new way to working

1. PERFORMANCE AND NEW
WAYS OF WORKING
Managing Organisational
Performance
Lecture 7

2. SESSION OBJECTIVES
To unpack some of the challenges
around virtual teams (VT);
To present some of the
recommendations around improving
the performance of virtual teams;
To examine the post-pandemic
workplace and hybrid working models.

3. WHAT DOES THE LITERATURE SAY ABOUT
VIRTUAL TEAMS?
Despite the growing prevalence of this new work form, little is
known about the management of virtual teams and the human
resources within these teams (Hertel, Geister and Konradt,
2005: 70).
The theory of the knowledge economy, then, would suggest
that the growth in remote working can be partly explained by
this economic shift (Felstead and Henseke, 2017: 197)
The solitary nature of the covid-workplace is unprecedented. At
no time in our history have so many people had to work on
their own, without actual face-to-face communication, for so
long (Unsworth, 2020: 1037).
Prior to Covid-19 – high levels of distrust in the success of VTs.

4. BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF VIRTUAL
TEAMS (HERTEL, GEISTER AND KONRADT,
2005)
Individual level
Advantages: flexibility, autonomy, empowerment.
Disadvantages: feelings of isolation and decreased interpersonal contact, increased chances of misunderstandings and conflict
escalation, and increased opportunities of role ambiguity and goal conflicts.
Organizational level
Advantages: focus on expertise instead availability, possibility to work “around the clock” by having team members in different
time zones, increased speed and flexibility in response to market, a closer connection to suppliers and/or customers, expenses
for traveling and office space reduced.
Disadvantages: team supervision is problematic; additional costs for appropriate technology, issues of data security, need for
additional training.
Societal level
Advantages: opportunities for regions with low infrastructure and employment rate, integration into the workforce of people
who may otherwise be excluded e.g. disabled persons with low mobility, environmental outcomes through reduction of
commuting traffic and air pollution.
Disadvantage: isolation between people due to a technical work environment

5. CHALLENGES OF VIRTUAL TEAMS -
PEARLSON, SAUNDERS, & GALLETTA (2016)
Managers of VTs must overcome 3 main challenges:
(1) Communication
(e.g., scheduling meetings, passing work across time
zones, inability to see communication dynamics such as
facial expressions and gestures);
2) Technology
(e.g., ensuring workers have proficiency across a range of
technologies, aligning technology across members);
(3) Team diversity
(e.g., building trust, norms and shared meanings;
establishing a group identity).

6. LIFECYCLE OF VIRTUAL TEAMS
MANAGEMENT (HERTEL, GEISTER AND
KONRADT, 2005)

7. TEN THEMES IN RESEARCH ON VIRTUAL
TEAMS (GILSON ET AL, 2O15)
1. Research design – lab settings; generally limited research on “real” teams (field-setting) but
on the increase.
2. Team inputs - earlier research focused primarily on member demographics, knowledge,
skills, and abilities. Since 2010, shift to focus on composition, culture, multiteam
membership, and task considerations largely due to normalisation of technology at work.
3. Team virtuality – what counts as a virtual team??
4. Technology – enabler or disenabler. What is the impact of different forms of electronic
communication?
5. Globalization – global VTs; impact of culture; other barriers.
6. Leadership – behaviours and traits.
7. Mediators and moderators - action processes, communication, coordination, and knowledge
sharing; planning, goal specification, and strategy formulation.
8. Trust – lack of face to face contact impact on team cohesion, knowledge-sharing.
9. Outcomes – effectiveness which (surprise, surprise) is difficult to measure….
10. Ways to enhance VT success – biggest area of growth!

8. TECHNOLOGY
Malhotra and Majchrza (2014) distinguished between
2 types of technology for virtual teams: Technology
for social contact/‘seeing’ each other (i.e. presence
awareness) or platforms that allow for project
coordination, task assignment and collaborative
document sharing (i.e. task knowledge awareness).
Malhotra and Majchrza (2014) suggested that teams
that regularly have non-routine tasks would do better
with technology that enables task awareness. On the
other hand, teams that require multidisciplinary
working or boundary-spanning would do better with
presence awareness technology.

9. LEADERSHIP
Research on VT leadership has
grown rapidly, with two popular
areas being leadership behavior and
traits (Gilson et al., 2015).
Individual characteristics, such as
leaders’ emotional intelligence and
transformational leadership
behavior, seem to be particularly
crucial in virtual team settings
(Pitts et al., 2012; Dulebohn and
Hoch, 2017).
Furthermore, emotional intelligence
is particularly important in virtual
teams because members have fewer
verbal and nonverbal cues with
which to gather both task and social
information (Mysirlaki and
Parasveka, 2020).
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY

10. GLOBAL VIRTUAL TEAMS
A survey of 3000 managers located in 100 countries
reported that 40% of the employees in their
organizations spend at least half their time on work
involving VTs (Hoch & Dulebohn, 2017). Furthermore,
many of these VTs (48%) are global, as compared to
41% in 2014 and 33% in 2012.
Virtual teams face 3 key challenges (Gibbs, 2009): 1)
autonomy versus connectedness; 2) inclusion versus
exclusion, and 3) empowerment versus
disempowerment. Gibbs (2009) suggests resolution
through communication strategies, such as embracing
the complexity and finding the win-win.

