

IM (MSN, AOL, YAHOO)

Group Chat/IM (Campfire)

Email

WIKI’s (clearwiki.com)

Project Tracking System (Basecamp, WorkZone, FogBugz)

File Sharing (Google docs, Google calendar, Filesanywhere)

Twitter

Teleconferencing (VOIP to save $)

Virtual meeting software (gotomeeting)

Virtual whiteboard (Scriblink)

Set goals and track performance

Managing virtual teams means letting go of face time and shifting your orientation from “how” work gets done to “what” work gets done.

It’s about performance and results, so everyone must be clear about goals and expectations.

Both manager and team member share the responsibility for communicating the status of projects.

Team members hold themselves and each other accountable.

This creates transparency. Productivity increases because there’s nowhere to hide. The virtual worker either meets the deadline and produces quality work or doesn’t. As a manager, you’ll know either way.

Performance problems rise to the surface and are dealt with.

Performance tracking technology

Technology assists this transparency.

From one dashboard, you can see each team members’ projects, tasks, contacts, to-do lists.

Late items are flagged, contingencies are visible and at any moment you can view whether a project or deliverable is in jeopardy.

You assign tasks, leave messages, share documents.

You document conversations, save contact and client information.

You track multiple projects, run reports by team member, by project, by late tasks, etc.

Choose the right people

Some people are cut out for virtual teams, others are not.

Consider a candidate’s interests, personality, motivation to learn and improve, track record of working independently.

Get to know them: blogs they follow, leaders in the industry they look up to, books they enjoy.

They must demonstrate that they can work well by themselves and enjoy it.

Key traits: Self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-disciplined, strong work ethic

Traits to avoid: Needs direction, wants peer approval, likes structure, looks to work for social life

Tips for global teams

In addition to the general advice for managing virtual teams:

Enable team members from other countries to communicate during meetings.

For team members who are less confident with their English, invite them to submit their comments via email at the end of the meeting.

Rotate meeting times, so everyone takes turns being up in middle of the night.

Create deadline days for when work is due. The “end of the week” means something different to other cultures and in other time zones.

Pick a time zone that is the standard for meeting times, deadlines, etc. to avoid confusion.

File sharing and project management software is critical for tracking customer notes, daily projects, and creates a seamless transition from one “shift” to the next.

Additional Resources