No doubt it is in every office , insidiously spreading its tentacles and tarnishing everything with its vitriolic touch. yes , we are talking about office politics – the modern-day office vampire – that sucks the life-giving energy out of even the most vibrant of workplaces. when a number of people are bunched together spending a large chunk of their working and waking hours in each other’s company , it is inevitable that there would be someone (or even more than one) who may be the negativity centre of the entire office.Office politics is an inevitable by-product in today’s highly competitive business world. when people are more involved in staving off the next burst of negativity or tackling damaged office relationships , obviously this is energy that is draining out from productive ventures into totally unproductive ones.Luckily , when it comes to outsourcing companies such as VirtualEmployee.com , the pioneer company that introduced the concept of the ‘virtual employee’ , office politics and such shenanigans are all left outside the threshold. The very nature of the virtual workplace insulates it from office politics! The reason for this is the unique business model of VirtualEmployee.com that simply does not permit any scope for office politics or any other non-professional behaviour that can disrupt the smooth functioning of any working environment.This is how it works:Each virtual employee works independently for just one client , unless a particular client has created small virtual team. In the case of a virtual team , the employees are guided by their immediate team leader or project manager , but still are working for just one client – in the true spirit of the VirtualEmployee.com business model. Since employees all work for a different clients from all corners of the world , there is little scope of rivalry or jealousy between employees. Each is making a significant contribution and playing an important role in the overall picture.Confidentiality is a very serious issue with all the well-established and reputed outsourcing vendors. Any disclosure of critical client information can very easily cost a virtual employee their job , no matter how good they are at their work. Knowing this prevents idle gossip.Each virtual employee works by the hour and has to put in the stipulated 8 or 9 hours for the client that was decided at the time of their hiring. Tabs are kept on their performance and output by the vendor’s vigilant HR executives , who also act as representatives of the client in their offshore location. Office politics are all about power struggles and are usually initiated by some unsatisfied co-worker who has issues with the management. The far-sighted vendors go as far as to create discussion forums where employees can vent their opinions , make suggestions and generally stave off a ‘pressure-cooker’ like situation. Transparency between the vendor’s management staff and the rest of the employees also plays an important role in warding off office politics to a major degree. Honest communication between the outsourcing service provider’s HR staff and the rest of the virtual employees is again a contributing factor towards maintaining a healthy work environment.Best of all , no employee is competing for one common reward. In other words , every client gives a performance-based reward to their respective employee and this differs from client to client and from employee to employee. So , all are working together under one roof but for different clients and that is the biggest reason why office politics can rarely rear its ugly head in a virtual work environment.
