Improving Virtual Teamwork: Strategies for Better Collaboration

Remote teams can achieve great success through virtual collaboration and teamwork. By working together to tackle challenges and brainstorming creative solutions, teams can effectively communicate and collaborate across boundaries to accomplish their tasks and solve problems. It is essential to find ways to collaborate effectively in a virtual setting, as this allows teams to continue to be productive and generate innovative ideas.

While remote work can offer numerous advantages, such as increased employee productivity and satisfaction, it can also present certain challenges in terms of effective collaboration. These challenges may include selecting appropriate tools, confusion regarding roles, understanding communication channels, synchronization of updates, and individual time management. In this guide, we will explore how to address these challenges and overcome them through virtual teamwork and collaboration.

Remote team collaboration is working together from various locations to achieve a shared goal, utilizing virtual office software and real-time communication to share ideas and work on tasks. By facilitating communication and productivity among virtual teams, regardless of their physical location, remote collaboration helps organizations improve enterprise collaboration, shift from a business-centric to an employee-centric model, create a positive team culture, and enhance the teamwork and productivity of remote employees through the use of effective tools.

So how do you improve teamwork when working remotely? It is recommended to take the following steps to boost both teamwork and collaboration:

It is important to establish clear goals and expectations. A goal is the starting point for your remote team to work together. 

• Create target values for your KPIs
• Demonstrate the ways your team can achieve them
• Goals and expectations make up for a big potential gap that exists with remote work.

When all your employees are not working from the same place, it can become difficult to know when someone gets off track. Virtual teams with clear goals and roadmaps are less likely to go off track. It is recommended to create such roadmaps within your project management tool before sharing them with your remote team.

As mentioned above, when your team members are working remotely from their homes or other locations, it is easier for them to get confused about the objectives and priorities. This is more likely to occur when there the goals are unclear. 

Use the following tips to communicate the team objectives and priorities clearly:

• Regularly clarify the primary objectives, milestones, and priorities
• Create a role for each team member and let them know how they can bring value to the overall team result
• Encourage remote team members to ask questions to eliminate confusion
• Set both long-term and short-term goals for individuals and teams
• Use the latest digital tools to ensure everyone stays up-to-date
• Make sure to set specific and measurable goals

Just because your employees are not working from an office, it doesn't mean that there are no schedules and routines. Create clear communication channels, protocols, and policies. Try to replicate the systems and protocols of working in an office.

Create a policy to guide the process of working remotely, including working from home. 

• Outline the kind of behavior expected
• Outline the way remote team members can communicate with each other
• Set check-in meetings & ask team members to participate via video conferencing

When everyone knows about the goals, what is expected of them, and the results of not meeting the goals, your remote team’s accountability improves.

When it comes to ensuring how to improve teamwork, it is important to foster effective communication and collaboration. 

In order to boost collaboration in remote teams, it is important to use the right technology and tools to facilitate communication and collaboration. The right tools help improve communication while simultaneously improving productivity. Effective communication between remote team members enables the performance expectations and responsibilities of each member to become clear.

The right virtual communication and collaboration tools can be used for different purposes, including:

• Team communication
• Project management
• Video conferencing
• Time tracking
• Information analysis
• Data collection

Such tools allow your virtual team members to work from anywhere. That includes working remotely while traveling, from home, a coffee shop, or anywhere else.

Research shows that 80% of employees start getting stressed when there is inefficiency in company communication. Collaboration becomes more effective when managers are open about their expectations and plans. It is also important to maintain consistency in messaging. Open and honest communication promotes enhanced team collaboration.

Trust and comfort are important elements in team-building. You can develop these elements with team events, icebreakers, and virtual team meals. 

• Foster relationships with simple everyday things
• Create channels for shared interests
• Share fun polls
• Hold events such as product-naming contests or host theme days

Such social interaction and events help bring remote team members closer while giving them a chance to know each other in real-world situations.

There is always room for differing opinions, misunderstandings, and conflicts. The way to improve teamwork and collaboration is to resolve such situations using proven conflict management techniques.

Trust is even more important in virtual teams than among off-site teams. It is important to promote a culture of trust and support for effective remote team collaboration. People that work in high-trust companies enjoy the following benefits:

• Experience Less Stress: When people work in a high-trust atmosphere, they experience less stress. When managers have trust issues, there is a higher chance of micromanagement, creating more stress.

• Increased Productivity: When you trust your remote team, there is no second-guessing or slowing down of team members. Your virtual team finds an environment that is more pleasant to work in, resulting in enhanced productivity.

• More Energetic: When there is a culture of trust and support, fewer conflicts arise, and employees don’t have to devote time to such matters. Additionally, more energetic employees are likely to contribute to an enhanced team morale environment. 

• More Satisfaction: When remote team members feel that their manager trusts them, they are more likely to feel satisfied. This also makes a positive impact on their outlook on life while boosting virtual teamwork and collaboration.

It is usual for people to reciprocate behaviors. An important step to building trust and collaboration in a virtual team is encouraging team members to trust and support each other. 

• Provide resources & support to assist team members to succeed

• Develop an inclusive & positive work environment

Recognize And Celebrate Individual & Team Achievements

Recognition and celebration of individual and team achievements is an important step in how to improve teamwork. It makes your virtual team members feel they matter and that their work matters to the company, thus boosting their trust and fulfillment.

When you recognize they do well, it shows that you see them as important team members. Develop a culture of recognition, reward, and gratitude. Ask your virtual team to point out achievements so that appreciation pours in from everywhere, not just from the management.

Some examples of rewards can include:

• Bonuses

• Gift cards

• Promotions

• Breaks

• Shoutouts

When it comes to improving remote team collaboration, it is important to use the right tools. There are different types of tools, with asynchronous and virtual office software being the most commonly used tools.

Some of the popular asynchronous tools that you can use include:

• Slack: It is a powerful messaging app that allows you to build channels for conversations and topics. It allows file sharing, direct messaging, link sharing, and conducting meetings via voice call or video chat. 
• Notion: This is an all-in-one workspace tool. It enables team collaboration and helps with building a list and writing a work document.
• Google Workspace: This virtual collaboration tool allows you to hold video-based remote events and meetings, collaborate on documents, give presentations to remote audiences, and do more.

A virtual office software program replicates your physical office space into a digital space. It allows remote teams to work or meet in a simulated office using video conferencing. Kumospace is a widely popular and effective tool for virtual teamwork and collaboration in remote teams.

Kumospace allows your remote team to work together. It is currently used by tens of thousands of teams worldwide to hold meetings and collaborate on work. Some of the key features of this platform include the following:

• Ease of use

• Reliability & availability

• Work & collaborate from anywhere

• Fully-customizable virtual office spaces

It is important to collaborate effectively in a virtual set-up. By designing your virtual office in a way that fosters collaboration, teams can communicate more effectively across boundaries, complete work, and innovate. Collaboration and teamwork in a virtual environment promote fresh ideas, improve efficiency, boost job satisfaction, promote innovation, and boost productivity.

If you want to improve remote teamwork and collaboration, it is important to create clear goals and expectations. It is further required to foster effective communication and collaboration too.