Interview with American Red Cross: Managing Virtual Workers

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I interviewed Donald Constantine, a Service Designer at the American Red Cross. The person works 100% virtually and has designed a workspace at home. In particular, Constantine can work from anywhere in the United States of America (USA). He works in the Humanitarian Services Product Management team that creates human-oriented digital experiences. His primary objective is to ensure that the available digital products can support the successful delivery of services that are required internationally. Besides, the American Red Cross is a global corporation. Constantine uses his digital experiences to create solutions and improve the existing digital products for effective service delivery. Some design thinking strategies include journey mapping, ideation, prototype testing, and service blueprinting. In addition, he investigates complicated operation-related issues and suggests, enhances, and coordinates the most appropriate solutions.
Constantine admitted that he likes working virtually since it has numerous advantages. In chapter fifteen of the Group Dynamics for Teams by Daniel Levi and David Askay, it is evident that virtual teams comprise geographically distributed people who rely on technology for team interactions to achieve their objectives. Specifically, virtuality refers to a multidimensional concept that allows team members who are geographically dispersed to use technologies to interact with each other (Levi & Askay, 2021). Constantine said that the primary advantage of working virtually is the freedom and flexibility that one gets. For example, a person cannot postpone attending to other duties from outside his state, city, or hometown. The only thing that the individual is required to do is carry appropriate information and communication technology (ICT) tools and ensure that the place that one is going has a good Internet connection. Other pros of working remotely are saving time, transportation costs, enjoying comfort, peace, and a conducive working environment, work-life balance, promoting a healthy lifestyle, and facilitating high productivity. Besides, an individual design a workspace and customize it to foster productivity. Since a person can work at any time, meeting deadlines is possible. Furthermore, ICT tools, such as Zoom, make it possible for team members to interact and discuss things that might be a hindrance to project completion. 
On the contrary, working virtually has several disadvantages that Constantine admitted to having experienced at some point. For instance, if the Internet connection is poor, one cannot have effective communication with team members. At this juncture, if an individual is facing some problems in accomplishing his tasks, it becomes extremely challenging to address them without assistance from other team members. Other challenges prone to virtual teams are high task con...