Virtual Workforce Mastery: Remote Work
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As more companies embrace virtual collaboration and empower remote employees, they must address an additional set of barriers preventing them from creating effective teams quickly and efficiently, meeting customer expectations promptly, and delighting their customers – which collectively are known as Virtual Distance.
One major challenge faced by teams is that it can be hard for team members to keep track of what their colleagues are working on at any one time, leading to communication gaps that lead to misunderstands and delays in projects. Managers also face difficulty ensuring their teams are working effectively together when team leaders don’t possess strong communication abilities themselves.
Organizations are using collaboration technologies such as video conferencing to overcome this hurdle, with virtual team members scheduling regular video chats to discuss current projects or brainstorm solutions to challenges they’re encountering in the workplace, or simply gain more information on each other’s skills, experiences, and backgrounds in an informal setting.
Another way to promote collaboration and enhance work productivity is providing workers with the right tools for them to perform their duties efficiently. For instance, virtual workers may require noise-cancelling headphones or an area free from distractions in order to remain productive.
Utilizing effective systems and processes can reduce manual admin tasks, providing teams more time to focus on producing deliverables that wow customers and drive revenue. But virtual workforce mastery takes more than tools; it requires cultivating top talent as well as providing them with sufficient support in order to thrive.
Sprouts discovered that VR training for customer service helped them onboard new hires more quickly, by providing on-demand practice doing their jobs in a realistic environment without placing themselves or their coworkers at risk until they had become proficient at doing them. Strivr also collaborated with a multinational food processor to train its employees on line operations in virtual factory environment – and saw significant improvement in employee safety and compliance as a result of training their employees on line operations within this virtual factory environment.
Emerging tools are supporting virtual workforce mastery by helping to foster deeper skill development and more immersive learning experiences. One such technology provider, Modal, helps organizations create Capability Academies which offer courses, exercises, resources, simulations and simulations designed to promote technical mastery – as well as offering self-paced eLearning, live mentoring sessions and subject matter experts as part of the solution.