11. TRUST
In trying to conceptualise trust, many authors consider the
expectations of another’s conduct and/or an acceptance of
vulnerability (e.g., McAllister, 1995; Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, &
Camerer, 1998).
Trust is a bigger issue for virtual teams than for face-to-face
teams. Hence trust has become one of the most studied
variables in the VTs literature (Gilson, Maynard, Jones Young,
Vartiainen, & Hakonen, 2015),
Trust improves collaboration and knowledge sharing (Al-Ani,
Marczak, Prikladnicki, & Redmiles, 2013; coordination,
performance (Joshi, Lazarova, & Liao, 2009; Lukić & Vračar,
2018), and is overall a critical success factor for VTs (Verburg,
Bosch-Sijtsema, & Vartiainen, 2013).
Research shows that teams with high degrees of trust are more
proactive, more focused on task output, more optimistic, more
frequently initiate interactions, and provide more substantive,
productive feedback (Clark, Clark, & Crossley, 2010)
irtual environments make it difficult, if not impossible, for
team members to observe each other as the subtle nuances of
day-to-day informal interactions and nonverbal
communications are lost in web-based communications
(Kasper-Fuehrer & Ashkanasy, 2001).
Breuer et al. (2020) identified the factors most relevant for
building trust in virtual teams: ability (e.g. shared database
highlighting team member’s specific expertise), benevolence
(channels for giving and asking for advice), predictability
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

12. FLEXIBILITY
Felstead and Henseke (2017) view VTs as the inevitable
outcome of Atkinson’s (1984) model of the flexible firm, as well
as a consequence of Thompson et al.’s (2001) knowledge
economies.
The changing demographic nature of the workforce, including
the feminisation of work, may prompt employers to offer
working arrangements which better suit employees’ domestic
and personal circumstances (Felstead and Henseke, 2017).
Lautsch et al. (2009) suggest that remote working creates
tension between equity and support. Whilst FLMs need to
support employees with children or other caring
responsibilities, staff without these dependents should not be
placed under increasing burdens to take up the slack.

13. WORK-LIFE BALANCE
Border theorists (e.g. Marsh and Musson, 2008) suggest that remote
working heightens negative work/home spill-overs by making it
difficult for employees to switch off from work.
The effect is that work pressures spill‐over into non‐work life as
reflected in the inability to ‘switch off’ and the difficulties
encountered in unwinding at the end of the work day. The prediction
of border theory, then, is that remote working will heighten negative
work‐home spill‐overs as suggested by several qualitative studies
(Mirchandani, 2000; Crosbie and Moore, 2004; Marsh and
Musson, 2008).
Shumate and Fulk (2004) suggest scheduling check-in points for the
whole team, as well as individually with the FLM, as they argue that
these routines can maintain well-being.
We have already covered some of these issues in the wellbeing lecture
(week 5).

14. KEY RECOMMENDATIONS
FROM THE LITERATURE

15. RECOMMENDATION: TECHNOLOGY (FORD,
PICCOLO & FORD, 2017)
Buy, maintain, and update the best available technology as it is the crucial connection and
support for virtual team members;
Ensure that the technology used by all of the team members is fully compatible among users and
with the home organization;
Have a backup plan for sustaining communications when inevitable communication breakdowns
occur;
Provide access to supporting information systems to ensure team members can find needed
work and personnel information;
Establish and enforce norms for communications (e.g., maximum response time);
Ensure routine home company communications get routed to virtual team members;
Make organizational information transparent and available asynchronously to virtual team
members by providing accessible storage (e.g., SharePoint) of team documents, data, and
decisions;
Invest in conferencing capabilities so team members can meet and see one another.

16. RECOMMENDATION: REPLICATING
FACE-TO-FACE CONTACT (FORD,
PICCOLO & FORD, 2017)
Offer substitutes for social and emotional supports similar to those used in
traditional, face-to-face groups.
Set up virtual break out rooms as a place for casual, informal interaction
for virtual team members.
Plan regular virtual meetings where all team members gather to replicate
as much of the sense of face-to-face meeting as possible.
During onboarding stage, include an opportunity for personal contact with
the team leader and preferably each team member. This should preferably
be face-to-face where possible.
Include extra personalised information about team members e.g.
backgrounds and experiences, working styles, qualifications, and task
roles that face-to-face team
Assign a virtual team leader with the relevant skills to meet the challenges
of managing a VT, including distance and cultural, linguistic, work style,
experiential challenges, as well as time zone differences.

17. ICEBREAKERS
We have designed digital team games for corporate clients for more than
10 years. Our Virtual Team Building offering is designed from the ground
up to fit perfectly with your video conference systems like Zoom and
Teams.

