Overview

Virtual group coaching is the term used to describe efforts by executives, managers, team leaders, or employees to improve group dynamics in virtual work settings. Group dynamics, of course, refers to how people work together to achieve work results. Virtual group coaching, or simply virtual coaching, is a specialized term used to describe a way of reinventing so-called process consultation, which is a change effort designed to facilitate improvements in group dynamics among residential (work-from-a-central-office) employee groups. Upon completion of this 60-minute session, participants will understand the basic concept of virtual group coaching and its application to their workplace by being able to:

• Define virtual group coaching and virtual coaching to improve group relationships
• Describe the characteristics of highly productive virtual groups
• Summarize how to facilitate more effective interaction among work-from-home employee groups
• Discuss a model that can guide implementation of a virtual group coaching effort
• Evaluate how well a small group or team is working together and identify ways to intervene to improve group interaction to get more effective work results from a team

Why you should Attend

The global pandemic, caused by Covid-19, has forced many people to work from home. In fact, of all U.S. workers, 56 percent could do all or some of their work from home. It is estimated that (GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com):

• 5 million employees (3.6% of the U.S. employee workforce) currently work-at-home half-time or more 
• Regular work-at-home has grown 173% since 2005, 11% faster than the rest of the workforce (which grew 15%) and nearly 47x faster than the self-employed population 
• 43% of employees work remotely with some frequency 
• 62% of employees say they could work remotely 
• Studies repeatedly show desks in central offices are vacant an estimated 50-60% of the time.
• 80% of employees want to work from home at least some of the time 
• 35% of employees would change jobs for the opportunity to work remotely full time (47% of Millennials and 31% of boomers);
• 37% would do so to work remotely some of the time (50% of Millennials and 33% of Boomers) 
• Flexibility is one of the highest-ranked benefits by Millennials

Yet few managers have been given training on how to manage work-from-home employees, and fewer still have been given special training on how to encourage group dynamics and group interaction among virtual work groups or work teams. As nearly everyone knows, working from home is not the same as working from a central office, and it requires new management approaches and new ways for workers to work together to achieve results. If managers do not know how to manage teams or groups in such new work environments, they may fail to lead their teams/groups to success. Understanding the concept of virtual group coaching and its application will help them enhance team or group dynamics and increase performance.     

Areas Covered in the Session

• Introduction
  
  • Opening poll
  • Overview of the session
  • Session objectives
  • Session organization
  • About the presenter
• What Is Virtual Group Coaching, and Why Should You Care?
  
  • Overview of Part II
  • Defining virtual coaching, virtual group coaching and virtual coaching to improve group relationships
  • Virtual chat
  • Distinguishing virtual coaching from process consultation 
  • Explaining the importance of group dynamics in group performance
  • Reviewing the characteristics of high performance virtual groups and teams
  • Activity
  • Activity debrief
• What Approach Can Guide Use of Virtual Group Coaching?
  
  • Overview of Part III
  • Reviewing a model to guide virtual group coaching
  • Activity
  • Activity debrief
• Summary and Final Q & A
  
  • Session summary
  • Final questions and answers

Who Will Benefit

• Executives,
• Managers
• Team leaders
• Employees
• HR/OD practitioners who are responsible to enhance virtual and/or hybrid teams/groups dynamics or create productive virtual/hybrid work culture