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Out of Office

Legions of remote workers create opportunities and concerns for businesses.

by Elizabeth Millard

It’s no longer unusual for employees to take the office with them, whether that means on the road, at home or just in their pockets. Mobile devices have allowed many people to unplug from their workstations and access company resources wherever there’s an Internet connection, creating a decentralized work force that’s running at all hours.

This shift in business culture is made possible by technological advances. Improved functionalities such as faster processing speed, GPS capability, larger memory stores and robust applications make it increasingly realistic for organizations to have a legion of remote workers and to offer more flexible work schedules.

The potential benefits to businesses are many. Greater mobility can help with employee retention as more people like to be untethered, but it also aids an enterprise to stay nimble through being “always on.” Questions can be answered at any hour, which is a boon in a global economy where customers might be 12 time zones away. Having fewer in-office staff members can also reduce expenses as organizations downsize their office space.

Such advantages have led companies to increase their mobile capabilities and turn more of their cubicle dwellers into on-the-go employees. According to IDC’s “Worldwide Mobile Worker Population 2007-2011 Forecast,” this demographic could exceed 1 billion, or 30% of the global work force, by 2011. This is up from 758.6 million in 2006.

Many staff members remotely access information from a data warehouse, since an application can “push” the data to a mobile device. Likewise, content, including reports, calculations, charts, sales contacts and schedules, can be pushed back from the employee. Remote workers don’t have to physically sync up with an office machine for data warehouse information to be updated, creating an environment in which data can be refreshed quickly.

Change brings challenges

As with any major change in doing business, there are challenges, particularly for executives who need to keep pace with technology while keeping management fundamentals in place. It isn’t enough to give employees a laptop and send them home to work. To tap into the promise of mobility, leadership must implement a comprehensive strategy that includes training, goal setting and support services.

Although technical issues must be addressed—such as creating a strong technical support infrastructure and making sure in-house applications function on devices—for many organizations, the greatest challenges may be in developing an effective management framework that harnesses mobility’s power without creating a fractured, unmanaged work force.

“You need to be able to trust employees when they’re out of the office, but the employees also have to trust you—that you’re putting enough structure in place that it supports them,” says Scott Morrison, an analyst at Gartner. “If you have strong management practices that take advantage of the best aspects of telework, rather than simply policing employee use, then a remote work force can be a huge company advantage.”

Stay connected

Some traditional management tactics will always be relevant, no matter where employees are based. Strategies like rewarding productivity, evaluating progress and setting goals are standard in any industry and every department. But when they extend to remote workers, those policies can create unique challenges.

Perhaps one of the most common difficulties relates to the manager/employee connection. Although text messages and e-mails may be frequent, the lack of personal contact can create a sense of distance, Morrison says. Also, some remote workers may be on different schedules, since one of the advantages of mobile technology is the ability to work at any hour in any time zone, and this can affect reaction time to pressing issues.

Another consideration is that not all employees are well-suited to this work style, especially if they’re completely mobile and lack an in-office space. “The trouble many times is that people who telework suffer from isolation,” Morrison says. “They don’t get the decompression of the water-cooler chat, and for many personality types, that’s a problem. People that might be extremely creative and productive in the office suddenly find themselves adrift at sea when they work from home.”

Even when employees are enthusiastic about working remotely, defining and tracking productivity can be a sticking point for managers. Traditionally, companies use workplace attendance as one measure of productivity, but with mobile employees, other factors such as output must replace that metric.

Technical support

Technical aspects must be addressed as well. Data management, for example, can be tricky, because it requires greater security controls, policies for sharing and access, and well-articulated principles about data collection.

An organization must also ensure security and privacy if workers are to access company data remotely, and this requires the input of IT with technical resources. It also necessitates contributions from other departments, such as human resources, to make sure employees are following directives about technology use. Job candidates should even be screened for mobile-friendly personality traits, such as being a self-starter.

A remote work force relies heavily on the data warehouse, Morrison notes, since that repository of organizational information is crucial for an employee’s daily operations. Therefore, managers need greater data warehouse functionality and reporting to determine productivity levels, craft projects that might extend across departments, and produce detailed analysis and reporting. Potholes in the highway between remote workers and the data warehouse can significantly slow business intelligence (BI) efforts and hinder productivity.

Management strategies

The first step in developing cohesive mobile policies is the creation of a “mobile center,” Morrison advises. This might involve hiring one person to direct remote working efforts, but it will more likely be a multi-department committee that meets regularly to look at what types of short-term and long-term goals are being met through the use of mobile technology.

This centralized team should train managers in developing effective definitions of productivity and revisit those parameters often to make sure they’re realistic. Morrison notes that productivity in a remote work force often is measured through specific deadlines and results that are reported frequently, sometimes on a weekly basis.

“Typically, it helps to have a trial period of six months to create best practices around a remote work strategy,” he says. “It’s important to have a structured approach in launching a system, and for that, you need a telework center of excellence.”

Only by tracking results over a period of months can an organization determine whether an approach is advantageous. Sometimes, it simply doesn’t work or requires a significant overhaul. A trial period can help pinpoint the needed changes to a company’s remote work force strategy.

For example, a company might find that remote employees are not using data warehouse functionality as well as they could or as frequently as those who work in the office. They might be slow to extract necessary data or manage metadata, even though they’ve been quick to do so when in the office. In that case, an organization needs to examine whether employees are causing the delay because of dissatisfaction with remote working or if the access policies in place are too onerous or confusing to allow for proper data management. If the employees are the challenge, organizations should refine their hiring practices, carefully choosing individuals with the temperament and desire to work remotely. “There has to be an emotional connectedness with the organization, and a mobile employee needs to be able to achieve that even if they’re physically separate from their team members,” says Morrison.

In boosting these efforts, high-level executives need to be part of the mix as well, Morrison notes. At many companies, remote workers access data, trade messages and use enterprise-ready social networking tools like microblogs but must use the telephone to connect with senior management. Having everyone participating, even those who are office-bound, creates a stronger culture and reduces the sense of isolation remote workers feel, Morrison notes. Social networking applications that have security controls can replicate an in-person office environment and make mobile team members feel more connected to one another and the company.

Finally, technical oversight, which is often the domain of the IT department, should be uppermost in managers’ minds. “There’s a security hazard whenever someone is accessing the data warehouse from the outside,” says Morrison. “There are all sorts of problems that suddenly crop up without warning, and that’s why you need to involve people from all areas of the company, like legal, IT, HR and finance.”

The mobile center team needs to look at device security, data access and data collection to put policies in place that protect the data warehouse. For example, some mobile devices include a remote “kill switch” so access can be blocked. This is handy if a mobile device is lost or stolen.

Making mobile work

With technical and management components working in tandem, a remote work force can be a boon for productivity and create an “always on” enterprise. Organizations can overcome potential challenges by creating a solid structure that includes productivity measurements, an executive mobile center team, social networking tools and technical oversight. While addressing the cultural and technological issues that crop up may take time, many companies find that tapping into a mobile strategy is well worth the effort.

Elizabeth Millard lives in Minneapolis and writes about business and technology.

Photography by Veer