Feature

Engaging a virtual workforce

Kusum Makhija on how to keep your onsite staff involved

Globally distributed teams are common in the knowledge industry and it is important for organisations to design processes and systems that integrate virtual team members. Employee engagement being a focus area, engaging a globally scattered workforce is one of the toughest challenges facing most organisations. Virtual teams also bring in issues of performance tracking and cultural factors as it is very different to measure perceptions in a non-physical environment.

"An organisation's readiness to adopt multi-cultures while appreciating the sentiments of each region is important" - C V Prakash Director Human Capital Team Computers

"To keep virtual team members informed and aligned with organisational developments, continuous communication is necessary" Aravinda Dahiya General Manager, HR QAI India

Sensitisation to cultural nuances is the solution to most problems in global teams. A virtual team manager also needs to clearly communicate to his team members their roles and expectations. “The key challenge in a virtual team environment is that of engagement. To keep the team members informed and aligned with organisational development, continuous communication is necessary. There is also the issue of managing team diversity. There is a need for focussed initiatives that work on diversity management and which promote a culture that is inclusive,” says Aravinda Dahiya, General Manager, HR, QAI India. C V Prakash, Director Human Capital, Team Computers, points out that the major challenges for virtual workplaces are improper business goals, frequent redeployment of forces from one place to another, inadequate compensation and growth path, lack of leadership, systems and processes, and well-defined KRAs for every role. “An organisation’s readiness to adopt multi-cultures while appreciating sentiments of each and every region is important,” adds Prakash.

Virtual teams can actually be critical business enablers. Puneet Jetli, GM, People Function, MindTree Consu-lting states, “We have defined a ‘OneShore’ delivery model that facilitates work to be executed seamlessly by teams distributed across locations. As we expanded our geographical footprint we further realised the need to adapt and innovate the enabling processes to ensure high people satisfaction, alignment and empowerment. The processes that present the highest challenge are organisational assimilation, internalisation of organisational values, regular communication/update on significant happenings and building organisational identification and commitment.”

Corporate integration

Often it is difficult to assimilate virtual counterparts into the organisational framework. The alignment of such employees’ goals with the overall organisational goals does not happen. Virtual teams do not associate themselves with the corporate strategy, value and brand as they work in an environment which is mostly different than the actual physical environment of the organisations’ workplace. “It is important they go through a rigorous and extended induction programme so that they go out as ambassadors of the organisation and the corporate values are well entrenched. The problem thereafter is one of keeping them continuously aligned. The idea is to make every corporate initiative also touch them,” opines Dahiya.

Newsletters, continuous communication, periodic video conferences where they are acknowledged for representing and upholding company values and regional meets all go a long way in keeping them integrated. Team managers play an essential role and would need to be encouraged to be in touch with them and keep them updated about the latest happenings and events. The most important aspect is to have a system that is immediately responsive to their needs. “We have learnt that managing such diverse situations is not a problem as long as employees’ expectations such as growth path, challenging work profile, freedom and platform to demonstrate creativity, adequate compensation and benefits are met. Bringing people together at least once in a year for corporate events will help reinforcing the need of team integration and aligning with corporate vision and goals,” says Prakash.

"Motivation and training in a virtualised environment is difficult but can be achieved through sustained counselling and communication" - Puneet Jetli GM, People Function MindTree Consulting

" Technology can also act as a limitation as onsite employees may see it as a continuous form of surveillance and performance scrutiny" - Mahalingam C Senior Vice-President, HR Symphony Services

Alignment and internalisation of corporate vision, goals and culture need the right combination of virtual communication and physical touch-point. “Interactive sessions over the Web with virtual teams and quarterly structured updates on the performance in each of our operating locations have helped us combat this problem to a great extent,” says Jetli. Such alignment can only be achieved through clear and transparent communication across the organisation. This requires active participation from the senior leadership of the company, which helps communicate the right message to their teams in the respective functional groups. Remote location employees need to be active participants in the process of setting goals and KRAs for themselves, achievement of which would result in accomplishment of organisational goals. “Technology plays a very important role here as our KRA tracking system is online along with the annual appraisal process. Throughout the year the manager has periodic discussion with the remote teams by way of Web conferencing/phone meetings and face-to-face interactions,” elaborates Jayantika Dave, HR Director, Agilent Technologies, India.

