Over the past few years, flexible work environments have become the new normal for most businesses. With this shift, there has been much debate over the effectiveness of this new virtual team environment. A virtual work environment takes away the concept of a company being headquartered in one location, and adds the ability to drastically increase a company’s scalability. Team members can live all over the globe and still collaborate on projects via virtual communication networks like Zoom, Slack, and Alleo.
What Is the Benefit of a Virtual Team?
Pinpointing a singular benefit of working with a virtual team would be impossible. You could ask anyone who is currently working remotely and they would give you a different example of how this new environment is benefitting their life inside and outside of work. A remote work environment provides individuals and teams with a new level of flexibility to get their work done. Here are just a few of the significant benefits management and their teams can experience from remote work.
- Cost-Effective: Many organizations discovered how much money they could save each month by not having to rent out office space. If your team still desires the in-person connection, renting out a co-working space once a month or downsizing your current office is much cheaper.
- Higher Productivity: Many business owners and managers have asked, “Are we really more productive working remotely/at home?” The short answer is yes, people are generally more productive working in a virtual environment. According to a Forbes survey in 2021, “90% of the 2,050 full-time remote workers surveyed said they were as productive or more productive working remotely.” This is partly due to many respondents pointing out improved levels of their mental health while working remotely.
- More Access to Quality Talent: It can be expensive to fly out a new hire and pay relocation fees. Having a remote work environment means you can hire top-tier talent, regardless of whether they are across the country or the globe.
Transitioning from a 100% in-person working environment to a virtual one is not easy, and it will take time for everyone to become comfortable in this new setting.
Virtual Work Environment Challenges
As fantastic as virtual work environments can be, managers and other decision-makers must be aware of the challenges associated with making this transition. Let’s take a closer look at some of the significant challenges facing virtual teams and how to overcome them.
- Work-Life Balance: While we mentioned above that remote environments can create happier and more productive teams. This process is more akin to a high-wire balancing act in that transitioning to a virtual environment will not breed immediate success. In a 2021 report on the state of remote working, Buffer discovered that 27% of those surveyed highlighted not being able to unplug from their work as their biggest struggle working remotely. Regularly communicate with your team about deadlines, and do not push them to overwork simply because they are within an arm’s reach of “being in the office.”
- Worse Communication: There is going to a time in a virtual meeting where a technical issue will come up, or the internet is spotty, thus, not allowing you to fully participate in a meeting. Some of these issues are bound to happen in this environment, but utilizing a service like Alleo can help traverse this virtual environment by allowing all team members to actively participate in meetings.
- Project Management: It can be challenging to manage and even plan projects in a virtual environment. It is easier to make sure everyone is on top of the objectives that need to be hit with everyone in the office. There are endless distractions outside of the office to pull someone away from work. To help, ensure your team has a thorough plan for each project to hit specific goals each week, so you can successfully monitor progress even out of the office.
The good news is that there are plenty of tools available to make-virtual meetings as meaningful as possible. Partnering with an organization like Alleo can turn virtual meetings that used to be one person sharing their screen at a time into a new collaborative effort where the whole team can get involved.
Take Control of the Virtual Landscape with Alleo
All of the benefits of a virtual workplace can be put on hold if your team is held back during digital meetings. Our platform allows your team to strategize and innovate more efficiently since all voices are heard equally with our interactive visual collaboration canvas.
The days of only one person having the ability to take charge in a virtual meeting are gone. We enable all generic and proprietary tools to present visually to create a meaningful context for decisive and strategic action.
Contact us today to see the Alleo difference.
