As a manager you may be willing to hire the best talent no matter where they’re located, but how do you go about determining if a candidate is excellent not only at their job but also at working remotely? There are questions that can help.
Recently, BlueSprig co-founders Jason Johnson and Hugo Dong raised $10 million for their apps business. Sounds like a typical startup story but there’s a twist. Dong lives in China. Johnson in San Francisco. How do entrepreneurs separated by a 16-hour time difference make it work?
Among cutting-edge companies the realities of virtual teams may be fairly old news, but according to several recent articles, the same isn’t true for many mainstream HR departments who are badly behind when it comes to grappling with the implications of widespread remote work.
A challenge of managing a virtual team is getting timely and thorough participation from team members. One way to ensure everyone has their say — or is at least given the opportunity to provide input — is to apply some principles of crowdsourcing to internal team communications.
Working with virtual staff members can take some getting used to. Just like other management skills, it takes practice; working with virtual staff is not a skill you pick up overnight. But there are some steps you can take to make the process a little easier:
Training timelines seem to grow by leaps and bounds whenever there’s a little distance between the trainer and the trainees. When you’re working with a virtual team you can’t let the fact that you don’t see every member of your team in person slow you down.
Too often, out of sight can mean out of mind when you have team members spread out in various offices around the world. Even those of us with the best intentions sometimes forget to thank people or recognize them for doing great work.
It can be hard to feel connected and on the same page with employees and team members, especially when working remotely. By finding ways to relate to the people on your team, you can improve communications, build better connections and create an even stronger organization.
In last week’s post, I wrote about what it takes to become a virtual CEO, after speaking with Chris Ducker of Virtual Business Lifestyle. During our conversation, Ducker also shared his tips for keeping a virtual team happy and motivated.
Is it really possible to take a company from a physical location to a virtual space, and take a team used to face-to-face work entirely online? Here’s a breakdown of some of the things to consider before making the leap to the cloud.
