Mastering Remote Collaboration: Strategies for Building Strong Virtual Teams
Man participates in virtual team meeting
Let's face it; effective remote communication and professional collaboration can be a difficult maze to navigate.
According to a Deloitte study, only 9% of employees reported that their place of employment had effective sharing and collaboration tools and systems, with an additional 39% of respondents saying that their company's collaboration methods were somewhat effective. This data tells us that without the proper guardrails and direction, teams can easily waste time, energy, and budget by going in circles.
Specifically, improving remote collaboration is nearly impossible without identifying clear goals to work toward. Obviously, it’s fruitless to wake up one day and decide you'd like your team cohesion to "be better" without knowing first, where to concentrate your efforts and second, how to measure the effectiveness of your improvements.
It’s common for virtual teams to have goals and KPIs (or OKRs) aligned to business outcomes. However, perfecting other “soft” skills, like interpersonal communication and the art of professional collaboration, can often be swept under the rug since these skills lack a quantifiable revenue-driven goal. This scenario can cause huge problems with virtual teams.
As a business leader tasked with leading a virtual or hybrid team, soft skills are a dangerous area to overlook – especially in a complex digital world post-pandemic. Today, in-person meetings and physical interactions continue to be replaced with new digital tools and mediums designed to facilitate better remote collaboration. This relatively new way of going about collaborative work comes with unique frustrations and challenges.
Given the design of virtual teams, it's only natural that complex challenges require specific, guided solutions. Today’s virtual teams may face isolation and loneliness, a lack of connection, and diverse communication styles, all of which are also mixed in with competing systems, protocols, and ineffective tools. This tricky combination can prevent you from effectively tapping into the best and most effective ideas your team can produce.
So whether you are leading or participating in a remote work environment – or even a brainstorming session – it’s necessary to utilize organizational experts who have the specific knowledge and methodologies designed to help teams regroup and thrive. Together, you can help guide your virtual teams to build the right mindset, executive skills, and digital tools to – not only succeed as a strong virtual team – but to actually find joy in successful remote collaboration. With all that in mind, let's examine the steps to building strong virtual teams.
How effective virtual collaboration leads to organizational growth
Before we begin, it’s vital to understand how effective collaboration is foundational to a successful organization.
Specifically, effective virtual collaboration:
Creates high-performing teams
Fosters an optimal work-life balance for employees
Leads to organizational growth
Why Effective Collaboration Is Good For Business
Effective collaboration pulls diverse perspectives, skills, and knowledge together.
Unfortunately, this kind of cooperation can be a challenge for today’s remote teams. Still, it’s critical to avoid the trap of simply ignoring the problem. The good news is that the data shows that bringing together diverse perspectives actually leads to better decision-making and more innovative solutions.
Virtual teams, especially, must overcome the challenges of remote work and harness the collective intelligence of the members of the team. This “pulling together” makes effective use of the organization’s resources and, when done effectively, will raise up the conversation by challenging existing beliefs and biases, overcoming complex challenges, and helping the organization seize new opportunities.
In a time when approximately 80% of employees report feeling stressed at work, experts suggest that team dynamics contribute to about 92% of this work-related stress. Effective virtual collaboration can help with this problem. A sense of purpose and belonging can be built remotely. The result is a positive work culture and strengthening team member engagement.
Effective remote collaboration also enables a better distribution of workload, prevents burnout, and allows for flexible work arrangements. This combination results in a healthier work-life balance for employees.
By prioritizing collaboration in virtual teams, it becomes possible to unlock the full potential of your remote team in order to motivate them to achieve sustainable growth where both individuals and the organization thrive.
Psychological Safety: When work is complex and uncertain, we need everyone to feel safe to share ideas, questions, mistakes, and concerns.
All teams — especially remote teams where we don’t have daily personal interactions to boost interpersonal esteem – need to build trust and cohesion so all team members feel safe to speak up. To enable a truly collaborative remote culture, where every team member's efforts and contributions count, requires a thoughtful and deliberate plan.
As usual, it must start at the top. For a team to reach its full potential, it is crucial for members of the leadership team to regularly check in and ensure that every individual feels psychologically safe, particularly in remote working environments.
