CHAPTER 13

An Additional Perspective

Ben, like many managers, strives to find ways to improve himself through reading and personal research. Researchers try to help managers find better approaches to managing in the potential minefield that is virtual leadership. In a study we conducted, a research project was executed in one of the world’s largest consumer goods organizations (Brady 2014). The study aimed to examine the world of virtual working teams within this organization, while specifically examining the impact of factors including the psychological contract and job satisfaction and perceived productivity.

The study involved both qualitative and quantitative research methods, which provided rich insight into the challenges the managers were facing within the company. Several senior-level managers (vice president and director levels) were interviewed, and the data were collected and broken down through content analysis to formulate a case study. From this analysis, a Likert-scale survey was created and sent out to their virtual work teams abroad. These results were then analyzed statistically. The insight gained from the research was meant to help managers like Ben become better leaders and gain insights for overcoming some of the major virtual leadership challenges.

While our study examined perceptions of employees in only one organization, the company is massive and global in scope. At the time of the research, the senior leadership team worked out of the corporate European offices in Switzerland, while the global virtual teams were based in the United States and South America. As in the case of Ben and many real-world managers like him, the leadership team in the study used technology as an enabler to enhance their business functionality and communication abroad. Several managers also iterated the importance of investing in the proper technology to enhance communication effectiveness. Beyond the technology piece, the issue of trust was also a hot topic for these managers.

In general, the managers stated that trust was more than important; it was a necessity. This meant two-way trust for both the team and their leaders. Many said that they had to trust their team, or nothing would work. Trust, it was said, is crucial in a normal team, but in the virtual environment it becomes even more essential. This idea reinforces what was stated in previous chapters about the notion of swift trust, and the necessity of building upon it as the relationship develops. One of the leaders went so far as to say that if he worked in the same office with his team, he would have a lot more detail about projects and related topics to work with. However, because he worked virtually, it was inherently harder to build and gain trust, especially when the relationships were new. These discussions exemplified the extreme difficulty, yet great importance, of establishing and maintaining trust in the virtual work environment.

As far as cultural differences were concerned, most of the managers in the studied company agreed that culture didn’t create any major barriers to their work. While they were working with people from three different continents, originating from a myriad of varying cultures, most felt that this diversity in culture helped them become better managers and develop better people managing skills in the long run. Some mentioned that small cultural misunderstandings occasionally occurred, but they felt that their company managed the cultural perspective quite well and that their teams worked cohesively.

Outside of the cultural realm, the idea of team expectations proved to be a significant challenge for some leaders. Several leaders mentioned that according to their experience, they sometimes found it difficult to manage the future career and work expectations of their team. Part of this challenge was the fact that some employees found it difficult to express their expectations, and so time was required before they were revealed. In other cases, it came down to the maturity level of the virtual employee and his or her ability/experience in working within the virtual context. Some managers stated that they had acquired people from other managers, and in some cases found that these people didn’t work well in the virtual environment and had difficulty communicating and managing some tasks. This supports the importance that Ben placed on hiring the right people after Mary left the company. Equipping the team with the right experience may make all the difference when working in the virtual environment.

Of course, as Chapter 5 illustrated, a huge challenge for virtual managers can be the difference in time across dispersed geographic regions. This was reinforced in discussions with the leadership team. Two of the interviewed leaders, in particular, freely expressed their distaste for working across such distances in time and geography. One said that he had no problem working virtually, but it was the time difference that made it horrible. Another said that the challenge began at what was for most the end of the day. That was when it was the start of working hours in the Americas, and he had four hours to catch up on important matters with the team. Others expressed the social and physical impact of these time differences. Some said that time differences impacted sleeping patterns, while others iterated the potential family consequences of regularly working after-hours at home or in the office.

