Many organisations are seeking new ways to improve productivity and work-life balance. It’s a particular problem for multi-national companies that struggle to recruit IT talent locally and/or make effective use of colleagues spread across the world. How can their staff collaborate better to achieve their common goals? VOIP, Skype and other technologies allow global communication, but often the focus is only on the software and not the human element.
Put simply, there is insufficient investment in best-practice training for employees on how to lead, manage and work in teams which have little or no in-person contact. It’s when an organisation invests in the people and the technology to support its globally diverse workforce that it begins to make the technology ROI a reality by engaging and retaining the top talent from anywhere in the world.
With this in mind, I have a friend who, having worked in a multi-national, has experienced the conservatism and aversion to change and risk, followed, eventually, by the realisation that you can integrate IT support worldwide by adopting clear virtual team strategies and training and thus make a significant difference to the success of the business. Skills shortages in one country can be plugged by recruiting talent from elsewhere in the world and then using existing technology to communicate, collaborate and integrate the whole IT support and development function, reducing downtime and costs, increasing productivity and efficiency and, ultimately, profits too. This experience has inspired him to develop his new business.
If you’d like to know more, then you can read about it here.
Gareth Biggerstaff, MD, Be-IT Resourcing
