It’s been a burning question – and coincidentally one I have been hearing more from HR generalists at growing tech companies. “How do you create an effective virtual team and digital culture?”
Expectations.
Set them. Even if you have a laissez-faire approach to management, your team needs structure. (In fact, structure can help you be more effective with your day.) Expectations get a bad rap… But think about quarterly/annual reviews. It’s unfortunate we structure these formalized reviews in such a way that enable a once-in-a-while conversation to assess – and often critique – performance. Instead, shouldn’t performance, and correlated expectations, be fluid? If your employee receives a lackluster review, but you never speak with them about their professional shortcomings, do you think that’s their weakness, or yours?
Expectations are all the more essential with a virtual team. There’s something about being able to see a person each day (or even, each week). That eye-to-eye lock, the handshake, the 3-D elements that make us human. Yet, as I shared with you last week, this whole virtual management thing can be done (and done well). Our technology has caught-up to enabling virtual employees. We just need to know how to effectively use it.
As an expectations example, and to demonstrate the ripple effect it has, let’s say it’s important for you to hear from your virtual team members during Monday-morning meetings. Unfortunately, you’re left feeling frustrated because the virtual members often don’t contribute to the conversation.
Ask yourself:
- Are you using technology conducive to their inclusion?
- Did you convey that you want each virtual member to speak-up? In what capacity?
- Have you shared the value with your on-site team members that there is in hearing from their virtual colleagues? (And even more essential – have you requested the onsite members be cognizant, and considerate, of those “present but not physically present”?)
If you’re frustrated by an absence of engagement, it’s probable the situation isn’t a one-way street.
Setting expectations, especially with thorough communication, results in behavioral change – and it’s those behaviors that construct (or reconstruct) culture. With expectations, there’s minimal ambiguity; this aids in communication efforts as well as accountability.
Transparency.
Is the ethos of your team to be candid, forthright, and truly honest? Technological advances allow for just that. Take pay grades, for example. Historically this is a very sensitive topic. But what if it wasn’t anymore? What if there was a resource for earnings, and calculated measurements of justification (e.g., education, experience, etc.).
Transparency doesn’t have to start with such grand gestures i.e., above... But, it should be omnipresent. We have social tools, chat functions, video technologies, and the like, to communicate. Is there a new release? Is there a policy change? How will that information be disseminated? Coming up with guidelines (yes, the notorious expectations) for how information is communicated, and how often it’s communicated, will ensure consistent transparency, even amidst rapid change.
Your People.
I realize you may not always be able to choose your team. However, when you can, take this into consideration: effective virtual team members typically have higher-than-average emotional intelligence, writing aptitude, and strong communicative tendencies. Yes, there are always some challenges (hence this list of guidelines) but this type of individual will likely not cause a lot of virtual headache.
Open Door Policy + Trust.
Without fostering trust among your team you’ll have a much harder time achieving resolve (and results). Practice a true open-door, honest exchange, policy. Actively put forth effort to engage the virtual team member.
A couple ideas:
- Ask them for a 60-second tour of their work space so the team can envision what their day-in-the-life looks like.
- Implement a five-minute “pre-business” discussion about anything other than work, on weekly calls.
- Initiate the distribution of surveys to measure team inclusion.
- If the team feels disconnected, or there’s a defined line between the in-group and the out-group, change is needed!
It’s particularly important to significantly invest in your team early on in working together. That’s when the foundation is built for trust, rapport, and an exchange of ideas. Put aside your task-based leadership brain (temporarily), and engage the relationship-based leader!
There are a lot of helpful technological tools we have access to; but have you ever thought how you use them may affect the intended outcome? “Is this a Skype, Slack, Video chat, email, or phone type of conversation?” I recently published a cheat sheet for one of the largest privately held companies in the U.S. on the topic. Interested? I’ll gladly share it with you.
[OH! I almost forgot. Make sure people know how to use the technology that you’ve implemented. Whether that’s through company-wide training or one-on-one sessions for those who need a little time to adjust, do it without anyone needing to ask. Having resources at an arm’s reach will not only support adoption, it will encourage a culture that lacks apprehension to learn new things.]