Location: Company HQ – Reading Time: 4mins
Its seems as if there are more and more companies ‘going global’ and merging / reorganizing than ever before right now. A lot of this hustle includes getting virtual staff involved, sometimes for the first time ever in the history of the company. A lot of the staff that will work for companies that are now taking a more virtual approach to doing business may never actually meet face-to-face, or at least not on a regular schedule – unless its via the web.
One question that I’m starting to get asked more and more regularly at the moment is can these virtual staff / teams perform to the same standard of their more ‘local’ counterparts. You know, the more bog-standard office set-up – conference rooms, water cooler, etc..!
One thing that I’ve found in talking with several businesses and entrepreneurs that are already engaging a virtual business set-up in some way, is that they all have one common, and quite surprising point to throw into the mix. They believe that their virtual staff actually have a better collection of skills, both individually and collectively, as a ‘group’, so to speak.
The thing is, based on my experience, there is usually one pretty big hurdle for people to get used to when working with a virtual business set-up. And that’s the fact that several staff members (sometimes key players in the organization) are spaced out across several location and time zones – sometimes even countries! So, you would think that this could, potentially, cause issues when it comes to the gelling of virtual staff teams. Obviously this is not the case, otherwise more and more companies would not be looking towards a virtual set-up.
I believe that there are three key areas when it comes to building a cohesive virtual team.
Firstly, the virtual staff themselves must work together. When I say ‘together’ here’s what I mean… The fact is that your virtual staff are splattered out a little, and can sometimes feel a little lonely and isolated even. You have to make sure that there are projects for them to work on, to be able to ‘come together’ and help and support one another.
Secondly, communication is absolutely paramount. Everyone should know exactly what each of them has to do – this goes beyond what their ‘role’ within the team is. It’s about what they need to do to keep things moving, individually and as part of a team set-up.
And lastly, everyone in the virtual team should be able to take advantage, if that’s the right term to use, of each others strengths and individual natures in the way that they work, as well as their skill-sets.
Although you might think that the owners of these virtual companies should focus on technology and such like, I believe that the real focus should be on the growth of their virtual staff – all aiming towards the team aspect of making the business bigger, growing and working together. As someone who has several people working for me in various locations around the world, I honestly, whole-heartedly believe this is the true ‘feature in my cap’ in terms of getting done what I need done, utilizing the awesome skills of my own, personal virtual team.
For those of you out there working with several virtual staff, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic above, and hopefully you can post some of your great ideas and comments below. For those of you thinking of setting up a virtual team for the first time – here’s your chance to ask as many questions as possible!
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I’ve found that my price performance per head is much higher utilizing a virtual team– you can compensate people in experience and flexibility (while saving on salary/benefits) plus you get all the standard outsourcing/arbitrage/infrastructure advantages. (taxes, real estate, etc) In a non start-up situation, I find you can hang on to people longer as well, so although its pretty clear that in the short term offices can increase productivity (I’ve got one now!), in the long term offices can hurt the total output of creative individuals who value flexibility. Jeeze, you opened an the can of worms here, I’m gonna leave it at that
Hi Dan
That was actually the point, bud!
Congrats on getting the office set-up. I remember discussing it with you when we hooked up in Manila.
You strike some really interesting points here, and youre right, you can compensate people based on experience very well, particularly here in the Philippines and they DO genuinely stay with you, because they know that they are not being taken advantage of.
Great comment, bud.
Thanks,
Chris
PS. Watch out for a VBL Podcast with Dan later in the week, everyone…
Chris,
Reading posts like this excite me to get my business (which has yet to be fully launched) up and running, so that I can begin to implement and utilize a virtual team.
Right now at my current job (at a “Big 4″ public accounting firm), we utilize our India office much in the same way a virtual staff team would work. While the staff in the India office are still together (physically), everything you’ve said here is absolutely true.
Poor communication leads to our biggest problems on projects, but great communication is often the reason we produce a great work product in an efficient manner.
One problem I’ve encountered is accountability – because no one is “watching over you” in a virtual environment, how do you keep people accountable for whatever they’re working on?
For example, we’ve encountered several instances where work is EXTREMELY busy (80-90 hour work weeks), and some of our India staff just happen to “get sick” and become unavailable. There are no explicit accusations made, but sickness among the staff there tends to be highly correlated with how busy we are.
