Virtual offices are a popular flexible workspace option, providing businesses with a physical address and the benefit of office-related services without the long-term commitment and higher cost of renting a more traditional office space.

As a start-up or small business, a virtual office can be a great way of keeping costs down, whilst still providing staff with access to meeting rooms, day offices, and helpful services such as call answering and mail handling.

For larger, or more established businesses looking to expand or test a new site, virtual offices can help establish a presence within a new market, city, or targeted geographical area with a professional, often prestigious address.

Employees can work from anywhere but can still have access to certain services, meeting rooms, or office space when needed.

While there are many reasons why companies may opt for a virtual office, making the most of its benefits is crucial to aiding productivity, and efficiently managing remote or virtual teams.

Remote workers and virtual teams are on the rise

Cutting-edge business technology allow more organisations to break free of geographical barriers. Thanks to this, hybrid, virtual and remote working are gaining in popularity. It’s now estimated that 16% of companies in the world work remotely.

By leveraging the benefits that come from working remotely and accessing a global talent pool, companies can now seize unprecedented opportunities. This includes better collaboration between remote employees, no matter where they're located.

According to research, 84% of workers who worked from home during the pandemic plan to adopt hybrid working. This makes accommodating hybrid teams more important than ever.

How to get the most out of virtual offices

The right virtual office environment can have a powerful effect on work performance. It's essential to create a working environment that encourages remote team building. This includes making anyone in your virtual team feel supported and focused while promoting a healthy work-life balance.

Whether you've recently made the switch to a virtual office, or you're already set up, here are our top tips for making the most of your virtual office.

1. Communication style

Communication is key for any virtual team. With a range of supportive messaging and video-conferencing tools and platforms available, such as Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Zoom and Slack; keeping your online team connected has never been easier.

Look to implement the right tools to help ensure your employees can stay in touch, and arrange video calls, phone calls or virtual meetings when required.

Taking advantage of the access to meeting rooms and day offices that many virtual office packages include is another great way to maintain healthy team communication. They also help bring remote teams together to benefit from face-to-face catch-ups, collaboration, and equally important, in-person social engagement.

Identify opportunities to come together in person by utilising bookable meeting rooms at your established virtual business address.

Putting remote communication guidelines in place to promote and protect work-life balance for your teams will also help your employees switch off and enjoy downtime outside of working hours.

2. Structure and routine

Managing remote teams isn't always easy. Creating a structure for the workday that allows for flexibility whilst maintaining clear communication can help. This ensures your team has the autonomy they need to succeed wherever they're working.

To help keep track of your virtual team, be sure to put structure and routine in place to schedule and keep track of where employees will be working from on which days, and establish a clear structure to maintain communication.

It can be extremely beneficial for virtual team building to establish weekly 1-2-1s, morning stand-up calls (or at the end of the day), and regular check-ins. However you decide to implement regular yet productive communication, this should be tailored around the needs of your employees, and the wider business.

Once hybrid and remote employees know exactly when and where they should be working, and how they will keep in touch, you can rest assured that projects will flow more seamlessly.

3. Tools and technology to support remote employees

Establishing a virtual office can be an exciting step for most businesses. It’s especially important from a remote working perspective to be set up well for success from day one, and this heavily depends on all employees having the right technology infrastructure in place, whether they’re working from home, or at office locations.

From reliable, high-speed WiFi, to the right devices, software and tools to support both tasks and communication, this must be in place, and staff are sufficiently trained in its use, to support them in carrying out everyday tasks and managing their workload.

To keep track of projects within a remote team, consider virtual project management tools such as Monday, Asana, Trello, or Zoho Projects. These can help make remote working, and virtual office management easier and less intrusive.

4. Minimise distractions

Many things can distract employees, whether working remotely or in the office. This can be anything from uncomfortable furniture, and inadequate tools or software, to a noisy environment, or poor lighting that can cause eyestrain and headaches.

To ensure your remote team is working productively, look to see where you can optimise their workspace. If employees are struggling to work from home, consider looking into coworking spaces close to home. Or, encourage collaboration more often in a meeting space.

You may be able to support employees with the sourcing or provision of ergonomic furniture, computer screens or other supportive devices.

5. Company culture

Company culture is shaped by a collective set of symbols, stories and beliefs that are unique to a business. Even if your teams adopt hybrid working or work fully remotely, it is still possible, and indeed important, to cultivate an environment where these core elements thrive.

To get your virtual team off on the right foot, build core business values that showcase behaviours you'd like to see within your organisation. Make it as clear and engaging as possible, as this will help to embed and support its success.

Establishing an atmosphere of balanced collaboration and camaraderie can directly influence a company's success. Crafting the perfect virtual workplace environment encourages employees to feel supported. It will also support a business's growth and business objectives.

6. Socialisation and mental well-being

There are some aspects of a physical office space that cannot be as easily adapted for virtual teams. For example, casual or more spontaneous brainstorming sessions provide an element of social interaction throughout the day.

Working remotely has its own set of challenges, and at first, these can be difficult to adjust to. Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to support the adaptation to remote working and the mental well-being of virtual teams.

These include frequent virtual team meetings and the encouragement of virtual communication in more casual ways. Take the idea of connecting with colleagues with virtual coffee breaks, or organise a weekly lunch and learn for an added opportunity to socialise.

For hybrid teams, team leaders can encourage team building in the office (or remotely). Examples of this kind of collaboration, even within virtual office space, include game events, online quizzes, virtual break rooms, and daily snapshots.

7. Meeting scheduling

Meetings can often be one of the biggest distractions in a remote team's workday, especially those without an agenda. To ensure meetings remain productive and focused, here are our top tips:

• Give people time to prepare: If there's a group discussion to be had, try not to drop a meeting invite on remote teams at the last minute. This risks them feeling unprepared, or causes undue stress, which leads to an unproductive meeting.
  
• Make sure you have an agenda: To ensure a beneficial meeting, stay on topic and know exactly what you need to cover. Make sure agenda points are relevant to all participants or limit meeting attendees to only those who need to be there. You can always plan for a note-taker to capture discussion points and share them with wider teams.
  
• Keep to a timeframe: Your virtual team likely has a lot of work to do day-to-day. So they can remain productive, continue to meet any deadlines, and keep to an allocated amount of time.

8. Invest in security

No matter the size or industry, business security should always be a top priority. Taking extra measures can help to keep your data and information safe.

For virtual teams, discourage employees from using public WiFi if working from a cafe or public space. Alternatively, you can ask them to use a VPN.

You can even look into providing workspace memberships to your remote teams. This way, they have access to secure and professional offices, coworking spaces, business lounges or meeting rooms to work from.

Key Takeaways

The number of remote workers and virtual teams is on the rise as technological advances make it easier than ever to connect with colleagues no matter where they are in the world.

There are many benefits to choosing a virtual office, including enhanced productivity, better work-life balance and greater access to desirable markets, and industry talent. If you're thinking of making the switch to a virtual office, there are lots of ways you can set yourself up for success.

However, even when using a virtual office, you may still need access to a physical space to work from. This can include booking meeting rooms for client meetings, visiting day offices to make use of their excellent facilities, or joining a coworking space to network with fellow professionals.

You can even make use of a Regus membership, which grants access to centres all around the world. Even if you work primarily with a virtual office, a membership grants flexibility to work with a wealth of benefits. These range from access to Regus lounges and centres to invitations to regular networking events.

Once you have everything in place, you'll be ready to enjoy all the benefits that come with working from a virtual office. Speak to an expert at Regus today and find a virtual office solution that is perfectly suited to your business needs.