Project Overview
The COVID 19 pandemic enforces thousands of organizations in Europe and the world to work remotely. This trend is growing faster than ever and shows no sign of slowing down. It is the future of work with benefits for both employers and employees. Still, many organisations are struggling to apply good practices and routines to ensure productivity and wellbeing in their workforce during these challenging times. To make the transition as smooth as possible, those who lead remote teams need to have the skills needed to lead them effectively.
This project aims to help Leaders in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) to acknowledge the importance of digital skills and wellbeing practices in maintaining healthy and productive virtual teams.
Specific Objectives of the project are to:
Provide SMEs tools, techniques, and practical tips to help Virtual Teams.
Support leaders to lead effectively, communicate successfully and so increase the performance of their virtual/remote teams.
Equip Human Resources (HR) Professionals with the skills to improve their people’s wellbeing by adjusting their policies and procedures.
Improve the quality of work in virtual teams.
Train leaders on prioritising team building, fostering close collaboration, setting clear direction and objectives, and leveraging technology.
Train HR professionals to familiarise themselves with the IT infrastructure and available digital tools to set appropriate teleworking policies in place.
Target Groups for this project include:
- Team Leaders and Managers, including in-company training providers.
- HR Professionals, including in-company training providers and external training providers.
- Professionals with a background in psychology
- Professionals with a background in management.
- Professionals with a background in Human Resource Management.
- Professionals with a background in technology.
- E- Workers.
The project will develop the following Education Materials:
- A toolkit for virtual team leaders, HR professionals, and managers.
- In-service training course for vocational education and training (VET) professionals.
- MOOC Massive Open Online Courseware – on effective management of virtual teams.
Completed Activities of the Project
Practical and Innovative Toolkit
The first educational product produced in this project aims to develop a practical and innovative toolkit that is expected to support SMEs, team leaders, managers, HR professionals, trainers and e – Workers in adopting best practices for teleworking.
All partners have conducted focus groups and distributed questionnaires to managers and HR professionals from all the partner countries to address the needs of the target group and develop a step-by-step toolkit for effective management of Virtual Teams for enhanced employee engagement, wellbeing and productivity.
The readiness checklist and guidelines accompany the toolkit so that users know how to implement best practices in their workplace based on the needs of their employees. The toolkit was translated in all partner languages (English, French, Greek, Slovenian, Greek, Spanish) so as to ensure it is widespread and usability.
Next Steps/ Activities of the Project
In service training package course for VET professionals
Currently project partners are working on the second educational product of the project, which focusses on empowering and training team leaders, HR professionals and staff to be able to support e – workers and individuals in working remotely. CCIS with SUD CONCEPT which are experts in developing and delivering training courses for VET have the responsibility of developing the in-service training course, with the support from all partners.
The training course will include 3 sections:
- In-service training course for Team Leaders
- 2.In-service training course for HR professionals
- 3.In-service training course for e- Workers
The training course is flexible so that it can be adapted to different work contexts and support the sustainability and compatibility of the training programme in future social and learning challenges. The material will be freely accessible and downloadable via the website of the project.
Partners
- SUD CONCEPT (France)
- INSTITUTE OF DEVELOPMENT LTD (Cyprus)
- FUTURE IN PERSPECTIVE LIMITED (Ireland)
- GOSPODARSKA ZBORNICA SLOVENIJE (Slovenia)
- CENTRE FOR ADVANCEMENT OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY LTD-CARDET (Cyprus)
- ACCION LABORAL PLATAFORMA PARA LA IMPLANTACION DE PROGRAMAS DE INCLUSION LABORAL EN COLECTIVOS DESFAVORECIDOS (Spain)
- Innovation Frontiers IKE (Greece)