ABSTRACT

Virtual team managers will no longer be able to look over their employees' shoulders and directly monitor their performance. The performance criteria and measurement systems must be appropriate to distributed working as well as being efficient, effective and perceived to be fair. The virtual team should be encouraged to be proactive in letting the team leader know about accomplishments, challenges and problems, to facilitate monitoring and evaluating the team's performance. If teams have not thought about and discussed how they will be monitored and evaluated, they may feel the need to inform the team supervisor of every piece of work they do—usually by putting them on copy of e-mails to others. Guidelines should be developed that keep the team focused on their successes with respect to their goals, rather than merely trying to make sure that their efforts have been noticed. Such guidelines should include clear objectives for the team, with predetermined performance measures.