 Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. As-salamu alaikum. Today we are going to talk about virtual communication and its best practices. Let's see what a virtual communication is. A virtual communication is a mode of communication that includes use of technology in order to communicate with the people who are not physically available or present. There are multiple digital tools available through which you can communicate such as email, messaging apps, video conferencing. There are multiple virtual communication tools available. We normally use mobile phones, emails, instant messaging apps, video conferencing, social media platforms and project management tools. There are a few strategies that we can use in order to improve virtual communication. It is better to switch to asynchronous work environment than leverage task management, reduce the numbers of meetings, use of documentation, try to reduce the tools that you are using. Let's see what asynchronous work environment is. Asynchronous work environment does not require employers to be responsive and available at the same time. The focus of this environment is on the contribution and the goals rather than on the presence and activity. In asynchronous work environment, employers can work in their own time rather than relying on the sequential necessities. Then we have leverage task management. Leverage task management helps the communication process and the flow of information. And it impacts, is very great when it is implied. For example, when you imply project management framework and set the rules that how your instruction is going to flow, how the guidelines are given, it helps everyone in order to see that how the progress is going on, it is very transparent. There is less confusion, easily accessible information to everyone which makes the communication to the point. The next thing is the use of documentation. A strong use of documentation implies that your employers are not relying on their coworkers so much rather than they can use the documentation and get the information readily. Because sometimes when you are working in a team and you contact your coworkers who are in a different place, there can be delays that can happen. Sometimes they cannot reply on time, they are not available, maybe the internet connection is not working properly, which can affect the working. So if there are general and basic guidelines in the form of documentation, it helps the employees to easily access those information and in this way, the working will not be affected too much. The next thing is, even though we do know that meetings helps us a lot in terms of creating good interpersonal relations and it has a very positive impact on the working of a team, but sometimes the overly used and over excessive use of meetings can impact in a negative way. Why? Because in a virtual setting when you are doing so many meetings, there is a less chance of engagement and because of this, it is not that much valuable. So only have those meetings which can add value to the production and try to reduce the number to minimum in order to make productivity possible. There are few benefits of virtual communication. First thing is that it is cost effective and time saving. Since we are in a world where we have to communicate with people who are sitting far away from us and it's a global world, we need to communicate with them. So this helps us to save time a lot and it is also cost saving because we can share a larger number of data and files and instructions and information with each other in just quick span of time. It is easily accessible, it is flexible and it is also faster. That's why virtual communication and all these tools that are out there actually helps us a lot. But there are few drawbacks of virtual communication as well because first one is that there is a potential of miscommunication because when you are sitting far away from each other, there is a chance that sometimes information can be misleading. Sometimes information can be lost. People sometimes do not pay much attention to the written words as they pay attention to the spoken words. There will also be a lack of verbal cues and body language because when you are communicating with somebody who is sitting or standing in front of you, you can have the impact on how much they are grasping your point of view through their body language as well. So this is one drawback of virtual communication. But in order to summarize or sum it up, we can see that there are always pros and cons of everything but in this case, we can see that virtual communication helps us a lot. There are tools out there that are there for us to communicate and it helps us to work in a more effective and efficient way. It helps the working in that way that people communicate with each other and the working of the team or the environment is more healthy.