Building Virtual Teams in Wake of Emerging Remote-Working Culture

The prolonged lockdowns and shutdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic forced organisations to move to a remote working system or work-from-home (WFH) system. Virtual teams have emerged as a way that can literally salvage us from the awkward ‘crisis of trust.’ The COVID-19 pandemic and its ensuing crises changed the entire scenario; these developments have seen remote collaboration spike dramatically and ‘virtual’ teams forming almost overnight. Hence, organisations need to build and run effective remote teams. Virtual teams, however, are likely to deal with more challenges than face-to-face teams because they must rely on electronic communications, have less things in common, and potentially less overlap of working hours. There’s a challenges’ galore in this part of the world, thanks to poor Internet connectivity and threats to uninterrupted service of internet service providers (ISPs). This write-up proposes four key functional areas managers should engage themselves in for building effective virtual teams