Motivating virtual teams can be challenging. Distractions and a sense of isolati

Question

Motivating virtual teams can be challenging. Distractions and a sense of isolation can interfere with productivity and satisfaction in job performance. Discuss if you would how virtual teams can impact job satisfaction and how you might overcome this particular challenge. Virtual teams reduce costs such as travel, per-diem, transportation, and training. While virtual teams can provide a jolt of energy and motivation when you're connecting with a familiar face, if it can be done - wouldn't folks prefer face-to-face meetings? Aren't the costs related to travel, per-diem, and transportation minimal if you can meet F2F rather than virtually?

Explanation / Answer

Yes, we can say that keeping a virtual team can be a considerable task given the nature of their being no physical interaction between the different members or with the managers. But, it does not mean that this is an impossible task. There are times when we can easily motivate a virtual team based on the project, level of work, job enrichment as well as the skills of the leader in charge of the project.

Even though it can be a tedious task, it can be considered worth due to the inherent advantages it has over normal teams. It is cheaper, does not have the requirement of space constraints as well as allows the companies to select talented people from a more diverse set of the talent pool. It is for this fact that we can say that even though face to face meetings be a great way to energize the team's morale and essentially, normal workers performing as good as the virtual teams given all the variables, we can also say that the cost of having to pay for the transportation, per-diem and other costs in order to allow the virtual teams a F2F meeting defeats the purpose of a virtual team the first place. This is why, even though such factors can be necessary for a quarterly or bi-yearly meeting, having monthly or weekly meetings would not prove to be any more productive than having a normal/ non-virtual team.

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