Monday, October 25, 2010

virtual reality

 

About 4 months ago my fiancé and I got a dog. As we were not engaged at the time, aside from moving in together, this was one of the first really “big steps” (as they say) in the relationship. We both knew of the obvious reasons of why this was going to be a large step for us – adding a new component of shared responsibilities, commitments, and decisions to the picture. We both fully anticipated the obvious things that come along with having a dog, such as taking him for walks every day, the chores of picking up after him, feeding him, periodic visits to the vet, etc… However, although we were aware of these things, we may not have been fully aware of the magnitude at which those activities were going to change the way that we lived our lives. Now, with that said, I can confidently say that things have changed in positive way for both of us, and we couldn’t be happier with Cooper in the mix. We have, however, had to adjust to some of the more subtle impacts of owning a dog, such as the flexibility of our schedules and having to always plan around being home for him so that he is not by himself for too long. One of the unanticipated side effects for me since I work from home was that I now have a new office mate – which can be both a good thing and a bad thing… As I was out walking Cooper yesterday, I ran into a new neighbor who introduced herself to me as we strolled by. As we chatted for a while she asked me if I worked because she always sees me out walking my dog in the middle of the day. As I explained to her that I work from home, I got a response from her that I get about 50 percent of the time when I tell people that I work from home: “I don’t know how you can do that – I could never work from home”. To this reaction I tell them, “at least you know that about yourself and/or your situation…” I usually follow up that comment by asking them why they think that they could never do [it]. The answers vary greatly ranging from personality factors to company philosophy. The fact is, working from home will not work for everyone and a lot of factors come into play that will determine the feasibility and success of the option. The obvious topics (such as whether or not your company will allow for it, if the job type is right, or if there is any desire to work from home from the employee) are the easy questions to identify and anticipate when weighing one’s decision to try the remote work model. However, the unanticipated and the unknown factors of working from home are the ones that usually end up making it tough for people. “It isn’t as easy as you might think.”  We say this time and time again to our clients and those that want to know more about how to put a successful remote work model together. The dynamics of the model and fitting it into a tradition business structure can be quite complex for both the organization and the employee, but the benefits for both parties can be great with the appropriate knowledge, planning, and preparation. When we say it isn’t easy, it isn’t just because different processes and tools are required – it also has to do with understanding the employee’s environment and anticipating the issues and challenges that employees might have adjusting to working in a remote workplace. Employees often find that working from home drives a different set of habits and behaviors than what they expected. For example, eating habits may change due to having constant access to your own kitchen, the amount of physical exercise that you no longer get from walking through a large building, water cooler social interactions have a different setting, and drawing work-life boundaries can be a challenging when your home is where you work and vice versa. Companies that are aware of these factors can incorporate them into their management strategies and tactics and can help employees adjust by making them aware of the challenges and providing tips and direction on how to address them effectively. Virtualwirks is helping organizations manage these aspects of the remote work model more effectively not only by helping them recognize and understand the differences but identifying solutions that address these factors. Some of the solutions are complex process adjustments, and others are a simple as giving the employees more guidance on how to combat the unanticipated differences. One of the best tips that we give employees that work from home is to get out of the house at least once every day – if only for a short while. This became a reality to me after getting a dog as it got me out of the house multiple times a day just to take him for a walk. I felt the improvements to my productivity increase immediately as it forced me to take a bit of my own advice and step away a few times a day to clear my head. I knew when we picked Cooper up from the shelter that I was gaining a best friend, but I didn’t know that I was getting a new office partner that would help me be more productive, as well.
 

–Tadd

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

In a manner of speaking…

Do you remember your parents or grandparents telling you to “mind your manners” when you were a kid?  I was always baffled by what they took for poor manners – c’mon, what really is the difference between my elbows and my forearms when it comes to the edge of the table – but recently I’ve begun to think about this topic with a little more fervor.   Having just returned from 2 international trips in the last month, I am again struck by the differences in manners among the societies I have been in; and I find myself sounding a lot like those older folks wondering what has happened to manners in places like the US and UK.  In Japan, for example, they still queue to get on trains and buses, still willingly letting a person step in front if the arrival in line is a tie, and still keep one of the world’s largest cities amazingly clean.  When I posed the question as to how this could be on Facebook (a whole different discussion on manners), one of my friends replied that the difference is pride.

 Maybe it is especially acute as I write today, having just been through an airport where I can’t help but wonder why those who fly seem to lose all concept of decorum with their fellow passengers and the airline workers, and having just read an article about how smartphones make it easy and seemingly acceptable to be late to anything provided we text or email that we are.  What about the idea of e-mail manners, such as when to use – or not use – reply to all?  We have a client who refuses to reply to all, and yet another who replies to all when telling jokes or hurling  caustic electronic comments.  Maybe I’m becoming those parents and grandparents, but I can’t help but desire a world where I can go to the movies without people on the phones, fly on a plane without somebody’s diva-like temper tantrums, disagree on matters of policy without someone being “offended” and still have it be OK to hold the door for someone.  So Jim, what in the name of all that is proper does this have to do with virtual working?  Quite a lot, actually.

