The global pandemic has forced hundreds of thousands of businesses to become virtual for the foreseeable future, many of whom were not prepared to do this effectively. Over the past 3 months, small business owners have had to scramble to adapt quickly and learn the skills needed to be able to lead a completely virtual team; skills which have now become essential to the survival of the business.
Leading and managing a virtual team is completely different from having your team in the same room and raring to go – and before we’ve had a chance to learn about purely virtual teams, we now need to manage a mix of people based at home or the office. Understanding the differences between virtual and traditional teams is key to adjusting management styles to suit a hybrid team.
7 differences between face-to-face teams and virtual teams
1. Motivation
Working from home requires team members to have competencies beyond their technical skills – it requires exceptional time management, self-discipline, proactive networking, managing ambiguity, and the ability to learn new technologies just to name a few.
If you have staff that is motivated by the social cues that come with working face-to-face with their peers, you should aim to keep them aware of their peers’ progress. For example, since they can’t see their colleagues, you could use task management tools like Trello or Monday to create a visual representation of jobs being completed. In some cases, it can reveal which staff are the real star performers.
2. Management structure
For virtual teams, a flatter organisation structure works best. Old-fashioned layers of authority and hierarchies aren’t designed for modern technology and cause bottlenecks, even when staff is in the office. Management structures can’t be changed overnight, but you could do things like issue guidance notes that would enable staff to make more routine decisions at lower levels, causing fewer delays and leaving you free to deal with more important tasks.
3. Leadership style
Managers can’t monitor employees easily at a distance, so you will need to work with them in a more collaborative way. A democratic and coaching leadership style is needed, which means making more intentional decisions, delegating authority as well as tasks, and communicating often to make sure everyone is on track. Staff in the office may view having more autonomy as a perk, so it needs to be applied to all staff in and outside of the office, otherwise, it can breed resentment.
4. Communication styles
It has always been true that clear communication is important, no matter where staff is sitting, but working remotely does need more careful management to prevent misunderstandings and aid problem-solving. Schedule regular meetings, use practice management software to keep everyone up-to-date, and create an informal group discussion on platforms that suit you and your staff’s way of working.
5. Virtual training and tools
It’s easy to forget that working outside of the office isn’t just a laptop and a phone. Staff needs to be able to access all of the documents and information they need remotely and, where new software or equipment has been introduced, they need
training to make the most of it.
It’s easier to train everyone on an ad hoc basis in the office and answer quick questions as they come up. Now is a good time to start keeping notes whenever a question comes up, to build up an operations manual for your business, and make sure that anyone that wasn’t in the room to hear the answer will learn in step with their colleagues.
6. Relationship building
It takes more effort to build relationships at a distance, but it is possible. Communication and collaboration are key to building trust and relationships, so supplement formal meetings and communication channels with opportunities for less
formal discussions. It doesn’t have to be as complicated as hosting quizzes, but could be a quick team catch-up in the morning with time for small talk. Where teams are a mix of people in the same office and working remotely, asking all staff to dial into videoconferencing on their own devices puts all team members on the same footing.
7. A sense of purpose
All teams need to have a shared purpose and understanding of their work and goals. Companies can let this slide when everyone is in the same office because course corrections can be made immediately, but staff in distributed teams don’t have the same amount of guidance. If you outline your vision and values as a team, document them, and instill them in everything you do, it makes a massive difference to your productivity, performance, and growth moving forwards.
Start leading your virtual team successfully!
If you use these differences between face-to-face teams and virtual teams, you should be able to adapt your leadership style and start managing them effectively.