As more and more businesses embracing the concept of virtual workforce, and a good number of people working remotely across industries, some constraints of virtual working are getting realized. The virtual workforce in the U.S. has grown considerably over last few years with an estimated 20-30 million people currently working remotely at least once per week.
Amongst other statistics, that speak of increase in virtual workforce:
- 52% of companies provide ‘virtual work options’ for their employees or scenarios that allow for work away from the company premises
- More than half (56%) of Fortune 500 senior executives and hiring manager anticipate reliance on virtual teams to multiply in the next one-to-three years.
According to new whitepaper from global consulting firm PI Worldwide, despite more employees embracing—and even expecting—a distributed work environment, research indicates low levels of confidence in the ability of managers to adequately motivate, coach and develop employees within a virtual environment.
According to a Forrester survey cited in the whitepaper, "effective communication" is a top concern for managers of remote teams (49%), followed by "managing projects and deadlines successfully (43%)" and "creating consensus during decision-making (43%)." Some additional challenges of remote team management include:
- Difficulty in building a shared sense of purpose
- Over-reliance on electronic communications
- Low team cohesion and trust
- Less satisfaction with the team experience
In a remote working environment, it can be difficult for team members to build rapport or a sense of camaraderie which can jeopardize productivity. Through behavioral assessments (sometimes called personality assessments), managers can uncover the natural behavioral characteristics of team members to better define high performance, facilitate workflow, reduce conflict and improve group synergy.
You can download the whitepaper.