Virtual Team Management: Advantages and Challenges

Running head: MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION
Management communication
Name of Student:
Name of University:
Author Note:

1MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION
To: The Employees
From: The Marketing Director
Date:
Subject: Virtual Team Management
The operations of an organization can only take place peacefully if there is proper teamwork and
coordination in it. A team is required to carry out the daily operations with utmost coordination
and division of responsibilities equally distributed to every individual of the team. The
innovative idea of a virtual team has resulted from technological development, shifting of
expectation of employees and globalization. A virtual team is one which consists of members
dispersed geographically or organizationally that are connected through means of advanced
information and telecommunication technologies. According to (Maynard and Gilson 2014),
“virtual teams are functioning teams that rely on technology-mediated communication while
crossing several different boundaries.”
Recruiting a virtual team has several advantages to an organization. Primarily, an organization
can lower the staffing costs while increasing productivity up to a large extent at the same time. In
addition, a virtual team helps in lowering of office costs of an organization in terms of electricity,
technical equipment, lease and miscellaneous expenses. (Hoch and Kozlowski 2014) stated that
“... the next increment should turn attention to the mediating mechanisms that link the input
factors with team performance.” The reduced cost or the savings from the office cost can then be
used in development of other aspects of the organization. A virtual team enables a manager to
hire workforce from anywhere around the world. This enables the organization to go beyond the
restriction of recruiting talented individuals. Local hiring restricts the flow of talent pool
sometimes, which is overcome through means of a virtual team. Furthermore, hiring a virtual
team enables the organization to save up costs since there are less members. Eventually, this
money can be used to pay more to the existing team members. The ability to join the
organization from anywhere in the world and getting more pay will definitely attract an
increasing workforce and build the brand image of the organization globally. In addition, this
measure will also help in the retention of employees since they are allowed to work from home
in this situation.