Week 2: Characteristics of virtual teams

Introduction

Welcome to Week 2 of the course.

In Week 1, you learned why effective teamwork is so important to employers and delved deeper into what a team actually is, considering the differences between teams and groups. You also took some time to reflect on your own experience of teamwork, exploring ways in which you might enhance or increase your expertise.

This week you’ll focus on working in virtual teams, a context that shares many characteristics with a face-to-face team, but that also has some key differences. You’ll explore the benefits and challenges of working remotely, and the technology available to support you, reflecting on how you might work most effectively in this type of team environment.

Even if you consider it unlikely that you would choose to work in a virtual team full time, you may find yourself in a hybrid environment, e.g. working from home one or two days per week. Or perhaps you will be in the office, but working remotely with others who are based elsewhere. Learning about the different elements of online communication will be beneficial in these situations.

Now watch the following video in which Lynne Johnson introduces the week.

Download this video clip.Video player: wdt_1_week_7_lynne_new.mp4

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Transcript

LYNNE:

The workplace of today has changed dramatically from that of even 20 years ago, especially with regard to the global nature of business, the distance people today travel to work, and the use of technology in the workplace. This week, you're going to be exploring one of the key changes in many workplaces today-- the rise in the number of virtual teams.

What kind of challenges could you encounter working as part of a virtual team? What skills would you need to demonstrate to an employer for them to be confident that you're the right kind of person for this remote style of working? And how can you assess whether you're the kind of person who would thrive in a virtual team? You'll also explore the kind of skills you'd need to develop to be confident of operating in this virtual environment.

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By the end of this week, you will be able to:

• describe the key features of a virtual team
• understand some of the advantages of virtual team working for employers and employees
• explain some of the challenges that this way of working raises
• reflect on whether you could thrive in a virtual team.