 People who work virtually have a strong interest in thinking about – and adjusting to – the manners of others.  In fact, when you work outside of the traditional office environment, it becomes even more important to think about how you interact with others and how you need them to interact with you; and then you can adjust accordingly.  When we don’t see people in person, body language is out of the equation but tone, inflection and the sound of the voice is.  When we communicate more through text, e-mail and other e-means, we need to be ever more vigilant about how we come across.  It means we have to take time to think about things from points of view beyond on own.  When we have instant access to getting our thoughts sent in an e-mail, a text,  a tweet, or a status we risk missing the luxury of taking a precious few minutes to stop, take a deep breath and reconsider whether what we want to say or do is really appropriate. At the end of it all, not everything that enters our head deserves to be posted.  Those who work remotely get this.  They have to, because to compromise it means they compromise the very nature of remote work itself.   Seems like that’s yet another reason I am so passionate about this remote work stuff.  It has the potential to make us better people.

This may seem like a preachy rant, and maybe it is.  If so, challenge me on it through your observations, comments and questions.  Remember it’s OK to disagree; just mind your manners.

 – Jim

Thursday, September 16, 2010

opposites attract

 

Recently Jim and I received some feedback from a client who commented on how we have such different styles, skills, capabilities, strengths and mindsets between the two of us – which seems to have made for a very strong partnership and an enabling characteristic for what we do. Feedback from clients is always appreciated especially when it has such a positive undertone to it. However, the perspective wasn’t anything earth-shattering for either of us – we have had discussions with one another on numerous occasions about just that and it is something that we deliberately try to leverage in driving the decisions behind most everything that we do. To avoid saying that we are completely different, we do share many similarities in our capabilities, as well.  Our dynamic, though, has allowed us to be flexible, nimble, and think about things from many different perspectives which have enabled us to grow virtualwirks in ways that we may not have originally intended or thought. I write about this in this post not to blow our own horn, but to draw upon this as a parallel between two completely different business models that, when paired together, can deliver breakthrough accomplishments. Of course I am talking about virtual and premise based workforces – it is, after all, what we focus on and specialize in. Contrary to a lot of common misconceptions, having a large remote workforce requires a much different approach, skill set, resources, etc. than that of a premise based model. Both have their advantages and disadvantages in terms of some of their characteristics and each may be used to accomplish different objectives. One concept that is most commonly overlooked by organizations about the two is how they can work together to generate and elevate positive outcomes for a common objective in ways that are difficult – if not impossible – to achieve through the utilization of one or the other in solitude. For example companies have successfully leveraged part time employees to help balance and flex resources with the demands of the business to dramatically improve profitability while leveraging premise based full-time employees to fit the demands of the more static environment. This differs from more traditional mixtures of full and part-time models because the company is able to scale the business resources up or down without having to invest in or repurpose other assets such as facilities and equipment. You can really start to see trends in business shifting in this direction across many industries and job types as it is becoming more apparent about the gains that can be realized. Contact centers, for instance, have really started to invest heavily in this capability in order to not only save millions of dollars in capital on facilities, rent, and equipment, but to be able staff employees more efficiently during time of high call volumes such as lunch hours and evening when consumers have time in their day to take care of such tasks. Using part time employees that work from home, contact centers can staff employees for shorter shifts that fit into small pockets of high demand. The challenge that a lot of organizations run up against in trying to achieve this sort of flexibility is that it really isn’t as easy as just sending employees home with a computer and a VPN connection. When deploying a remote workforce on a large scale deliberate planning, processes, and tools need to be in place to really capture the full potential in the model. In addition to that challenge, companies often fail to realize the potential that remote work process have for their bricks and mortar operations, as well, and so they miss out on a large part of the return on their investment when pricing out  and considering the costs to develop a remote workforce model. For example, much of the recruiting processes and tools that are necessary to hire employees without ever physically meeting them are much more efficient because of things like electronic paperwork, signatures, and data processing. In many brick and mortar based hiring practices, these things are done through paper intensive and manual processes that cost money and time to complete. These practices that are critical and essential to a remote based model can be adopted and deployed through the rest of the organization to drive greater gains in efficiency and productivity… However, they are often overlooked when the numbers are getting crunched for expected rates of returns on capital investment. We are proud to say (and I will blow our own horn here) that Virtualwirks has successfully aided companies in finding and realizing the gains in a good marriage between the two models. It is difficult and will challenge employees to think and manage the business in less traditional ways, but when invested in and pursued properly (which I cannot stress enough) it can really produce breakthrough achievements for the entire organization.

–TADD