Building Stronger Virtual Teams: Experimental Insights on Social Capital report published
03/09/2024
The Cambridge Ahead Young Advisory Committee (YAC) has published its latest report Building Stronger Virtual Teams: Experimental Insights on Social Capital. This report builds on the YAC’s previous research in this area which suggested that young workers are choosing to go into their workplace more often than required by their employer. A potential driver of this behaviour is the social capital offered by the physical workplace and team environment.
Social capital is the network of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, allowing that society to function effectively. This report suggests that in order to support these connections, individuals need both socio-cultural awareness and knowledge awareness. With the continued shift to virtual and hybrid working arrangements, understanding practical ways to support this changing work environment, while maintaining opportunities to build social capital, is an important area of research for the YAC, particularly in Cambridge's knowledge intensive economy. Social capital is emerging as a significant focus area for businesses and their employees.
The YAC’s latest report seeks to explore how social capital can be developed in the virtual work environment. As part of this research, the YAC designed a series of exercises to be delivered through an online workshop to explore different methods of enhancing socio-cultural and knowledge awareness in a virtual setting. The workshop took place in early summer 2024 and was well received by participants.
“Building social capital has become harder since the advent of hybrid working, with less face-to-face time. Taking time to reflect on how social capital can be built in the flow of work in different ways through the use of virtual platforms was a valuable and thought-provoking exercise, both from a management and a personal perspective.” – Workshop participant
Through delivering the workshop, the YAC was able to identify learnings and practical takeaways for enhancing virtual working. These included:
- Encourage interactive and fun interactions – such as icebreakers, virtual coffee breaks and casual team catch ups
- Promote personal sharing – these can help build deeper connections and mutual understanding
- Balance work tasks with social interactions – factor in time for social interaction in work tasks, these help to maintain strong relationships and team cohesion
- Manage complexity to ensure engagement – providing support and check ins to help maintain engagement, as well as ensuring tasks assigned are clear and manageable can support team members to feel comfortable
- Build on progressive familiarity – foster regular, consistent interactions to help team members to get to know each other
About the Young Advisory Committee
The Young Advisory Committee (YAC) is made up of under-35s across Cambridge Ahead member organisations. It seeks to empower younger people to be part of the decisions which will determine the future of Cambridge. In April 2020, the YAC formed a subgroup to explore the future of flexible working, in the context of the drastic changes underway for many young workers in Cambridge due to the pandemic. Across the past four years, this group of young professionals have surveyed their peers living and working in Cambridge about a range of issues related to the changing nature of work including wellbeing, productivity, and relationships with co-workers, establishing a strong basis of evidence to inform decision makers among Cambridge Ahead’s business, academic and research network.