What: Blog post from the Institute for Corporate Productivity about virtual team trends.
Posts to which it is related: About LeadingVirtually.com
Bottom Line: 67% of 278 companies responding to a survey by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) foresee their reliance on virtual teams increasing over the next three years. This number (i.e., the percentage indicating greater reliance on virtual teams) jumps to more than 80% for companies with more than 10,000 employees. Respondents indicated information sharing, diverse thinking, higher productivity, and cross-training as benefits of using teams. Most often, teams were seen as supporting one-time projects. Results identified various virtual team challenges, including the difficulty of managing virtual teams, problems in coordinating schedules, and inadequacy of company’s technology tools for team meetings. Listening skills were identified by respondents as most critical for team performance, followed by trust, the ability to establish actionable items, and group facilitation skills. Other critical success factors that were identified include consensus-seeking skills, cultural awareness, and a sense of humor. Commenting on the study, Mary Key, i4cp’s leadership pillar director, says “What it foreshadows, however, is the greater need for the development of virtual leadership skills. I expect more and more corporations will put more effort into developing this skill set internally.” This comment and the survey results reinforce the motivation for our LeadingVirtually blog.

What: Business Travel News Online article on how Verizon’s senior management is promoting the use of virtual meeting tools within the company.

Posts to which it is related: Leading in Face-to-face versus Virtual Teams, So you Think You’d Like to Telecommute

Bottom Line: Verizon found that a face-to-face meeting was between five and 35 times more expensive than a virtual one. To cut down travel expenses and to support green initiatives, senior executives at Verizon got involved in encouraging employees to consider virtual meetings as an alternative to travel. The initiative started with the Chief Financial Officer of Verizon Business sending a message to employees about Verizon’s budgetary challenges and the benefits of going green and using conferencing services. When employees log into the travel page on Verizon’s intranet, they are reminded by a pop up to consider the company’s conferencing and collaboration services. They are also reminded about the benefits of going green. When an employee receives email confirmation of a travel itinerary, the email includes a link to an intranet page that highlight’s Verizon’s virtual meeting services. The company’s travel counselors are provided with a script to highlight alternatives to employees calling in to make travel reservations. The company also provides regular training courses to train employees (and even external users) about virtual meeting tools. Most importantly, senior executives constantly alert people about the benefits of virtual meetings and are themselves stopping their face-to-face staff meetings in favor of virtual meetings. As a result of Verizon’s initiative to encourage virtual meetings, it is seeing a 20 percent annual increase in the minutes employees spend using virtual meeting tools.