www.saberr.com Open in urlscan Pro
52.212.43.230  Public Scan

Form analysis
0 forms found in the DOM

Text Content

This website stores cookies on your computer. These cookies are used to improve
your website experience and provide more personalized services to you, both on
this website and through other media. To find out more about the cookies we use,
see our Privacy Policy.

We won't track your information when you visit our site. But in order to comply
with your preferences, we'll have to use just one tiny cookie so that you're not
asked to make this choice again.

Accept Decline

Product
Platform
Product overview
See how Saberr empowers managers and teams in the moments that matter. Improve
meetings and drive performance.
Habits
Upskilling managers
Lorem ipsum sin dolor quit amet, potentiam etiam sic lupus tim reiatus lorem
ipsum
Managing individual goals
Lorem ipsum sin dolor quit amet, potentiam etiam sic lupus tim reiatus lorem
ipsum
Development coaching
Lorem ipsum sin dolor quit amet, potentiam etiam sic lupus tim reiatus lorem
ipsum
Managing team goals
Lorem ipsum sin dolor quit amet, potentiam etiam sic lupus tim reiatus lorem
ipsum
Monitoring team engagement
Lorem ipsum sin dolor quit amet, potentiam etiam sic lupus tim reiatus lorem
ipsum
Running retrospectives
Lorem ipsum sin dolor quit amet, potentiam etiam sic lupus tim reiatus lorem
ipsum
Give your team purpose
Lorem ipsum sin dolor quit amet, potentiam etiam sic lupus tim reiatus lorem
ipsum
Giving and recieving feedback
Lorem ipsum sin dolor quit amet, potentiam etiam sic lupus tim reiatus lorem
ipsum
Agree team behaviours
Lorem ipsum sin dolor quit amet, potentiam etiam sic lupus tim reiatus lorem
ipsum
ProductServices
Use cases
Performance management
How to use Saberr to for continuous performance development conversations
Leadership Development
How Saberr helps managers develop the leadership skills required to create
successful, productive and engaged teams
Remote & hybrid work
How to use Saberr to create clarity and alignment in remote or hybrid teams
Transformation
How Saberr helps cascade change agendas top down and bottom up
PricingResources
Resources
Resources overview
Lorem ipsum sin dolor quit amet, potentiam etiam sic lupus tim reiatus lorem
ipsum
Blog
Lorem ipsum sin dolor quit amet, potentiam etiam sic lupus tim reiatus lorem
ipsum
Handbooks
Lorem ipsum sin dolor quit amet, potentiam etiam sic lupus tim reiatus lorem
ipsum
Science
Lorem ipsum sin dolor quit amet, potentiam etiam sic lupus tim reiatus lorem
ipsum
Log inBook a demo



Remote work
5
min read


YOU ARE SUDDENLY PART OF A VIRTUAL TEAM

February 4, 2021

We were pushed into the age of fully remote work as abruptly as COVID-19
exploded across the globe. We are all suddenly part of a virtual team. We had no
idea this was coming. And to be honest, it doesn’t seem like remote work is
going to go away after things go back to “normal”.

Organisations are still scrambling to figure out how to deal with the
ramifications of virtual work.

On the other hand, managers and team leaders are trying to figure out how to
best keep their teams afloat.

But here’s some good news: Research on virtual teams — the challenges they face
and how to make them effective — has been around since the Internet became a
thing.

In this article, I highlight some of the most pressing challenges that you are
going to face (or admittedly, have already faced) now that you are part of a
virtual team. These challenges are primarily related to team processes — how do
we get things done. I will also highlight some actionable solutions, based on
scientific literature.

This article is meant for teams who are clear on their purpose, goals and roles
but are struggling to set the right processes in place to achieve them. Without
the former, the latter won’t get you anywhere.

Fun fact. Virtual work or remote work is also known as ‘telecommuting’, to refer
to work where commuting time is reduced.


PROBLEM 1: YOU CAN’T MONITOR YOUR TEAM. TRUST IS ESSENTIAL.

An effective virtual team requires a lot of trust because there is an increased
sense of uncertainty. Since you cannot see people physically, you cannot monitor
them like you previously could when co-located. If you micromanage, you will be
exhausted, your colleague will be annoyed, and everyone becomes less productive.
You need to trust that everyone has the team’s best interest in mind.

I like this definition of trust by Wilson, Straus and McEvily (2006, p.3)

Trust is the confident positive expectations about the conduct of another

The whole team becomes more productive when there is trust because less time
will be spent checking up on each other and making contingency plans. We can
have confidence that our team members will deliver on time.

