Virtual and Face-to-Face Teams - Coursework Example

Virtual and Face-to-Face Teams Today the world has become very fast paced and people across the business community, find it very difficult to allocate time for the various activities. Globalization and the opening of the international markets have made business establishments to penetrate every nook and corner of the earth. With the advent of the internet technology, the way business is being performed has undergone a sea change. (Konradt & Hoch 2007) Gone are the days when the business meetings used to be conducted under the conference halls and meeting rooms with face to face discussions of the business minds, regarding the various business problems and strategies. The start of video conferencing has marked an era wherein the virtual environment has been created, resulting in the converging of ideas and viewpoints of business people present at different points across the globe. The formation of such virtual teams has resulted in revolutionizing key business decision making and communication, very simple and effective. Thus virtual teams are the teams that have been formed by the HR department of the organization, with an aim to achieve the goals of the organization. (Eric 2010) In the case of the Human Resource wing of the organization, the creation of such virtual teams which has got a global reach will make it very effective and this indeed plays a very significant role in the speedy development of the strategies and plans, which can be communicated within seconds. Thus the evolution and creation of the virtual teams has resulted in the speedy exchange of ideas, time saving, increase in the commitment of the team members and the improvement of trust. (Levi 2007) Though before the development of the internet the virtual teams were considered impossible, today they have been considered as a solid reality. Thus when compared to the other face to face teams present in the organization, the virtual teams are very well considered by most of the industrial and business experts, as the one that can add more value to the existing teams and its structures. The traditional structures found in common business and industrial firms have been the lightweight, tiger and heavyweight teams. Hence for any organization to develop a very good virtual team, the HR department has to play a very important role and take much effort for the formation of a very successful team. (Duarte & Snyder 2006) For the virtual team to become very highly successful, the presence of good teamwork is a primary requirement. Hence for the virtual team’s success the main ingredients that has been formulated by the HR team is the creation of a very good culture as well as infrastructure, which imparts very easily understandable guide for the knowledge and development of skills. Thus when compared to the face to face teams, the virtual team is gathering a very speedy acceptance and application to most of the industries and the academic institutions worldwide. (Duarte & Snyder 2006) Most of the countries are becoming technologically advanced and this has led to the virtual teams to become much stronger and also to be considered as the best means of communication and decision making network due to which it has become a norm for the organizations all over the world. The HR of the modern day organizations, find it very easy and useful to recruit the team members of the virtual teams, which results in the successful and speedy selection of the best and the highly talented individuals across the globe and also the retention of such virtual teams and the team members for a longer period of time. (Konradt & Hoch 2007) The HR of such organizations also takes the utmost care to develop such individuals over a period of time, with an idea of turning them into assets for the organization. Since most all the team members present in the virtual teams can be contacted almost at the same time through the global network, instantaneous interaction and views can be exchanged between them, which show the universality of the virtual teams. Audio conferencing, video conferencing , instant messaging which is known as IM and many others are the different methods, that are used for contacting the virtual team members and bring them together from the various geographical areas across the globe. As a result of this the virtual teams are considered to be much more significant and powerful than the face to face teams, since team members can very much take part in the online discussions, without spending their time and effort to converge in a particular location as in the case of the face to face meetings. (Martin A. David) Thus this is the real advantage and the major factor contributing to the success of the virtual teams, in comparison to the face to face teams. Indeed virtual teams and the members who are initially pooled into the virtual teams of the organizations, could be specialists from a certain field of expertise and as time passes from the position of serving as the part timers for the organization, they could very well be hired and inducted as regular staff of giant multi national companies depending on their performance. This is another great advantage that the virtual teams offers its team members, when compared to the face to face teams. Thus by the creation of the virtual teams and sticking to this concept the industries as well as the academic institutions could very well stand to gain, since the intelligence and the irreplaceable value of the best knowledgeable