Granted, these are salaried positions (not hourly), so these employees will still be paid even if out sick. I can see how hourly VAs would be less likely to pull this stunt, because it would directly impact their income.
In general though, we sometimes have a difficult time holding staff accountable for quality and timeliness of work, because they don’t have to interact with us face to face.
Just curious to see what your thoughts are on this – if you’ve ever encountered it, and what you think an appropriate solution is.
Thanks Chris!
Hi Eric
The ‘sick’ thing is always gonna be an issue on this type of subject matter.
Here’s the deal – pay people hourly, knowing that they get wages docked when they are not in the office results in less ‘sickness’, in my opinion. However, sometimes paying people a project bonus or a simple ‘performance’ rated bonus can also help out on this, too.
Every different set-up should be separately treated and handled.
For a single VA set-up, I’ve found the best way to do things is a hourly pay, with additional incentives in place for a big project to be completed on time… That type of thing.
Thanks for the great comment, too, Eric.
Much appreciated, bud.
Chris
Virtual Assistants bring reliability, competence, creativity and other great characteristics to your business without the insane costs.
This was a great article, Chris.
Thanks.
Hi Bob
Thanks for the comment, much appreciated.
Creativity – yep, they certainly do. As long as its managed properly!!!
Chris
Man, I can’t wait to get my own VAs. I still need more influence and power before I can expand team-wise. As soon as I hit a certain peak, I get my own superhero team. And save the world. Sort of.
Save the WORLD…! There you go…!
It’s great to see so many loyal VBL readers coming back, post after post and genuinely becoming more and more excited about working with virtual staff to lead a more virtual lifestyle.
I’m curious to know though, buddy – why do you feel you need more influence and power…?
Instead of a general comment – I’m going to go ahead and jump into this conversation. In my opinion its never too early to get a virtual staff together Mars. I personally don’t have any full-time VA’s (I will in the near future) but in the mean time it doesn’t hurt to establish relationships with freelancers and part-time VA’s that have advanced skills compared to yours, in a way that is putting together your virtual staff.
I have a few freelancers and VAs that I have in my contacts that are always open to take a project off my hands. They may not be my full-time VAs but its a start.
Tony
You make some REALLY good points here.
I dont even have to start WORKING with VAs to get a feel for the type of people they are and how they perform for their clients. Absolutely, get your feet wet, Mars, and talk, email and converse to see how things feel, etc.
Thanks for the comment, Tony!
Chris
So that I can spread my ideas about creative marketing, Chris.
I believe that I have a very positive and inspiring message, and I want to share it with the world.
I want to start my own digital empire from my blog, and in the long run, I need VAs to help me with that ,)
Hi hear you loud and clear, my man!
Again, let me know if you need help and advice along the way…
Great article Chris! I definitely agree that virtual teams are becoming more and more common, and they can definitely be an effective way to produce results. As you say, communication is key. In my current job for a large multinational we have a blended team with people in US and Malaysia. We rarely have productivity problems, but yes, sometimes we have communication failures that cause the team to be less effective than it could be.
I still hope to start building my own team later this year, but at the moment I’m in transition – I’m considering some expat opportunities, including one in Makati. I’m waiting for the dust to settle on my own situation before I start building.
If I’m fortunate enough to land the Makati job I’m definitely planning on buying you and Dan some beers
Hi Mike
Beers are always a good thing. Thanks in advance!
The US and Malaysia – time zone split, bigtime. Must be fun! What industry are you looking to get into locally in the Philippines…? Perhaps I can help.
Chris
Actually the time difference between Malaysia (same timezone as Philippines) and west coast USA isn’t too bad – we get an hour of overlap in the respective business days. Of course we end up with a lot of conference call meetings around that time. It’s much easier to deal with Malaysia time than India in that regard.
And thanks for your generous offer of assistance on the job search. I’m looking for senior IT/BPO type work – I’m a 25 year IT professional. If you’re interested you can see my acronym collection at http://linkedin.com/in/mikestankavich.
I have some US based financial obligations that currently prevent me from just moving to the Philippines and bootstrapping it on a shoestring, hence the search for expat gigs, hopefully with expat type salaries
I can handle the relocation costs, but I can’t meet my existing obligations on a native salary.
Good stuff, Mike.