Assuming that everyone is clear on their roles and their goals, how can we be
confident that people are actively working towards them?

Solution: Encourage predictable communication through substaintial and timely
responses.

In situations with high uncertainty, one way to build trust is to provide a lot
of reasons to warrant trustworthiness. For virtual teams, this means exhibiting
communication behaviours that give people a reason to trust you.

In an early study on the initial and final trust levels of global virtual teams,
teams that were characterised as “high initial and high final trust” exhibited
enthusiasm and excitement in the beginning and sustained frequent communication.
Communication was not strictly task-focused but also included social content
(i.e. things about their life outside of work).

This shows that teams with high levels of trust get there because they spend
time developing all aspects of trust — trust based on rational reasons (e.g.
Peter has always delivered his work on time) and trust based on emotional ties
(e.g. Peter genuinely cares about my well-being).

Having substantial communication and timely responses helps to build up a
history of reciprocal, positive interactions. The more actions someone has
performed, the easier it is to predict or approximate their future behaviours.
This feeds into our perception of their trustworthiness, which gives us
confidence in our team members even if we do not see them. But this doesn’t mean
we should be flooding the chat. Rather, our responsiveness should signal that we
remain committed to achieving our goal.

The key point to remember is that trustworthiness is a function of prior
successful ‘trust transactions’. Therefore, for new virtual teams, having
substantial communication provides opportunities to validate trust, and timely
responses strengthen perceptions of trustworthiness. As the team develops, less
frequent communication is needed to maintain trustworthiness.


PROBLEM 2: THE WAY WE INTERACT WITH OUR TEAM IS GOING TO CHANGE. SET GUIDELINES
FOR BEHAVIOUR.

Spatial separation affects how team members interact with one another. Since the
ability to walk up to a colleague and have a face-to-face conversation is
suspended, interactions will become more effortful and less fluid. As shown in
this study, this means that we can expect lags in information exchange, a higher
chance of misunderstandings, and fewer attempts to seek information.

Since communication is asynchronous, it can also become overwhelming — if you’ve
ever missed a text conversation that you are not an active participant of only
to come back to 100 unread messages, you’ll know how this feels. A flurry of
text chat, and endless back-scrolling could have been avoided through a simple
phone call.

Solution: Use the right communication channel. Establish norms of functioning

Choose an appropriate communication channel. Effective virtual teams match the
communication channel to the function of the interaction, or the task at hand.
More complex tasks would require channels that allow higher synchronicity. For
example, if the point of the interaction is to have a discussion that involves
resolving previous ambiguities, brainstorming and problem solving, with a
decision at the end, a video call is most appropriate as lags in information
exchange are likely to be counterproductive. Having this interaction over text
chat would be overwhelming. On the other hand, if the point of the interaction
is to gather information, using email, text chat and phone calls will suffice.

Establish norms of functioning. Norms are particularly important in situations
with high uncertainty (i.e. virtual teams) because it provides guidelines on how
to behave. For virtual teams, establishing a guideline for how the team should
function helps to regulate communication and work.

Day-to-day functions.

It is important to establish norms related to monitoring progress because there
will be high ambiguity on what is appropriate behaviour. For example, everyone
should be clear on how often to check and respond to messages. Everyone should
also be clear on how often to provide status updates and check on other member’s
status. By explicitly setting these norms, these behaviours are seen as
necessary for team success, not because of paranoia or a lack of trust. On the
plus side, research shows that trust is built when people adhere to norms.

Team meetings.

Ensure everyone has a chance to speak and contribute. High-performing teams are
marked by equally distributed communication, virtual or not. When it is their
turn, do not cut anyone off. Give people ample time to speak. As found in a
study on predicting cohesion in virtual team meetings, the pause time between a
person’s turn and the same person’s next turn was predictive of highly cohesive
teams. This means that everyone should have a turn to speak and be given time to
talk. If anyone is dominating the conversation, reel them back and encourage
others to chip in.

It is also important to encourage people to be actively involved in the meeting,
even if they are not speaking. The same study found that cohesion can be
predicted most accurately by the amount of visual activity a person exhibits
when they are not speaking. Gestures like nodding, for example, signal active
listening. In video calls, where virtual team meetings likely take place,
everyone can be seen head-on. This means that it is easy to tell who is
listening and who isn’t. Norms should be established around engagement and
participation in virtual team meetings.


