What Is Virtual Work, and How Can It Benefit You?

Executive summary

• Virtual work increases productivity, flexibility, and collaboration across locations, but it requires clear expectations, the right tools, and safeguards against burnout and miscommunication.

• To stay agile, organizations must embrace digital tools (including AI-powered platforms like Slack), helping them to stay competitive and prepared for the future of work.

 

With 90 percent of organizations undergoing some level of digital transformation, virtual work is becoming prevalent in just about every field.

Virtual work refers to all digitally-enabled work that relies on networked technology, from team messaging apps to shared calendars. If you’re working via laptop, desktop computer, or mobile device, you’re doing virtual work. 

Organizations can use virtual work to their advantage—for example, it’s powering the collaborative remote culture that many companies and workers have embraced.

In this guide, we’ll help you understand why virtual work matters, how to do it well, and how it will evolve over time. Let’s get started.

What is virtual work?

Virtual work is any work done online with devices like computers, tablets, or phones. It can describe any collaboration by teammates using digital tools to work together across locations—or even just the virtual environment everyone in one location uses to do their work.

The term virtual work is often associated with hybrid or remote work, because virtual tools have made those ways of working possible. But at its core, virtual work specifically refers to work done using digital devices, such as creating files and assets, sharing them across devices, and sending messages or holding meetings using collaboration tools.

Virtual work isn’t limited to office workers. Retail staff need to take orders in their point of sale (POS) system, warehouse workers conduct inventory with mobile devices, and field technicians need to document the status of repairs with proprietary apps on their tablets. Almost every field relies on virtual work, either wholly or in part.

Key benefits of virtual work

Virtual work makes work faster, systematized, automatable, and possible to do from more than one place. That helps both companies and workers in several ways.

Automation and productivity

Virtual work offers powerful advantages over manual forms of labor—it streamlines processes and even enables teams to take advantage of full workflow automation to help them work more efficiently.

Standardization

Tools that enable digital work bring predictability and reduce instances of human error. Consider an autobody shop that uses paper work orders. A mechanic may mislabel a part number or cite an incorrect price, which impacts the shop’s bottom line. When that work is standardized on an app, however, the mechanic can select options from drop-down menus and adhere to the right pricing model. 

Meanwhile, virtual work done with integrated systems allows departments like sales, billing, and marketing to coordinate. For example, the auto shop might send personalized emails to customers down the road that reference the types of service they received. This visibility affects the entire business structure, making the organization far more efficient while creating new opportunities.

Knowledge sharing and preservation

Paper documents or expertise stuck in someone’s head limits an organization’s agility and efficacy. Virtual work makes it much easier to  capture things like standard operating procedures, best practices, how-to guides, and even routine meeting notes in accessible shared directories. That shared repository of information enables effective knowledge sharing, which helps organizations work faster and smarter. 

Asynchronous collaboration

Teams that are spread out physically, even across the globe, can work together much more easily with virtual work tools. Voice and video meetings, group messages, shared drives, and digital whiteboards can help teams collaborate well despite being in different time zones.

Flexibility and work-life balance

For employees, the ability to work virtually helps them meet both personal and professional obligations more easily. In some organizations, virtual work doesn’t need to happen on a strict 9-to-5 schedule, so workers may be able to shift their start and end times or break up the day. That can help people achieve a more satisfying work-life balance, which can reduce stress and prevent burnout.

Virtual work challenges and considerations

Working virtually can have downsides, too. While a connected and efficient workplace can improve efficiency, it can also lead to people feeling like they work on separate islands.

Here are some common challenges of virtual work and how to overcome them:

Lapses in communication

Virtual work features such as messaging, video meetings, and collaborative digital documents have been a boon for teams seeking greater efficiency and agility. However, digital interactions often lack the vocal inflections and body language that can help us understand each other. It can also be hard to keep track of email threads, group messages, document comments, and meeting notes.

To overcome these challenges, outline clear expectations about which channels to use as well as how and when they should be used. For example, you might tell your team to discuss projects in a designated Slack channel, use a huddle to resolve blockers or conflicts, and use a shared canvas to document ideas.

Burnout and fatigue

If you’re working with screens day in and day out, you might start feeling fatigued or develop a lack of focus. It’s all too common for boundaries between work and employees’ private lives to blur—if you never truly end your work day, burnout looms. 

In fully-remote environments, team leaders should ensure that parts of the virtual workspace should be centered around team bonding. That can take the form of a watercooler channel, a monthly games session, or a weekly meeting about favorite TV shows or some other common interest. Don’t underestimate the power of virtual team building.

Time zones and scheduling

It can be wonderful to work with people around the country and the world. But when time zones and work schedules don’t line up, collaborating in real time can be challenging. Within the continental U.S., it may mean navigating a three-hour time difference. But when coordinating with people on the other side of the globe, at least one person is likely to be sacrificing nonwork hours to be virtual at the same time.

Be sure to take advantage of calendar tools and scheduling assistants when live interactions have to happen. Consider setting core hours when all virtual workers need to be available, and take advantage of asynchronous communication by using communication tools that let people share information as needed and then read and respond when they can.

Essential tools for virtual work

Having the right kinds of software and apps can make virtual work much smoother. These are the main kinds of tools that can set up a virtual team for success:

• Communication. Remote collaboration tools like Slack offer chat features, organized channels, adjustable notifications, status indicators, message scheduling, and workflow builders. 
• Automation and AI agents. Automation and AI agents can help virtual coworkers collaborate more effectively, focus on high-value work instead of repetitive tasks, and find business critical information via enterprise search.
• Video conferencing. Online meeting tools offer much more than just video call hosting. Modern tools employ AI to take notes and even assign tasks that emerge from meetings.
• Project management. Software that helps you plot out and track a project from start to finish can help keep your virtual team moving in the same direction. Collaborative tools like Slack lists help unify timelines, manage deadlines, store related files, and automate tasks so everyone is in the know.
• File sharing. In virtual work environments, teams need the ability to securely share files and collaborate in them. Users must be able to search and find those files easily, as well.

 

Best practices for virtual work

The following guidelines can help a team engaged in virtual work stay on track. Here are some best practices to consider:

Set clear expectations and documented goals

To make remote work doable, set clear expectations upfront. Use the SMART framework (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound) to create well-defined goals that give team members a roadmap to success.

Schedule regular but brief check-ins

Structure 1:1s with direct reports and daily or weekly stand-ups to make sure teams don’t fall out of sync or lose track of important deadlines and goals.

Establish a virtual team culture

Create a few small rituals the team can share, like a water cooler chat channel, monthly online social events, and spaces for bonding.

Respect work-life boundaries

Work that can happen anytime often will happen anytime. Grant your team the flexibility to get tasks done when it makes sense for them and the business. But don’t demand their time constantly, or they’ll burn out. Set limits and expectations, such as a rule about not sending messages or emails outside core work hours unless absolutely necessary.

Future outlook of virtual work

Virtual work is here to stay, and the tools that enable it are becoming more powerful with each passing year. AI-powered tools are already helping workers find the right information quickly, automate and coordinate tasks, and get tasks done in a comprehensive, integrated work operating system. Whether it’s teams working in a single physical location or ones scattered across the globe, the vast majority of workers will increasingly rely on virtual work tools to accomplish their day-to-day tasks.

Adapting your organization to virtual work

Employees have high expectations for virtual work tools, and AI is fast-tracking what desk workers can do regardless of where they are. If your team is just getting started with virtual work or refining it, stay informed about the most effective tools and best practices. Doing so will help your organization remain competitive.

Find out how a work operating system like Slack can help you maximize how your teams work, wherever they work.