No problems on the offer, thats what its all about – helping EVERYONE achieve their goals and dreams. Looking forward to meeting you when you eventually do get to be here in the Philippines, whenever that may be.
Great LinkedIn profile, by the way, too. I recently did a post on LinkedIn.
Chris
Chris,
Couple things to say:
1) Your site looks GREAT.
2) I love your branding with the free ebook and the super man type logo
3) and the Video intro in the upper right corner rocks.
I’ll definitely be stopping back. Adding to my reader right now. PS. I’ll be in touch in the next day or two. Talk soon.
Brandon
Hi Brandon
Thank you for gracing the blog with your presence, young Infopreneur!
Thanks also for the kind words on the design, branding, etc.
I look forward to plenty more cool comments (which just as much admiration, of course!) in the future.
Chris
PS. Brandon has just taken over TheInfoPreneur blog from James Richmond, so please do shoot over and show your support.
The success of working with virtual assistant, developers, designers – anyone really – depends a lot on the tools and procedures you have in place. I have been working with virtual teams over the years and it was only until recently that we nailed it.
Now we have an office in Chiang Mai, Thailand and despite living 10 minutes from the office, I’ve been working mainly from home for a few months. We are so efficient working remotely that it becomes a distraction going to the office. Instead of recruiting only locally we are now recruiting globally and could care less where our team members are from.
That being said, I also think that meeting face-to-face is extremely important to build your company’s culture and to foster team spirit and unity among all of our team members.
We are planning to fly everyone down to our office twice or three times a year for about 7 days each time. Everyone will participate into a group sprint where we work our butts off for 7 days to hack an important feature. We plan on going to eat all together, go to the movies together and all stay in the same resort/hotel, etc.
It’s a totally new approach to team and culture building, it’s all very exciting! So far our people are much more productive and happy. The challenge will be to see if we can scale this and maintain this approach as we grow the company.
Great stuff Chris, keep it coming
Hi Matt
Welcome to the blog, and thanks for your first comment – highly appreciated.
I must say that your comment is nothing short of AWESOME. And extremely inspiring. Good job to you all for getting a system like that in place. Very impressive.
When you’re ready and dont mind giving out some of the secrets that you obviously put into play to set this up, I’d love to sit down and interview you for the blogs Podcast, so everyone can learn and be motivated by what youve achieved.
Just drop me a comment to let me know youre cool with it, and we’;ll set it up.
Thanks again for dropping by, bud.
Chris
Absolutely, let’s do it! I’ll be in touch
Sounds great, buddy! I’ll be waiting for your contact…
Best,
Chris
Hey Chris,
Good article. I just joined your mailing list to get your VA ebook! I’m thinking about getting my first VA this week and can use the advice you have to offer. Thanks!
Peace,
Darren L Carter
Hi Darren
Excellent news, bud!
Thanks for signing up – hope you enjoy the eBook and it proves to be helpful.
Keep us all updated on how your first VA experience goes, okay!
Welcome to the VBL Blog!!!
Chris
Chris,
Great timing on this piece.
I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time. I work in a relatively virtual company. The biggest challenge had always been in finding that camaraderie and esprit de cour. Something I’ve found lacking in many virtual work environments.
What suggestions do you have to build this within a virtual team/company?
Much Success,
Phil
Hi Phil
You’ve made a good point here, in regards to being spread out and keeping that ‘team spirit’ burning and growing.
I’ve been lucky in most of my virtual staff have been in the same country, here in the Philippines. A while back we all got together at a beach resort here in Cebu and spent the weekend hanging out, snorkeling, BBQing, drinking, etc – it was a great team building exercise and one that I actually do two or three times a year with my brick and mortor company employees, too – although on a MUCH bigger scale (we have one coming up on July 4th!).
Matt commented earlier on that he does similar things with his virtual team members as well.
Anyone else got any case studies or ideas for Phil…?
Thanks for the comment, buddy and ‘welcome’.
Chris
Chris,
Great post as always my friend and I love the conversation taking place in the comments here! As you know virtual teamwork is near and dear to my heart.
Firstly let me say that I agree that virtual teams can be as, if not more effective, than co-located teams if they are managed/lead properly.
Certainly there are challenges – but in many cases it is small shifts or adjustment that are needed to be successful. I’d like to share a few key points I teach in my workshop “The Art of Virtual Leadership”:
1 – COMMUNICATION: You, Eric, and Matt all hit the nail on the head. Communication is absolutely THE key. The most common stumbling block I find in the companies I consult with comes down to communication issues.