PROBLEM 3: EVERYBODY IS GOING TO FEEL MORE DISTANT. INVEST TIME IN TEAM BONDING.

When we are co-located, interpersonal relationships develop through spontaneous
interactions with our colleagues. There are intentional interactions as well,
but the ‘random chats’ and ‘coffee breaks’ are actually crucial to developing
bonds. It has been found to increase cohesion and productivity.

When teams become virtual, there is no more water cooler to congregate around.
Since communication is more effortful, it can be heavily task-focused and less
about the social lives of others. If your team members do not already have
strong interpersonal relationships, virtual work can make them feel more distant
from their colleagues.

Solution: Make time for social chat and play video games together.

In the current climate, it can be easy to just make virtual everything that we
used to do in a co-located space. Virtual Friday night drinks and virtual pub
quizzes are the go-to post-work activities. These activities usually take place
over a video call, but as the world has come to realise, conducting typically
co-located experiences through a screen is exhausting. Using the same virtual
space for work and fun doesn’t provide enough separation. If people are on the
same platform that they use to do work (e.g. Zoom, Teams, Skype), with
work-related people (i.e. colleagues) but doing an activity that is not
work-related, it might not create enough mental distance for recuperation —
social activities will still feel like work.

So, consider playing a video game instead.

By this, I mean games where everyone is represented as an avatar in a virtual
world, and video call is not required. ‘Zoom Fatigue’ has become a thing and is
so taxing on our brain because video calls require greater attentional effort
and make us feel more self-conscious. Playing video games together, on the other
hand, is a shared activity that lets people truly wind down. And there are
several reasons why.

Video games are unique because they are immersive experiences — they draw people
into the game and make them momentarily forget what’s happening in the real
world. So it’s no surprise that digital games have been found to aid post-work
recovery. And one of the reasons is because it helps people to detach both
physically and mentally from work.

Video games are also completely different virtual environments. Everyone is
likely represented as an avatar that does not resemble their ‘real world’
selves. People can embark on activities that they do not usually do in their
day-to-day.

Video calls are also not required — using ‘voice chat’ over Discord is the
preferred method for gamers. This means that nobody will feel conscious about
how they look, or about people looking at them.

Finally, you will be engaging in an activity that is inherently built for fun
and enjoyment. The whole interaction has nothing to do with work and everything
to do with the social experience.

So it’s no surprise that video games have been found to support deep social
relationships. The game provides opportunities for shared experiences which
becomes a catalyst for conversation. Bonds are formed over the experience and we
learn more about the people we work with, beyond the work that they do.

Don’t know what to play? Here are a couple of 4-player team-based games that
I’ve really enjoyed playing with my friends. They are easy to learn, easy to set
up and don’t have high system requirements.

 * Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (local co-op only)
 * Unrailed! (online co-op)

If games aren't your thing, try adopting personal profiles to better communicate
your working preferences, personality and values. Saberr's profile tool is
probably one of the best ways to help people actually share their profiles with
one another but you can make a start using other more manual approaches like
Monzo bank have started to do.


TYING IT ALL TOGETHER.

To develop an effective virtual team, conscious and intentional effort is
required. The three main challenges that virtual teams face are:

 * difficulty in monitoring performance
 * learning how to interact through computer-mediated mediums
 * overcoming feelings of distance

In this article, I’ve highlighted how these challenges can be addressed. By
focusing on developing trust, developing norms of functioning and developing
social bonds, the foundation for virtual team effectiveness can be built.

‍

This is a guest post from Evelyn Tan: Aspiring Industrial-organisational
psychologist with a keen interest in using video games for behavioural change.
PhD Researcher in Team Dynamics and Player Psychology in digital Games at
University of York Centre for Doctoral Training in Intelligent Games and Game
Intelligence


RELATED POSTS

Remote work
1
min read

START REMOTE MEETINGS WITH AN ICEBREAKER

Read more
Remote work
3
min read

A MANAGER'S GUIDE TO REMOTE TEAMWORK: INCREASE RESILIENCE IN YOUR TEAM

Read more
Remote work
30
min read

PODCAST: TEAM DEVELOPMENT DURING LOCKDOWN

Read more


WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE SABERR PLATFORM?

Book a demo

2 Underwood Row
London
N1 7LQ
Company

TeamMediaPrivacy & securityCareers 🎉
Contact us

FAQ'sPartner Enquiries
Product & Services

ProductServicesLog in