Working remotely isn’t going anywhere and companies must adapt how they manage IT issues for their virtual teams.

Ben Brigden of Teamwork.com writes in his article about IT challenges, that, “There was a measure of security (both perceived and actual) when everyone who worked for you sat in the same building in the same city, working on the same network.” Brigden goes on to say how companies with virtual teams need robust security measures in place, perhaps even more so than other organizations, because of remote work.

Supporting this perspective, recent research indicates that, “By Mid-2024: 12% of Full-Time Employees Were Fully Remote…” and “...27% Were in a Hybrid Arrangement.” That’s nearly 40% of workers who aren’t always in the office when they experience IT issues.

This information underscores the urgent need for organizations to understand how to manage virtual teams and their IT issues effectively. In this article, we’ll discuss just that and provide seven best practices regarding IT support for your virtual team members.

3 Common Challenges for Virtual Teams

Remote workers face unique challenges that in-office teams may not have to overcome. These challenges can hinder remote employees’ productivity and collaboration. 

To manage virtual teams more effectively, it is important to know these common challenges, which include:

1. Unreliable Technology

Since remote workers are working from home, a café, a co-working space, or somewhere else that isn’t your office, they will encounter tech issues on their own.

For instance, a remote worker might have poor internet connectivity where they work. Or perhaps another worker has outdated hardware, such as an old monitor, modem, or laptop. 

Without an IT team right there to help an employee or to keep hardware and software updated, it can lead to frustrations and delays for your virtual team.

2. Communication Barriers

Dispersed teams rely heavily on digital communication platforms, such as Slack. While Slack and other platforms have greatly improved communication for virtual teams, misunderstandings can still arise between employees due to the lack of visual cues and context.

For instance, say an employee of yours is better at conveying their thoughts and ideas over video conferencing. When they are required to use text-based communications, they aren’t as skilled at expressing themselves and they lose much without the visual cues and context. 

3. Time Zone Differences

Coordinating meetings and collaborative tasks for virtual teams across various time zones can create logistical challenges. This can result in delayed responses, fragmented teamwork, and affect collaboration.

For instance, say your team has completed work for a client who is based on the West Coast. The client requests that your team make certain revisions to the work as soon as possible. However, one of your virtual team members is based on the East Coast and has signed off for the day. It will not only cause a delay for your team, but your client.

By understanding these common challenges of remote workers, it will provide the first step to help you manage your virtual teams’ IT issues more effectively. Now let’s move forward and put this knowledge into practice. 

How to Manage IT Issues for Virtual Teams: 7 Best Practices

While there are many challenges to working remotely, especially regarding IT issues, taking a strategic approach will enhance efficiency and minimize disruptions for virtual teams.

Here are some of the best practices for managing IT issues with a virtual team:

1. Provide Tech Equipment

As mentioned above, remote workers are essentially on their own when it comes to tech like laptops, modems, wifi, and software, that is unless you provide such equipment to them.

Many companies offer stipends for their employees to create a remote work setup. This is a great benefit to give employees, however, consider specifying certain tech they must purchase with the stipend or simply send them the tech you want them to use.

For instance, perhaps your IT team is most-knowledgeable in Windows-based technology. What happens if many of your virtual team members purchase Mac devices and then have IT issues? While your IT team may be able to resolve issues on Mac devices after conducting research, it could cause significant delays to resolution and employee productivity.

Now what if you were to send all of your employees the same exact Windows-based laptop? The consistency would allow your IT team to resolve any issues much more quickly and for every team member.

2. Provide Training and Resources

To complement your tech requirements, provide your employees with the training and resources to use said technology.

For instance, if your company does want all employees to work from Windows devices, then provide the necessary training to your employees who might be more familiar with Mac devices. 

Also provide self-serve IT support tools like knowledge bases. This fosters confidence in your employees and enhances their ability to troubleshoot common issues independently.

3. Provide Dedicated IT Support

Providing round-the-clock IT support ensures team members receive timely help regardless of their location or time zone.

This can be difficult and costly, especially for smaller companies without the resources to employ a large IT team. However, using Risotto, the AI-powered automated IT help desk, provides organizations of any size with the ability to provide dedicated IT support 24/7. No matter where a member of your virtual team may live and work, they can utilize Risotto to get assistance for their IT issues. Risotto will help minimize downtime and keep projects on track for your team.

4. Provide a Robust IT Ticketing System

In addition to round-the-clock IT support, ensure that your virtual teams have access to a robust IT ticketing system, like Risotto, an essential tool for organizing and tracking IT issues. Features of Risotto like automated ticket deflection can reduce the burden on IT staff, allowing them to focus on more complex challenges, while providing virtual team members with quick resolutions.

For instance, a virtual team member of yours wants to ask a common question to your IT department: “How do I reset the password for my company email?” Risotto can respond quickly to this employee with an automated password reset, never involving your IT staff in resolving the issue.

5. Monitor for Potential IT Issues

Use tools like LogicMonitor or AWS Chatbot to monitor your company’s IT infrastructure proactively. By identifying vulnerabilities and performance bottlenecks early, your IT team can implement timely solutions, reducing downtime and associated costs.

While this sort of monitoring may not be able to help with hardware issues that your virtual teams can experience–such as laptop and wifi problems–this proactive approach is excellent for software-related issues.

6. Be Proactive with IT Maintenance

Being proactive with IT maintenance is especially important for managing IT issues for virtual teams. Providing tech equipment for your virtual team can’t be a set-it-and-forget-type of approach. Instead, your remote employees should have the latest tech and software, even if that means sending new laptops to them every year or two years.

This not only improves IT security issues, it will also prevent software issues related to outdated equipment.

7. Encourage Feedback, Collaboration, and IT Issue Reporting

This relates directly to the #2 challenge of virtual teams–communication barriers. Foster an environment where your virtual team members don’t fear reporting IT issues, even if the issues are due to their at-home tech. Also encourage feedback and collaboration among employees around IT issues. Like Risotto, this will enable employees to fix IT issues together or on their own, while reducing the burden for your IT team.

Conclusion

Start implementing the best practices discussed in this article to improve how you manage your virtual teams. Invest in robust support systems, embrace automation, and be proactive against IT issues. These strategies will not only resolve current IT problems, but also prepare your virtual teams for future challenges.

For effective management of IT issues in virtual teams, take action now and book a demo to experience all that Risotto has to offer.