Five Stages Of A Virtual Team

Introduction For those who have been working for the past 30 or 40 years or longer are happy with going to the employer’s location, performing their job and going home. While for some what is new to them are those employees who work from home, or seem to never leave their cubical and stare at one or more computer monitors all day or in a conference meeting. Businesses and managers are continually looking for ways to increase performance, sales, production, all while cutting costs. Virtual employment is catching on according to Global Workplace Analytics (2016), there are roughly 2.9 million people conducting telework. There are benefits both employers and employees gain by having virtual team employment opportunities. Although there is …show more content…
The initial stage of forming is one of the least productive stages, nonetheless it is important for this stage to occur in order to allow those in the group to become acquainted with one another, establish guidelines and rules that applies to everyone (Aswathappa, 2010). A longer period of time may lapse for a virtual team to complete this stage, depending on how the technological devices available to each member. While a traditional team can meet face-to-face, allowing for everyone to assess others through body language and tone of voice, this is not the same for a virtual team. Additionally, one obstacle virtual teams must overcome is trust, Sadri & Condia (2012) as trust is a major component of any team and the way to earn trust is through the actions of the team members by meeting deadlines and open honest communication. Virtual teams may be limited to how they communicate, ultimately providing video conferencing to a virtual team is ideal. Some people are able to hide their shyness when part of a virtual team, by sitting back and listening and observing instead of highlighting their strengths to the …show more content…
Depending on the task or project generating the team will also be part of the team’s success. The amount of effort from the team members will play a part in the team’s success, as Rigby (2013) some people lacks enough self-discipline to work in an office alone, let alone work from home. A company with offices and facilities around the globe is more likely to be successful more times than not, based on the company has established virtual processes for conducting the day to day operations. When a company operates in one building, and all employees are one the same shift, creating a virtual team would be disruptive to the overall operation of the business. Many companies are conducting business through virtual teams and continue to use traditional teams at the different virtual team locations. By this, even though Samsung’s headquarters is in South Korea, they operate globally, and with their vast technology advancements, they are very successful at operating under a virtual team and have parts manufactured and consumer products built at different locations around the globe (Samsung,