One of the biggest challenges for a virtual team is communication. One way to make communication easier is to make sure that everyone is accessible via phone, e-mail, and instant messaging during working hours. You may want to have a contact sheet posted on your team’s website with everyone’s contact information, as well as the best time to contact them. (This is particularly important for teams spread out across different time zones).
Set a good example by checking in with everyone at least once a day, even if it is just to say hi or ask how their weekend was. Make sure that everyone knows that they are expected to be available during working hours. Address any attendance issues right away.
E-mail can help communication, but it can also hinder it. There is nothing worse than sitting at your computer and pressing the Receive button over and over, waiting for an important reply that you need to continue working. The easiest solution for this is to encourage people to use an alternate method of communication for important items, such as the telephone or chat.
You can also set expectations for communication response times. For example, many businesses dictate that a voice mail message must be answered within eight business hours.
You can also set e-mail response times based on message priority, like this:
- Low importance: Answer within eight business hours
- Normal importance: Answer within four business hours
- High importance: Answer within one business hour
Another way to facilitate communication is to schedule it. For example, a communication schedule for a virtual customer care team might look like this:
- Daily: Update cases on the server as you complete work on them
- Weekly: Send report to manager with a summary of weekly metrics
- Bi-Weekly: Attend team meetings via video conference and report on any issues that need to be escalated
- Monthly: Attend individual meeting with manager via video conference to review performance
Model the Way
Behave in a way that reflects the expectations that you have set. If you expect team members to be online by 9 a.m. and reply to e-mails within an hour, but you log on at 11 a.m. and take all day to answer their questions, you are sending the wrong message.
