With a new advent of cloud computing technologies and a more globalized world, companies are increasingly embracing the concept of ‘virtual teams’ as a replacement for the traditional offices (Ivanaj & Bozon, 2014). Today, the idea of employees walking to an office every morning is seemingly old-fashioned as companies no longer need to spend the thousands and millions on renting office spaces and organizing in-house teams. Even though critics are always pointing an accusing finger to the loss of employee commitment and teamwork, a virtual office has a wide range of benefits as mentioned below.
Lower office costs and reduced general operational costs
Setting up a virtual team is very beneficial as it can assist companies, especially start-ups, save several dollars annually, primarily due to foregone office expenses. This amount includes not only rent but also other additional costs of maintaining offices, including computer equipment installation and management, electricity bills, sundries and furniture, office cleaners and messengers, refreshment, among others (Ivanaj & Bozon, 2014).
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Ability to access a vast pool of talent globally
Besides just costs, setting up a virtual team implies that a company can handpick talents from different parts of the world through a cloud-based system. This arrangement is significant because the organization can get a variety of high-skilled services that is perhaps unavailable locally. Physically importing such employees to work at the workstation can be very expensive if the company decides to take this route, rendering ‘virtual team’ framework the best approach.
More productivity and reduced travel time
The ability of workers to work at homes or different places, without necessarily having to show up every morning at the workplace, automatically increases productivity because workers have the freedom and comfort. This is also partly because the ‘virtual team’ system provides more flexibility, meaning that employees can choose when to log off or on (Bhat, Pande, & Ahuja, 2017).
References
Bhat, S. K., Pande, N., & Ahuja, V. (2017). Virtual team effectiveness: An empirical study using SEM. Procedia Computer Science, 122, 33-41.
Ivanaj, S., & Bozon, C. (2014). Managing virtual teams. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing.
