Virtual teams and telecommuting (Module 4 SLP)

Virtual teams and telecommuting
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Virtual teams and use of telecommuting is gaining more prominence in the workplace as there is a belief that they are cost effective and improve efficiency. Consequently, there are less face to face meetings as technology use facilitates communication faster than ever before. The increased use of telecommuting has numerous benefits due to flexibility in balancing between job and life and is less likely to lead to job burnouts. Nevertheless, coordinating activities through use of technology is difficult especially when people live in different time zones. Thus, the recruitment process must focus on people who best understand working in virtual teams to avoid potential pitfalls of working through use of technology. This paper looks into challenges of working in virtual teams.
In spite of increased productivity in the workplace, communication is formal with less chances of building trust between staff members and the team leader (Pauleen, 2004). Even though, supervision is not face to face, employees seemed to thrive when they had trust that the management upheld the interests of individual team members, but achieving this is difficult. Since employees have minimal contact with leaders, trust is the single most vital aspect of motivating employees. In addition, managers may want to control the information presented to the public , and hence they may be overly sensitive to what employees are doing. Trust needs to be built as excessive monitoring appears to be detrimental to employees’ motivation. I do not like virtual teams in there capacity to enhance relationship as communication is mostly impersonal and technology cannot be fully trusted because of privacy concerns.
In order to increase efficiency virtual teams need to have shared understanding which may be difficult because of differences in locations and culture. Through use of technology, employees communicate many times to minimize misunderstandings. Nevertheless, developing shared understanding is difficult to achieve than traditional working places. The geographical distribution of virtual teams across may present challenges to achieving a shared understanding because of cultural differences. Additionally, coordinating virtual teams depends on the communication technology available which typically transfers information through fewer channels than traditional work places. In my experiences working in virtual teams is more difficult with culturally diverse individuals as many are not native English speakers. I like telecommuting as it enhances understanding among people of various cultures as team members interact more often.
Working in virtual teams is not always beneficial to teams as there is lack of awareness on what is happening because of geographical distance. Team leaders were particularly wary of the la...