A study of Employee Engagement Practices and its Impact on Team Effectiveness in the context of Virtual and collaborative Workplace

Abstract

Purpose: To identify the challenges faced by virtual teams and study the impact of employee engagement practices on performance, team effectiveness of Virtual workforce/Virtual teams. Research Problem: With the Gig Economy coming in and the worldwide disruption in the operation of many organizations due to Geo-political or Biological Factors, organizations should be well prepared to continue to give an uninterrupted performance. Under such circumstances, managing the virtual workforce becomes very important. Due to technological advances, people all across the globe can collaborate without traveling. However, as a result, organizations operate change and require developing a new set of competencies from both managers and employees. Therefore, to ensure the smooth running of an organization, it is imperative to have a concrete performance management system in place as far as the virtual workforce is concerned. Execution of virtual work calls for extensive scientific research because managing a virtual team is different from managing an ordinary team. Research Methodology: The stratified sampling method has been used as the mode of data collection for this research, which has been done by floating a set of questionnaires among the sample set of respondents. Stratified sampling would help classify the sample set into different strata as required and optimize the sample size accordingly to have better precision. In this case, the sample has been categorized primarily into two strata of Gender (Male and Female). The responses have been then analyzed through SPSS by Factor analysis to reach the objective from a grass root level. In this case, the respondents were selected from only those organizations where the work-from-home nature is a viable option. Then the respondents were selected and segregated based on gender to ensure a diverse sample set. Once the data has been run through factor analysis and the independent variables have been identified, linear regression analysis has then been performed on the data to understand the relationship between the deduced independent variables and team effectiveness. Finally, based on the literature review and the responses received through the questionnaire, this piece of research will analyze the inputs and recommend suitable practices in leading virtual teams, taking the challenges faced by the virtual teams into consideration. Expected Outcome/Findings: Through this research, it is expected to conclude the challenges that virtual teams face and the factors that affect the performance of the virtual teams, It is then required to map the associated factors influencing performance to recommend viable, practical, and virtually implementable employee engagement practices. Practical / Managerial Implications: The study shall help virtual team managers better identify the needs of the employees, which would lead to better employee engagement and, in turn, improve productivity. It would help the Human Resource specialists pay specific attention to certain areas of employee engagement and motivational factors while introducing a virtual work ecosystem to optimize the workforce’s performance. Originality/Value: The paper’s originality comes from its methodological approach to identify the factors or the clusters of factors that impact the performance of virtual teams and the in-depth analysis of the factors to incorporate the same while designing employee engagement practices in an organization for its virtual workforce.