One of my suggestions is to “communicate about how you are going to communicate”. Sounds silly I know but very few teams do this. You will find different people have different preferred forms of communication (IM, Phone, Email, Skype). Setting up simple communication guidelines that you discuss with the team goes a long way toward preventing these issues. Especially expected turnaround time for different communication methods (ie. email by end of the day, voice mail within 2 hours, etc). This makes sure everyone has a shared expectation and is on the same page.
2 – ACCOUNTABILITY. Having clearly defined measurable objectives prevents you from having to “keep on eye” on team members all the time. As you suggested tying compensation, bonuses, or other incentives to performance helps. There should be no need to micro-manage. If need be scheduling weekly calls or chats helps as well as having some type of shared tasks lists to keep tabs on project milestones and progress.
3 – KNOW, LIKE, AND TRUST. Matt and Phil both touched on this in their comments. The teams that are most successful are the ones who connect and get to know each other. People don’t work for companies, they work for people they know, like, and trust. Informal communication happens organically when people are co-located but need to be a bit more pre-meditated when working virtually.
If you can bring everyone together face-to-face then great! Unfortunately that is not always an option. Social media can be a great tool – maybe setting up a private Facebook group or using something like Twitter or Yammer (private twitter for businesses) to help people interact and share. I also love Tokbox (http://www.tokbox.com) which support free group video conferencing with up to 20 people. You can setup a virtual happy hour or some other regular way for people to get together and connect.
There are also simple team building exercises you can do that take very little time and help everyone get to know each other. Many can be done using a discussion board or other asynchronous collaboration tool so time difference won’t matter.
The main thing is to consciously think about how you can promote or encourage informal communication and help people learn more about each other in non-work related ways. Share photos, bios, hobbies, and other personal information.
This helps a lot with the accountability/trust issues as well as once people “know, like, and trust” each other they will naturally be more accountable as the connection is greater.
With a little planning and some strategy you’re virtual team can thrive and be super productive!
I hope some of those tips help – and by the way love the new video at the top of the blog promoting the eBook!
Thanks for taking the time to share your experience and wisdom in all these great blog posts – keep up the great work!
Phil
Phil, thank you genuinely for one of the best comments we’ve had on the blog to date. I knew you would get really stuck in here, as it is definitely your forte, thats for sure.
You bring up a really good, incredibly important point in regards to connecting as a company – a group of collective talent.
I’d like to throw the gauntlet down here, and ask for you to do another Guest Post (although this comment is as good as one anyway!) for the blog, following on from this one, on the same topic. I think you have a lot to give the readers and would love it if you accept. Please let me know.
Thanks again for such an insightful comment.
Best,
Chris
Hey Chris,
So glad you liked me feedback even if it was a bit long. I’d be delighted to do another guest post on the topic of virtual teams!
Thanks for the invite – I’ll connect with you soon so we can discuss it further.
Keep on firing it up!
Phil
Awesome stuff, Phil.
Looking forward to it already, mate.
Chat soon!
Chris
Hi Chris!
Great site and great topic. My perspective is that of a VA and President of two virtual companies. My company Entrepreneur’s Entourage builds virtual teams for clients. We work (at the moment) exclusively w US team members so we are not really challenged by time zone issues or language barriers.
We run our projects under the direction of a Project Manager who is accountable to the client and is responsible for adhering to timelines and deliverables. This definitely takes the headaches out of getting the team to “gel.” In our model, each member has been vetted and is responsible for their own layer of work. PM keeps people and project on task.
I love the commentary from Phil, those 3 points are certainly key to a successful project and am glad to hear such great support from everyone on your blog about the value of our industry!
Great post!
Emily
Hi Emily
First up, its a pleasure to have you with us here at VBL. I skipped over to your site and it seems you guys are really active. Good job!
Yes, the PM idea is one I have heard about from other entrepreneurs that utilize virtual staff. Having one person unite them together regularly and work towards goals, etc. The funny thing is that I didnt even realize I had a PM myself until recently – its my PA, Stephanie! She liaises with many different virtual workers that we work with and have on board for various reasons and it just felt ‘normal’!
Thank you for your excellent comment and please be sure to come back often and get involved as much as you can.
Regards,
Chris