When working virtually, a new study says that you should know more about your coworker's professional background than personal life.

A new study from the University of Connecticut says that knowing more about a colleague’s professional history is more helpful for creating a successful virtual team than knowing details about his or her personal life. The study says that personal details can damage the success of a virtual team.

Virtual teams are becoming more popular in workplaces around the world. As technology grows, more companies are opting to hire people to work remotely, or even allowing in-office employees to work from home a few days a month. Virtual teams can include people working remotely, and even employees that work together in an office but communicate mainly via email or chat.

"Unfortunately, even when you put the very best people on virtual teams, studies have borne out that they don't perform as well on complex and ambiguous tasks as in-person work groups," says Lucy Gilson, head of the UConn management department. "It seems meeting face-to-face, even once, improves the work dynamic."

The study found that professional familiarity is key to a successful virtual team. When employees on a team know more about their coworker’s professional backgrounds, they know what to expect from their coworkers and when they should weigh in.

Managers need to build strong relationships within their virtual teams. This includes extensive knowledge about each other’s skills, knowledge and abilities. This information leads to a higher quality of work and also more collaboration.

"For managers, I think the message is that virtual tools give you options, but be careful to pick the right media for your team to get the job done," said John Mathieu, a board of trustees distinguished professor of management at UConn and the Friar Chair of Leadership & Teamwork. "It is always best for people to get to know each other before they launch a joint project."

With virtual work, employees tend to not communicate with each other about any challenges they are facing during the project. On the other side, working together in person usually leads to employees talking more about the project and finding a solution to issues that pop up. It is important that managers encourage their employees to communicate more with each other when working virtually. One way to overcome this issue is to enable employees to know more about each other’s personal history. Employees who know that a coworker has experience with a certain area that they are struggling with are more likely to reach out for help.

To test their theory, the team surveyed employees at an international supply chain company. This company has employees located in 23 places and 10 countries. They surveyed 363 people from 68 teams within the company. The surveys had questions about colleagues' professional stats and more personal questions about their teammates. The survey asked leaders to evaluate their teams and rate how likely they are to work with this team again.

"Familiarity among teammates doesn't always work the way you'd expect it," Mathieu said, "We want teams that function well and are efficient. We found that those that were professionally familiar did well."

The study was published in Group and Organization Management.