Virtually ineffective

Citation

(2007), "Virtually ineffective", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 56 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijppm.2007.07956cab.004

Virtually ineffective

The growing trend towards virtual teams where staff work together while dispersed over multiple locations is reducing productivity and increasing employee conflict at many firms, according to research by occupational psychology consultancy Pearn Kandola published yesterday.

The research was carried out on behalf of Cisco who might have an interest in the finding that while the use of virtual teams is growing as more firms encourage home working and seek to exploit “follow the sun” business models using teams in different time zones, many firms are failing to follow best practices for communication and so are not seeing the expected productivity gains.

Carolyn Shearsmith, occupational psychologist and one of the report’s authors, said that it takes four times as long to communicate using text tools, such as e-mail, compared with face-to-face conversations. She added that an estimated 64 percent of communication is non-verbal, so virtual teams also find it harder to build trust, resulting in a greater risk of employee conflict.

“People in virtual teams struggle to build relationships [within the team] because virtual communication is very depersonalised and anonymous – you can’t really communicate a smile by text,” said Shearsmith. “It also tends to be more task focused… which means people think more about their own role. This means there is less empathy and a higher risk of conflict.”