Managing a Virtual Workforce
Tech tools can make it work
The number of virtual workers in the U.S.—full-time employees who work remotely or contractors who never leave their home offices-- has increased by 800 percent over the past five years, according to Nemertes Research, a New York-based research firm. It’s a combination of opportunity and motivation: The Internet and other communications technologies have made it possible to do many jobs from almost anywhere. And employers are driven by savings in real estate and the ability to attract or retain talented workers who happen to live in another state or prefer not to make the daily commute.
The Benefits of Going Mobile
For small businesses, the virtual workforce has many additional virtues, including providing an inexpensive way to jump into a new territory. "You don't need to shell out capital expenses for office space and staffing up," says Melanie Turek, principal analyst with Frost & Sullivan, a San Jose, Calif.-based research firm. "Instead you can put your toe in the water and test a market."
For Jason Pohl and his partners at Centric Consulting, a management consulting firm, having a virtual workforce became a competitive advantage. Without office expenses, Centric could quote lower rates to clients. "They are excited not to have to pay for our overhead," says Pohl. Also, having consultants working at client locations helped form a stronger bond, another competitive edge over larger management consultants, he says. In just five years, Centric has grown into a $20 million company with more than 200 employees--all of whom work virtually.
Establishing a mobile workforce means curbing payroll costs for Phil Montero, founder and CEO of Montero Consulting, a workplace consulting firm, and co-host of the Internet radio show "The Anywhere Office". Montero uses freelance consultants on an as-needed basis for various projects.
There are obvious pitfalls to running a company with a virtual workforce, of course. How do you keep track of everyone? How do you make decisions quickly? Experts agree that developing a strategy rooted in technology is the key to success: By utilizing the tools that are right for your business you can empower workers, connect dispersed employees and provide support for your staff.
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Communication
Start with a phone system that can keep everyone connected and make it seem to your workers and to outsiders that they are dealing with a single entity. Essentially, you want the functionality of a traditional PBX, says Montero. But you don’t want the cost and inflexibility. You can get that by using a “hosted” PBX service, for a flat monthly fee which you can use with regular phone systems and with Voice over Internet Protocols (VoIP) phone systems, also available on a flat monthly fee. Companies such as Aptela http://www.aptela.com/, promise PBX features including toll-free numbers and individual extensions, a customized greeting, employee directories, conferencing, hold music, voicemail and customer-relationship management functions, including time billing. Calls can be routed to employee cell phones or wherever they are located.
Collaboration Tools
Online collaboration tools can help employees at different locations brainstorm ideas and quickly make important decisions, without assembling everyone for a conference call or an in-person meeting. Instant messaging, for example, is now critical for many businesses, says Turek, who points out that IM forces participants to be concise and encourages rapid back-and-forth dialog.
You can use free consumer services like AOL’s AIM, but Turek advises businesses to buy off-the-shelf security programs from vendors such as Akonix, FaceTime or IMlogic. These packages offer critical antivirus protection and allow you to create professional screen names.
Blogs, listserv setups and online document storage can function as the “brains” of a virtual operation. These “knowledge-management” tools cost only around $50 per month, but permit colleagues to share their know-how and provide company-wide storage, backup and access to crucial information for the firm and its clients.
Wiki software is another option. Like Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, a private wiki (pronounced "wicky") is an electronic repository that works much like a blog—employees can read, create and edit documents that describe products or how to perform certain tasks. Or they can deposit background information that can be copied and used in client presentations and proposals. Corporate Wikis are so useful that by 2009 they will be adopted by half of all corporations, predict technololgy researchers at The Gartner Group.
There are also more robust collaboration tools such as WebEx WebOffice, which provide a central online location for viewing calendars and schedules, sharing documents, managing projects, hosting discussions and other functions that can be accessed by employees or customers via a secure intranet. These tools can be used for everything from day-to-day coordination and communication to strategic planning, and cost only about $60 per month.
"As long as these tools are secure, they are a great way for businesses to maintain control and ownership over intellectual properties instead of having the information floating around on individual's hard drives that are inaccessible to others," say Turek.
Meetings
You can’t avoid meetings altogether, but you can do better than the traditional phone-based, per-minute conference call. Online meeting programs such as Microsoft's Netmeeting support audio and video conferencing over broadband Internet connections and also allow you to share documents during the meeting using file transfers and virtual whiteboards. Multiple participants can jot notes on the board or add comments to documents. “It sure beats emailing files around and getting confused with all the different versions or attachments," says Montero.
How to Choose
The array of tech tools may seem daunting. To simplify matters, Montero suggests conducting a workflow analysis that documents three essential components: information, communication and collaboration. Ask yourself the following questions: What is the best way for employees to communicate with each other and clients? What information do we need to be able to access?
Answering these questions will help you determine the best strategies and technologies for your business. And, says Montero, don’t stint on time and money for training to make sure the technology is used properly, says Montero. Instead, consider it an investment. Otherwise your plan could backfire and you could end up doing more harm than good by hampering communication and productivity.
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