Employees Alone Together

When the 80-person sales team of CUNA Mutual Group gets together for their annual meeting, they breakfast on juice and muffins and chat about their personal lives over cocktails. It’s a pretty run-of-the-mill team-building exercise for the diverse group of employees, who work all over the country for the lender development program at CUNA Mutual, a Madison, Wis.-based financial services provider for credit unions.

What’s innovative about the annual gathering: No one actually meets in person. The CUNA Mutual team is outfitted with webcams and Cisco’s WebEx, a software program that allows users to see as many as six other people at a time on their computer screen, share desktops and "raise their hands" to speak.

Welcome to the age of the virtual worker.

By SARAH MAX

Full Story: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204524604576611262007838444.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_careerjournal