Research Shows Virtual Teams Promote Healthy Work/Life Balance, but Underutilize Technology
Powers Resource Center Releases Initial Virtual Team Effectiveness Survey Results
Boulder, Colo., June 8, 2016 – Working on a virtual team promotes positive work/life balance but virtual teams are not effective at using collaborative technology. These are the initial findings from Powers Resource Center’s virtual team effectiveness survey.
Powers Resource Center, a Boulder-based employee engagement, talent development and leadership training company, launched its survey in March to discover the factors that make virtual teams effective and the challenges that they face. After three months of data collection, today it is releasing a few of the preliminary findings, while seeking more businesses to participate in the research.
Not surprisingly, preliminary findings show 82 percent of respondents say being on a virtual team promotes work/life balance. In addition, the biggest challenge – with 60 percent of respondents reporting – is the use of the collaborative technology itself.
“I am not surprised to see that virtual team members see the strong benefit of work/life balance. It’s one of the top selling points of creating virtual teams,” said Tara Powers, CEO of Powers Resource Center. “But the data is showing us that virtual teams are not fully leveraging the technology they have put in place. This is an area we will take a closer look at when we release the complete analysis of the survey responses.”
Initial results of the survey also show that there are significant gaps between team leaders and team members’ responses in the key areas of communicating clearly and effectively, leveraging technology and building team trust.
“This is another interesting finding – managers and team members have very different perceptions about the biggest challenges of working on a virtual team,” said Powers. “I believe this is a great opportunity for learning and improvement, which is the reason we launched the survey. We wanted to identify these gaps.”
Powers Resource Center is still seeking businesses across the U.S. to participate in the survey. The ten- minute, anonymous online survey includes questions on effectiveness of communication, accountability, use of technology, and engagement.
Businesses who participate will receive a detailed summary of the results and an exclusive invitation to a webinar that will provide additional insight into the survey results. The results will be analyzed by industry, revenue and company size and all participants’ anonymity will be maintained.
All interested businesses should visit https://www.powersresourcecenter.com/groundbreaking-virtual-team- survey/ to find out more.
About Powers Resource Center
Powers Resource Center is on a mission to close the talent gap that is prevalent in most companies today. We deliver innovative, fully customizable solutions that actually work and create real change for you and your teams. We wow our clients every day by taking tired workshops, state strategies and cookie cutter consulting off the table so that we can innovate and customize our services to meet your unique challenges. We make team building, training and our award-winning leadership development programs so engaging and useful that our clients keep coming back for more.
Over the past 15 years, we have worked with more than 200 companies and thousands of executives, managers, internal trainers, emerging leaders and teams to help them create a culture that gets them excited and proud to contribute to the bottom line.
In 2016, PRC’s Engage Leadership Program was recognized as a Top Leadership 500 Award winner by HR.com. Our Evolving Leadership Virtual Program and Leadership Communication program won in 2014 and 2015. PRC recently launched the Aspiring Women Leaders program and it is currently engaged in a nationwide research project on the effectiveness of virtual teams.