Jade is the team leader for training and development at HRGO, a human resources outsourcing firm that provides a variety of human resources services to other companies. Among these services are payroll administration, job evaluation, employee benefits, and training and development. To reduce real-estate costs as well as attract a wide range of talent, HRGO relies heavily on virtual teams. As Jade says, "You can custom design a safety training program from your basement as well as in an office building."

Despite Jade's enthusiastic comments about HRGO teams working remotely, she has some concerns about how well her team is working collaboratively, and how quickly they are delivering results. When CEO Cassandra asked Jade to give her a few examples of the problems she was facing, Jade offered these scenarios:

"We had a Zoom conference last week to discuss building a brief training program in cloud computing for a client. I asked IT specialist Duff what he thought about the feasibility of the program. About two minutes into Duff's presentation Zorro, his Labrador, starts barking loudly, and won't stop. The four other members at the conference start laughing. Duff apologizes, and says that Zorro was frightened by lightning and just won't shut up. Duff said he would get back to the meeting after he calmed down Zorro.

"Next, I asked Melissa if she had assembled the information from the client about which aspects of cloud computing were the most important for their business. Melissa said she hadn't made much progress because she needed some background information that Duff and Lisa (another virtual team member) had not yet provided her.

"Duff was still trying to calm down Zorro, so I asked Lisa when she was going to provide Melissa the input she needed. Melissa said that it has been difficult for her to get momentum going as she works from her kitchen table in Burlington, Vermont. She also mentioned that the only time she hears from me or any other team member is when they think she is late with her input.

"I then focused in on Troy to see how far along he was in laying out the modules for the cloud-computing training program. Troy said he had laid out the format but without input from the other team members, the format was only a skeleton.

"At this point in our Zoom conference I was getting a little frustrated, so I made a suggestion for picking up team spirit. I asked the group if a virtual team happy hour next Friday afternoon would work. I heard a lot of cheers, but then we got into a ten-minute discussion about having a happy hour across three time zones. We finally settled on 4 p.m. U.S. Central Time even if it meant our west coast member having a few beers in the middle of the workday."

What suggestions can you offer Jade for developing a more effective virtual team?

What role might a virtual happy hour have in building team spirit and collaboration?

The barking dog incident may be humorous, but it is a frequent problem with virtual meetings. Any suggestions for dealing with Zorro?