18. WHAT ABOUT THE
PANDEMIC?
How has the Coronavirus
pandemic affected new
ways of working?

19. THE COVID EFFECT: CIPD (2020)
Before the lockdown, the UK had a relatively high level of occasional working
at home compared with the EU average, at 18% of the workforce, but those
employees who worked mostly at home were relatively rare, at just over 2%.
The UK has a large and well-developed online consumer market by
international standards and a reasonably advanced online market for
business services. This has proved a major advantage in mitigating some of
the impacts of lockdown as many employers were able to sell more of their
output online and to have large shares of their workforce work from home.
The survey shows there has been a major increase in homeworking over the
course of the pandemic, with 35% of employers reporting that up to a quarter
of their workforce were working continuously at home, over 40% reporting
that 75–99% of their workforce now worked continuously from home, and
21% saying that all of their workforce were continuously working at home
because of the crisis.
On average employers estimated 54% of the UK workforce was working

20. HOW OFTEN WOULD YOU LIKE TO WORK
FROM HOME IN THE FUTURE? (SOURCE:
TRENDS IN GLOBAL VIRTUAL WORK SURVEY, 2020)
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%

21. BENEFITS & CHALLENGES OF
HYBRIDISATION/REMOTE WORKING
(CIPD, 2020)
The biggest challenge cited by 48% of employers was the unsuitability of
some jobs to be done from home. 47% cited reduced mental wellbeing
amongst employees, 36% reduced staff interaction and co-operation, 33%
the effective line management of home-based workers, and 28% regarding
the monitoring of staff performance.
More technical challenges included staff proficiency with the new
technology, not enough laptops and computers (both at 25%) and outdated
technology (23%).
The benefits of homeworking were overwhelmingly identified as giving a
better work–life balance(cited by 61%), followed by greater collaboration
(43%), greater ability to focus with fewer distractions (38%), and IT upskilling
(33%).
Many employers cited saving commuting time and cost, as well as a greater
ability to deal with caring responsibilities as key advantages.
Some employers also reported a greater focus on tasks and more
streamlined ways of communication as key advantages of the new way of
working.

22. HYBRID WORKING
The survey evidence suggests that after the crisis, many of these changes
will stick, with a significant shift towards more working from home, possibly
the biggest long-term shift in working patterns directly attributable to the
crisis (CIPD, 2020). This report also suggests that 40% of employers said
they expect more than half their workforce to work regularly from home
after the pandemic has ended.
Hybrid working seeks to being in the office for some of the week and at
home for the remainder. Many organisations are now considering what
‘hybrid’ means for them, how they might meet this new employee demand,
and what will need to be in place in order for these new ways of working to
be effective.
Organisations may plan for interim hybrid working in the short term, whilst
also considering longer term strategic decisions on more flexible forms of
working. This short-term version of hybrid working may be somewhat
different to its longer-term counterpart.

23. HYBRID WORKING: SOME CIPD
RECOMMENDATIONS
Key steps towards introducing hybrid working should include:
Agreeing an overall strategic position on hybrid working for the organisation
and development of a policy and supporting guidance reflecting the
strategy.
Defining hybrid working with regard to the specific organisational context.
This might include several different forms of hybrid working even within one
organisation, depending on role requirements.
Engaging people managers throughout the organisation, providing an
opportunity to ask questions and raise concerns, as well as the provision of
training and development to support successful hybrid working.
Development of a communication plan to share plans for future hybrid
working with all employees, including information on how to request hybrid
working.
Planning for and responding to the organisational implications of hybrid
working on matters such as technology, employee wellbeing, inclusion and
facilities.

24. WORKSHOPS WEEK 7
To examine some of the types of remote
working models explored in the article “The
Office of the Future”.
To discuss some of the challenges and
solutions associated with managing virtual
teams.
To work on assessment in class and gain
formative feedback from Hilary

25. SUMMARY & IMPLICATIONS
VTs have been on the increase in the last decade and have
been an emerging theme in the academic literature since
the early 2000s. Nevertheless, pre-Covid literature was
rather scathing of the effectiveness of VTs; significant
challenges were identified, mainly around trust and
leadership.
Remote working as a result of Coronavirus has
exacerbated the need for organizations to better manage
VTs and to consider, and implement hybrid working.
Work-life balance remains a key consideration; however,
CIPD research suggests high levels of satisfaction with
working from home.
The literature offers some recommendations on improving
trust through the replication of face-to-face contact.

26. WORKSHOP
OBJECTIVES
To place the lecture
within context of
assessment
To explore some
ideas of hybrid
working
To look at some
examples of students
work
To gain formative
feedback from Hilary
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

27. OFFICE OF THE FUTURE
It’s here………………………..well, they said it was and now it is (I suppose)

28. QUESTIONS
What were the models of remote working
presented in the article?
What does the article suggest about shifts in
location post covid?

29. SUPPORTING DOCUMENT
This is a handout for clients.
It needs to look professional.
The best way to think about this document is
as a vehicle for “parking” all the extra
information you would like the client to
know about, but don’t have the time to
discuss it.
You can use it to put in examples of staff
surveys, training plans, survey questions.
It could present a bigger and more detailed
version of your gantt chart.