Furthermore, many team members miss out on significant developments in a project as there is constant manpower churn happening. Thus, a continuous discussion forum needs to be maintained to keep everyone updated. “Everyone in a virtualised environment needs to be on the same page. Exchange programmes between different locations are a helpful tool here,” explains Mahalingam C, Senior Vice-president, HR, Symphony Services.

Cultural impact

Can virtual teams affect the overall culture of a firm? There are some like Aravinda Dahiya of QAI who believes that virtual teams impact positively, “It has a huge impact and a positive one. For one, when there are teams across diverse geographies, you have the best man fit for the job allocated to the same. The organisational culture is therefore performance-oriented. The diversity that virtual teams bring also makes the organisational culture varied, adapting and flexible.” On the contrary, a few like Prakash of Team Computers insist that an organisation’s culture is built on business philosophy, approach to market, service orientation and customer care, rather than the geography. “If the organisation philosophies are strong and are intended towards people, suppliers and customers, managing the expected organisational culture will not be a challenge at all. Geography hardly has a role to play. Only consistency, communication, evaluation, feedback and an organisation’s quick response to changing needs are relevant to maintain the desired culture,” he adds.

Dave agrees that the overall culture of an organisation is its strength, “There are certain core values which each employee, irrespective of the nationality or geographic location, has to adhere to. Virtual teams spread across diverse geographies contribute towards an innovative culture which constantly evolves because of fresh new ideas that come in from all parts of the world.”

Mahalingam believes that it is important that virtual teams should be treated as social capital for the company. Diverse culture of the teammates should become the strength and not a limitation for an organisation. Trust based relationships with well-defined norms are the key. Like team-building exercises in a physical team, there should be ‘virtual boot camps’ wherein members could share perceptions about each other and clarify doubts.

Conflict management

One of the major disadvantages that a virtual team faces is the lack of human touch and interaction because a virtual team is more often than not dependent on a process. Hence it is very important for an organisation to set up robust processes and the same should be well communicated to the team. Conflict situations often arise when work methodologies are not understood by the employees and there is a deviation from standards.

“Managers who are responsible for global teams are trained on cultural sensitivities and should be ably guided by the local human resources/management team in case of any conflict situation. Also, there should be a proper escalation path defined for an employee to raise his concern. This proactive approach prevents a conflict situation to a very large extent,” says Dave.

Constructive conflicts are essential for quality work in any team. However, the nature of conflicts in a virtualised team may differ owing to its non-interactive nature. Explains Jetli of MindTree, “Since you have not physically seen the person, there is always a tendency of putting the blame on another. More often than not, members try to lay the monkeys on others’ back when it comes to non-performance. Add to that the problem of working in different time zones. Motivation and training in a virtualised environment may be difficult, but can be achieved through sustained counselling and communication.”

Having line managers to do the mentoring and training activity is one way of doing it. Another could be e-learning and remote intervention.

Enhancing productivity

The absence of a formal work culture and a physical work environment very often leads to problems in measuring the productivity of an employee, this specially holds true in cases where the deliverables expected are intangible. However, such problems can skilfully be avoided by clearly identifying their deliverables and communicating to them through periodic tracking and continuous interaction between managers and team members.

Opines Prakash, “Virtual teams can be made productive by defining KRAs clearly and implementing effective tracking and monitoring systems. The KRAs must be derived from the organisation’s business goal and each KRA should have multiple tasks which are measurable. Reward and punishment should be clearly defined, propagated and affected instantly.”

Productivity would depend on the clarity in setting expectations. States Dave, “Teams should be clear about their deliverables and timelines. At the same time both managers and their teams should be sensitive about the other’s culture. This minimises the chances of conflict and ensures a great rapport.”

Organisations like MindTree have made use of technology in making distributed teams more productive. “We have several functional intranets that ensure easy access to required information, process, system and templates. In addition, deployment of knowledge management system and processes play a very vital role. They not only ensure that all the explicit knowledge is harnessed and shared within the organisation, but also facilitate tacit knowledge sharing and reuse. Our portals like ‘Connected-Minds’ ensure that virtual teams have the infrastructure required to be aligned on the project vision/goal, sharing of information and collaboration amongst team members,” explains Jetli.

There is however a danger. “While tools like video conferencing, webinars, etc, bring people together virtually, technology can also act as a limitation as onsite employees may see it as a continuous form of surveillance and performance scrutiny,” points out Mahalingam. Effective communication is the only apparent solution to prevent any misunderstanding.