One of the leaders tried to find the positives of working virtually. He stated that at the very least, he had six hours or so of quiet work before everyone in America woke up. This provided him with time to catch up on less pressing issues. Overall, each team leader was clear about the idea that working across such a large difference in time was challenging at best, and potentially damaging to productivity at worst. This challenge remains pervasive not only in the researched organization, but in many global firms who work in this manner. Further exacerbating the difficulty of managing virtually was the problem of lack of role-clarity. One leader said that his role as a director was clear, but the roles across the virtual spectrum often were not. Another iterated that they (the company) were improving in this area, but they still had a long way to go, and they were not unified on what virtual role-clarity was for each individual.

These interviews of real-world directors and senior leaders provided rich insight into some of the great challenges of working in the challenging environment of virtual teams. However, interviews were only a part of the research. We also statistically analyzed data from questionnaires answered by 103 team members who worked for the European leaders in North and South America. It was this data that helped the authors better understand the unique challenges of virtual work within this organization.

One of the fundamental factors studied was the psychological contract and its impact on job satisfaction, perceived performance, and trust. The data revealed that in this group, when managers made commitments related to the career aspects of their employees, trust was potentially impacted. For instance, when a manager promises a new career opportunity to an employee and delivers on that promise, trust with his or her employee would likely increase. Recall the story of Ben and Mary. Ben had promised Mary a new career opportunity that, while small, could have helped her develop and enhance her experience and future career opportunities. If Ben had followed through on his word, Mary likely would have trusted him more and he could have built a better relationship with her on the team. Instead, she became dissatisfied and ultimately left the company.

Another compelling conclusion from our study of virtual employees was that role-clarity had a positive impact on job satisfaction. For instance, when their job roles were clear, they were happier about what they were doing. This parallels what was mentioned about role-clarity in Chapter 2. The study also found that in this cohort, greater job satisfaction could increase levels of perceived productivity. So, after considering some outcomes of our study, the real question is what does it really tell us, and how can it help virtual managers?

The quantitative sample cohort was quite small considering that the organization studied has over 100,000 employees. A sample of 103 remote employees participated from the supply chain division in the Americas. Still, within this small cohort, only 37 percent of the participants agreed that their managers had fulfilled their career promises, and a mere 28 percent agreed that the organization had fulfilled its obligations related to promotions. Another interesting note was that 55 percent of the employees felt that it was important for a manager to allow open access to his or her virtual team. Furthermore, 92 percent of the respondents felt that role-clarity had a positive impact on their performance.

These data points, while small, tell a story. The study’s data seem to support many of the factors mentioned throughout this book and are presented as reinforcement for important points. Virtual managers such as Ben have a lot on their plate at any given time. Sometimes too much information can provide a data dump that results in stagnate action. However, our study illustrates the importance of some key factors including trust, role-clarity, and job satisfaction. Some of the outcomes could be seen as somewhat alarming, such as the number of people who felt that the organization and management were actually fulfilling their promises related to career fulfillment. As mentioned earlier, situations like this could cause employees to feel that they have no future in the company. Managers should be attentive to these indicators. Employee perceptions can be gathered either by the company or by third parties to determine if target satisfaction metrics are actually being met. This information can provide important insight for virtual managers.

Throughout the course of their day, virtual team managers must manage many tasks and handle many issues. They must also make many decisions that can have critical effects on business activity, the company, and their employees. Employee satisfaction data can clarify important points that can help remote team managers make better decisions. The psychological contract has been mentioned throughout this book. The key takeaway from our research is the idea that promises managers make, even in passing, can have potential impact on trust and manager/employee relationships moving forward. This is especially true when the implied promise has a career-related focus. Therefore, virtual managers need to be extremely careful about promises or commitments they make to their employees. They also need to be very certain that their team members have clearly defined job roles and that they understand their responsibilities. Essentially, managers must watch what they say and write, as even small comments could be perceived by employees as commitments.

In the next chapter, we will summarize what we have covered in this book and will consider a model that will help virtual leaders find the right path on the road to building an effective team.