What is psychological safety? According to the Harvard Business Review, psychological safety is “a shared belief that team members will not be rejected or embarrassed for speaking up with their ideas, questions, or concerns.”
Download Our Psychological Safety Ebook Today
In practice, psychological safety means that it’s crucial to make time for regular check-ins with individual employees. This regular cadence is designed to build psychological safety. Here are some examples that help build strong virtual teams:
Encouraging your shy employee who doesn't feel comfortable on camera or rarely speaks up.
Actively identifying and eliminating dismissive behavior that makes others feel uncomfortable or unwanted.
Inspiring people to ask questions and challenge ideas.
When employees or remote workers feel truly safe to express their thoughts, ideas, and concerns without fear, it creates an environment that fosters open communication and trust, which are both vital aspects of successful collaboration.
As an effective leader, you play a pivotal role in nurturing psychological safety by actively listening, encouraging diverse perspectives, and valuing every team member's input. By promoting an inclusive and supportive culture, you empower remote employees to speak their minds openly and safely, leading to authentic iterations and innovation. When virtual team members share their ideas and collaborate freely, they can leverage the full range of skills and expertise, resulting in stronger collective decision-making and enhanced problem-solving capabilities.
Ultimately, if you want to become the most effective leader of a virtual team, prioritize your team's psychological safety and well-being. The sense of acceptance and belonging felt in real-time empowers individuals to contribute their best, strengthening the cohesion of the group as a whole, and driving overall success in remote working environments.
Top 5 Strategies for Facilitating Better Remote Collaboration
Now with an understanding of the role effective leadership plays in creating an optimal environment for successful remote collaboration and virtual teamwork, here are a few actionable tips aligned to desired outcomes to employ based on your team's needs.
Foster a strong sense of community and connection among your virtual team
Establish regular virtual team-building activities and informal social gatherings to reduce isolation and loneliness. This could include a happy hour, game night, or a special meeting dedicated to getting to know your team better and encouraging people to step outside their comfort zone.
Encourage open communication and create dedicated channels for non-work-related conversations. Team productivity often increases when remote employees feel connected in real-time with others on subjects outside of work.
Since 55% of communication is nonverbal, use virtual meeting communication tools like Zoom or Microsoft Teams to foster face-to-face interactions among remote team members and build trust among the entire team.
Prioritize effective communication
Encourage clear and concise communication to avoid misunderstandings, especially when relying on written communication.
Establish guidelines for communication channels, response times, and appropriate use of tools and apps like Slack (e.g., email, chat, project management software, workflows).
Foster active listening and encourage the use of video calls for important discussions to improve understanding and engagement.
Build trust and transparency
Encourage transparency in decision-making processes and share relevant information across the team and communication channels.
Establish clear expectations and guidelines for remote work, including work hours, availability, and deliverables.
Provide regular updates on project progress and important company initiatives and celebrate achievements to boost morale and foster trust.
Introduce a team culture of openly sharing rather than withholding. What helps is building strong relationships by spending time getting to know people as people and practicing active listening.
Adapt to diverse communication styles
Recognize and accommodate different communication preferences and styles among team members.
Encourage the use of visual aids, whiteboards, diagrams, charts, and videos, to convey information effectively.
Provide training, resources and set clear goals to enhance digital literacy and proficiency with remote collaboration tools.
Streamline workflows and leverage effective digital tools
Evaluate and adopt remote collaboration tools that align with the team's specific needs and address the challenges faced.
Ensure proper training and support for using tools effectively both for team leaders and co-workers.
Establish a company culture with clear protocols and systems for project management and project management tools, file sharing, and task allocation to minimize confusion and improve productivity.
Remember that these strategies may require ongoing adjustments and refinements based on the unique dynamics of your team and the challenges you face. Regular feedback and open communication are essential for continuously improving remote collaboration.
As experts in team development and assessments, Regroup can be your guide to making it easy to address your virtual team’s needs with custom engagements to make the most impact. If you need help figuring out where to start as a leader, or have more questions on facilitating productive remote collaboration and building successful virtual teams, let's talk.