workers across the world, could be very well acquired by them. (Konradt & Hoch 2007) The concept of the virtual teams and creation of a virtual working environment could be very much simple and at the same time be practically applicable, for any manager or the virtual team member. They can become well experienced with the norms and the rules of working in a virtual environment. Thus even the most inexperienced and the raw hands who work in the virtual environment by means of the virtual teams, will become highly talented and confident of reaching the peaks of achievement and maintaining the highest standards of quality in work, which would have been at the same time been very much impossible in the case of the face to face teams. (Levi 2007) Hence virtual teams have proved themselves to be much more flexible, efficient as well as have the speed factor in them, which is not in the case of the face to face teams. The virtual teams for an organization are chosen by the management based on the talents, the work content and also based on the knowledge levels of the individuals, who are put to an initial test and then inducted into the virtual teams. Thus by means of the creation of the virtual teams, the organization gets the best talented individuals for working within the virtual teams and for rendering their services to the organization. This would be indeed time consuming and strenuous in the case of the creation of the face to face teams. (Konradt & Hoch 2007) Another key factor that determines the success of the virtual teams is that, they remain highly motivated and perform better, which is always ensured by the management of the organizations. This would not be the case of the face to face teams, whose levels of motivation and performance have been rated to be very much below that of the virtual teams. The HR through the creation of the virtual team can get the best expertise that is available globally and at the same time pay the least wages which would very well profit any organization on the long run. (Mathews Ira 2010) Though the virtual teams have these inbuilt advantages, there are some disadvantages like the language barrier and the personal barrier to accept the culture and stick to the ethics of the organization, which otherwise could be very well be enabled in the case of the face to face teams. In addition to this the virtual team members always consider themselves to be temporary employees of the organization, which could very well be in their minds till they become permanent. Apart from this since the virtual teams are chosen from a global platform, the differing time zones of the individual team members could be considered as a limitation, which could very well hinder any sort of online conferences that is conducted at a particular time. (Levi 2007) But though there are some disadvantages in the case of the virtual teams, they are comparatively less when weighed against the advantages. Thus it can very well be concluded that, in the present world of technology and the availability of the digital and online technology, organizations all over the world can very much stand to gain, by adopting and the creation of the virtual teams when compared to the age old face to face teams, which are being increasingly replaced by the business and academic community. (Duarte & Snyder 2006) Works Cited: N, Duarte, D. and Snyder, N, Mastering Virtual Temas: Strategies, Tools, and Techniques That Suceed, by Duarte, 3rd Edition, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Retrieved March12, 2011, from http://www.bookbyte.com/1/1/92964-mastering-virtual-teams-strategies-tools-techniques-that-succeed-by-duarte-3rd-edition.html Konradt, U. and Hoch, J. E. (April- June 2007). A Work Roles and Leadership Functions of Managers in Virtual Teams. International Journal of e-Collaboration (3)2, 16-35. Retrieved March12, 2011, from http://www.igi-global.com/bookstore/article.aspx?titleid=1958 Levi, D. (2007).  Group dynamics for teams (2nd ed.).  Los Angeles: SAGE Publications. Retrieved March13, 2011, from http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Group-Dynamics-for-Teams/Daniel-Levi/e/9781412937498 Mathews Ira, The Pros and Cons of Virtual Teams, April 20, 2010. Retrieved March12, 2011, from http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/the-pros-and-cons-of-virtual-teams-2199184.html Team Development Pros &Cons of a Virtual Team, Are they better? Jan 27, 2010. Retrieved March12, 2011, from http://www.businessmantra.net/pros-cons-of-a-virtual-team-are-they-better.html Eric, My Management Guide – My MG, Managing Virtual teams – Understanding virtual team, definition, management and benefits, April29, 2010. Retrieved March12, 2011, from http://www.mymanagementguide.com/managing-virtual-teams-understanding-definition-management-and-benefits/ Buzzle.com Leading Virtual Teams – Secrets of Building Trust and Rapport Online. Retrieved March13, 2011, from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/leading-virtual-teams-secrets-of-building-trust-and-rapport-online.html The Middle Office, Pros and Cons of Virtual Teams. Retrieved March13, 2011, from http://themiddleoffice.wordpress.com/2009/07/21/pros-and-cons-of-virtual-teams/ Martin A. David, Virtual Teaming Processes. Retrieved March13, 2011, from http://www.effectivemeetings.com/technology/virtualteam/virtualteaming.asp Raviendranath Santhosh, virtual teams pros and cons, June 16, 2010 Retrieved March13, 2011, from http://www.agilevirtual.com/index.php/virtual-teams-pros-and-cons/ Read More