Telecommuting: Managing a Mobile Workforce

Remote employees are becoming more common as companies explore the benefits of telecommuting. Between 40 percent and 70 percent of the U.S. workforce consists of remote employees. Managing a mobile workforce requires rethinking traditional management strategies.

Not everyone is suited to telecommuting. Employees best suited to telecommute are self-motivated workers with proven productivity and reliability histories.

Just as not everyone can telecommute, so too are some types of work a bad fit for a mobile workforce. The jobs best suited to telecommuting focus in information and include:

Managing a mobile workforce can be difficult. Remote employees are, to a certain extent, out of sight, and some employees may take advantage of this. When a telecommuting employee claims to be sick or claims to have worked a set number of hours, how do you determine if they are telling the truth? Managers should offer telecommuting positions only to individuals they trust.

Communication is vital when managing a mobile workforce. Both remote employees and managers have to maintain regular contact, whether by e-mail, instant messaging or phone calls. Regular communication helps prevent misunderstandings about workload, deadlines and project expectations.

When managing a mobile workforce, how much access do you give remote employees to the company network? Clear guidelines for what areas of the network telecommuting employees can access should be determined before telecommuting starts.

Other considerations that newcomers to managing a mobile workforce need to consider include:

Given the challenges of managing a remote workforce, what are the benefits? An employee who telecommutes is not taking up office space, allowing companies to save costs by operating out of smaller areas.

Telecommuting can also maintain company morale and employee relations. Working from the home can solve transportation or caregiver problems for some employees. A company that allows at least partial telecommuting will be seen as flexible and considerate of its employees' needs.

These benefits aside, hiring remote employees radically increases a company's talent pool. A telecommuting company need not be bound by local hiring shortages or lack of talent: Remote employees with the right qualifications can be found online. Some remote employees don't live in the same state, or even the same country, as their employers.

Time zones provide some interesting twists on managing a mobile workforce. When a project is due in Monday morning, is that Monday morning where the employee is or at the company's base of operations? Time zone differences are one reason employees who telecommute should be in frequent communication with managers.

Another time issue with remote employees is when, exactly, work gets done. Does a telecommuting employee have to work regular hours, or can he work during non-traditional hours?

In part, this depends on the company and the nature of the remote employee's job. A help desk operator may have to be on the job during specific hours. On the other hand, does it matter if a company brochure is written during regular work hours or in the middle of the night?

The acid test for remote employees and work hours is productivity. If the telecommuting employee can produce quality work within deadlines, many people managing a mobile workplace are willing to let the employee decide when work gets done.

As with any other new strategy, telecommuting affects employee relations and can affect office politics. Avoiding the pitfalls of office politics is actually a common reason many remote employees prefer to telecommute.

If you select individuals to telecommute from your current staff, employee relations may come into play. Employees may demand to know why certain employees are telecommuting and others are not.

One solution is to have employees interested in telecommuting apply for telecommuting positions. A clear set of qualifications for remote employees helps keep the process transparent, so all employees know how managers choose individuals for telecommute positions. This might not prevent all issues regarding employee relations but will certainly help keep channels of communication open.

Remote employees who are hired from outside the current staff pool can also affect employee relations. Non-telecommuting employees may see remote employees as threats or, conversely, as "second-class" employees. Either way, the level of cooperation that remote employees receive from in-office staff may suffer.

Communication is key to maintaining employee relations while managing a mobile workforce. Employees need to know that remote employees were carefully chosen for their qualifications but are not intended to replace current staff members.

Resources

Krotz, J. (n.d.). 7 Rules for Managing a Mobile Workforce. Retrieved October 5, 2007, from the Microsoft Web site: www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/resources/management/

employee_relations/7_rules_for_managing_mobile_workers

.mspx.

Mathias, C. (4 May 2005). Three Ways to Manage a Successful Mobile Workforce. Retrieved October 5, 2007, from the SearchCIO Web site: searchcio.techtarget.com/columnItem/0,294698,sid19_gci1083

347,00.html.

Midwest Institute for Telecommuting Education (2003). FAQ: Management Considerations. Retrieved October 5, 2007, from the Midwest Institute for Telecommuting Education Web site: www.mite.org/FAQ/faqmanaging/faqmanaging.html.