As large swathes of the workforce have been forced to work from home during the pandemic, the change in our working patterns has been profound.  A new analysis from the Advance Workplace Institute (AWI) highlights some of the biggest changes we’ve faced as a result.

The review of nearly 750 scientific papers on remote working underlines the changes in management required to adequately respond to the new team dynamics and ways of working we’re seeing as a result of the transition.

“Covid-19 has accelerated the notion that the workplace is wherever you want to work and not necessarily a physical office,” the researchers explain. “Virtual working is here to stay, and this brings serious challenges for managing the modern workforce.”

Changing nature of work

The report makes a number of core conclusions.  For instance, they argue that working apart has a profound impact on team dynamics, especially via changes to the frequency and quality of communications, and the change in social interaction among the team.

This level of cohesion then impacts the effectiveness of the virtual teams, with factors such as trust, willingness to cooperate and psychological safety crucial in the productivity of the team.  These factors all tend to be interconnected, but there is an inherent foundation of trust and communication upon which they’re built.

Crucially, this trust and communication are often among the most vulnerable characteristics when teams work virtually.  As a result, it’s something the authors urge managers to consciously and consistently work to maintain.

The creation of such a supportive culture is key, as virtual teams afford more people the opportunity to adopt leadership responsibilities.  As such, the authors recommend official managers adopt a more transformational managerial style that empowers and guides the team.

“Organisations increasingly need to harness their knowledge resources as opposed to controlling and ‘managing’ them,” the researchers say. “The role of leadership is about creating the conditions for growth and directing the energy. When we are working in a more virtualised model, old models become more difficult and we need new understandings and practices to deliver success in a virtualised world.”

The speed of the transition to virtual working has undoubtedly caught many organizations on the hop, and the learning process will have been extremely rapid.  Thankfully, there is an extensive back catalog of research into the potential pitfalls of virtual teams to fall back upon, and the AWI analysis does a sound job of rounding it up.