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Send workers home to boost productivity

Written by: Larry Mandelberg

Article Overview: No, I'm not talking about getting rid of the deadwood, I'm talking about telecommuting and a virtual workforce. Think about it. Fewer bodies, less space, lower rent. What else don't you need? Well, electricity, heat, air conditioning, water, paper, phone, fax, copier, pens, notepads...you get the idea. It's time to cross that chasm and send your people home! Let's get your staff working remotely and watch your margins AND productivity soar!

Send workers home to boost productivity

While organizations scramble to balance overworked staff and the increasing demands of a slowly building recovery, telecommuting is shifting from novelty to necessity.

According to a survey conducted by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) in 2008, “Companies that give their workers the option of telecommuting are benefiting from greater productivity, lower costs, more options for finding and retaining qualified staff and improved employee health.“

While the concept of managing virtual workers can have negative connotations, the aging of generation Y and advent of millennial workers are impacting the workplace in profound ways. These workers are demanding control over their personal work-life balance and are willing to leave their employers if they don’t get it…even in this economy.

The good news is that if you do it right, your organization will benefit greatly by reducing turnover, improving morale and increasing productivity - without increasing costs. In fact, costs are often reduced.

The successful creation of virtual positions in your organization has three key aspects.

Operational

Look at all the things your organization is doing operationally and determine whether those activities must be done in a central location or if they can be done remotely through electronic connectivity. Identify the jobs and tasks that are well suited to being done electronically.

Shifting a position, or part of a position from in-house to virtual requires a number of actions to ensure all parties benefit. The two most important are establishing clear ‘virtual work’ policies and procedures and creating hardware and software support mechanisms.

Compliance must be handled up front to ensure you're obeying all laws and minimizing potential liability. Wage and hour laws, OSHA, Workers’ Compensation, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Leave of Absence policies are just a few of them.

Virtual work also requires a different approach to confidentiality and protection of proprietary information. Discrimination is another area to be careful of as it's easy to unwittingly create a virtual work policy that discriminates even though there was no intent to do so.

Financial



While the creation of virtual work programs can appear to be a lot of work, setting them up is a one time activity while the benefits last for years.

Virtual employees need no centralized space, so office space requirements shrink with every task that transitions to virtual. Besides physical space, virtual workers don’t use electricity, heat or air conditioning.

A virtual workforce reduces demand for direct supervision leading to a reduction in middle management and fixed overhead.

One of the most often overlooked benefits is reduction of turnover. Studies have consistently shown that the reason most employees leave their job is an inability to develop a good working relationship with their manager. Working virtually changes the entire managerial paradigm and eliminates the opportunity for the type of friction often cited as the reason for these poor relationships.

Managing a virtual workforce does require some different skills. But these skills are quickly learned and implemented by competent managers which lead to yet another benefit.

Developing a virtual program also helps weed out the least efficient managers while increasing the skills of the best ones. Fewer managers can then provide oversight and accountability for larger groups of workers thereby creating a greater return on all management level positions - another bottom line bonus (blb)!

The simplest way to think about implementing a virtual position for your organization is:

• Diminishing up front one time setup costs

• Ongoing reduction of overhead and labor costs through economies of scale

• Increased profitability resulting from increased productivity.

Cultural



Perhaps the greatest benefit of a virtual program is the positive emotional changes that result from eliminating micro-management and trusting workers to deliver the results they were hired to deliver.

Most companies that have tried virtual positions benefit from fewer internal politics and better relationships among coworkers. Having a virtual element in an organization promotes concise and precise communications resulting in fewer mistakes (a phenomenon often attributed to less socializing in the office).

The subtly of these benefits can hide their far reaching effects. It becomes easier to hire better people and more difficult for underachievers to survive. In other words, it helps to elevate the internal sense of quality and pride throughout the organization.

Bottom Line



Telecommuting has grown strong roots and is going to be a part of your future if you want to stay in business. You won’t be able to avoid it much longer and there’s certainly nothing you can do to stop it. Telecommuting is coming to a place near you. The decision you will be forced to make is not if, but when to start implementing it. Is now the time to get started?

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Article Tags: bottom line, productivity, telecommute, virtual, worker, workforce



Related Forum Posts
Re: Question of the Week: What's your favorite productivity tool - I've heard of it - a few bloggers I follow have mentioned it - but I haven't applied it religiously. The core of the message is to block out time that you can get to work without being interrupted. I'll divide my day into 90 minute chunks to focus on key tasks and I've found it to be a very effective way to boost my productivity. If you do decide to use it, let us know the results David!
Re: Balancing Your Man & Business - One issue is the same women face with little kids, if they run home based businesses. If you work out of your home, your man, or your kids, think you don't really work, and its okay to interrupt because it's "only them." But it actually is a major distraction to try to be doing some creative work and having your family coming at you all the time. Boundaries for home workers need to be set, and no guilting them out of it!
Re: Should you hire ambitious workers or employees with no goals - I don't have any permanet workers now. I outsourced everything now to freelancers. I have many workers in the past and most them are ambitious which affect my business
Home Office definition by the IRS - [quote:2k4jkkcd]If you have a business that can be run from home and have limited client traffic (the city or county can have issues with that), then definitely go for it[/quote:2k4jkkcd] The US government, in its never-ending attempts to squeeze as much money out of us workers as possible, has certain restrictions for home offices - if you want to deduct the room for tax purposes. (If you don't try to deduct it, it doesn't matter.) I'd advise anyone who does deduct for a home office to look into it very carefully. The entire room must be used as an office and nothing else, or it will be disallowed . (At least, that's what it was like a couple of years ago. Of course the IRS does have a tendency to change rules every year... but I doubt if they'd loosen up on the requirement. Tighten it, if anything. I've always worked from home - but never been able to go the "itemized deduction" route even if I'd wanted to. I speak only of what I know about the US. Inhabitants of other countries should of course consult their own tax codes.
Franchises in Texas... - I wonder if any Home Depots are going to open in Houston and environs to take care of rebuilding the city and suburbs? At the very least, it will probably be a boon for construction and home repair workers.... and scammers too, of course.


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