Managing Your Staff While They Work at Home

It is a mind boggling .5 million dollar expense for a field of cubicles on the top floor of a multi-national company in Tampa where more than one hundred employees sit in front of state of the art computers – with LCD monitors and high-speed network connections. The building has five such floors plus similar installations in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles at costs of about five thousand dollars per employee work station.

Why do many think this expense is a waste? Because each employee could be at home, working in their underwear, if they wanted to. No matter whether you call it Telecommuting, Tele-working, Out-Working, Remote Staffing or Working-From-Home, this corporate strategy can lower overhead for companies whose managers know how to manage the remote staff.

Then, why don’t companies do this?

Cheryl Demas, author of “It’s a Jungle Out There and a Zoo In Here” (Warner Books, 2003), says that while telecommuting is popular with workers it hasn’t scored big with major national employers. “Even if they’ve been educated about the benefits telecommuting can have for their companies they’re still nervous. The reason is they fear their own managerial deficiencies. Managers don’t know how to manage telecommuters.”

There is a story about a department manager who enters the programmer’s room and asks, “How come every time I walk in here, you guys are playing computer games?” One programmer turns around and says, “Two reasons. The floor has carpets and you are wearing rubber soled shoes.”

EMPLOYEES LOVE IT

Working from home is very popular with workers. A recent survey on Telcoa.Org, reveals that it is the most preferred job benefit among people looking for jobs. It was preferred over health insurance! Employee regain hours of time lost in traffic and avoid frustration of commuting. With the cost of gasoline eating into the food budget, it is no wonder they like telecommuting. Not only do employees lower automotive expenses in gas, oil and tires, they eliminate tolls, traffic frazzled nerves and two hours per day (national average) lost in commuting. There’s an added benefit for women in lowered expenses for buying and cleaning career clothing.

Working at home offers great flexibility. “While research shows there are many benefits to this flexibility, including reduced absenteeism and increased productivity, managing remote workers, or ‘teleworkers’, can also present some challenges for supervisors,” writes columnist Katherine Spencer Lee of Robert Half Technology on CIO Update.com.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH OUR MANAGERS?

“Skillful management in this country is at an all time low,” says Trent D. Willet, PhD, a management expert. “American managers think that if they cannot see workers, the workers aren’t working. Antiquated thinking,” he says. “They live in the 21st century but they manage in the 19th century.”

Dr. Willett thinks managers should take a results oriented approach. “One reason for the dot.com crash was the inability of managers in high tech companies, to get anything accomplished,” he says. “They were bogged down in process. They had sizeable budgets but no talent for management. They wouldn’t set deadlines to get projects concluded on schedule.” Philip Cronin, General Manager, Australia and New Zealand at Intel Corporation put it this way, “…perhaps the biggest challenge in all this is to define the work that has to be done in terms of the outcome I need, rather than the process. After all, because a lot of the process is happening out of sight, you simply can’t micro-manage things to the same degree.”

IT IS A NATURAL FOR HIGH TECH COMPANIES

Most employees have computers at home. Most have Internet access, usually broadband. And, they probably have the same software. Why not work on their home computers?

Add to this the connectivity via email, AOL, MSN or Yahoo! instant messaging with voice and video, or MS NetMeeting and workers, a continent away, can stay very much in-touch, in-tune and remain current while working at home.

HOW TO MANAGE YOUR STAFF – WORKING AT HOME

How do you manage employees if they aren’t under the same roof? The answer is in pre-defining the desired result and setting a deadline for each project assigned to the employee.

A manager meets a programmer and wants the programmer to work from home. The manager outlines the project and determines fit and capability. Then the manager asks, “When can you get this job finished?” Time is the key to good management, the missing element that Dr. Willett spoke of. It’s management by Time.

The employee and the manager agree on a project completion time. The programmer has to commit to a date when the programmer will deliver the completed assignment. The manager knows when the company needs to have the job completed, but keeps this date confidential. If the employee offers a completion date past that date, the manager negotiates with the employee. They agree on a completion date. The manager obtains a verbal commitment for completion by the company’s deadline from the employee.

If the programmer says he can get the job done before the date the company needs it, then fine, do it. They shake hands and the employee goes home to work.

The manager must resist giving the telecommuter a phony deadline. If the deadline is Friday but the manager says Wednesday, then the manager loses credibility. It is better to give the employee a “first draft” or “first look” deadline ahead of time and then after corrections have been made, a finished project deadline date.

The programmer works at home completes the task and reports back to the manager. The manager checks the work and approves it. Then the manager gives the employee another task, negotiates with the employee for the completion date and the work goes on. This is how it is done with all employees who work from home. Put this into place and watch how production will soar!

WHAT IF THE EMPLOYEE FAILS?

Everyone is different. Not all employees can work this way. If the employee fails, the manager interviews the worker and explores the reason why the worker failed to deliver by the time he promised. Was it a freak occurrence? If so, give the employee another chance. If not, the manager can make “changes” or the manager can make project or deadline alterations. This usually doesn’t happen. Most professionals don’t need constant supervision. That is why telecommuting is so possible.

WHAT’S THE DOWN SIDE?

With management by time, there is no downside per se. If file security is an issue it will be an issue if the employee works from the office too. “Owners worried about theft will worry regardless”, says Dr. Willett. “Employees can actually steal more while working at the office than they can while working at home,” he stresses. With USB connectivity, it is easy for an employee to steal a file at the office. “If a manager is worried about an employee’s loyalty, then he needs to make changes,” Willett says.

NO MANAGING IN THE DARK!

The manager doesn’t have to be in the dark. The manager stays in touch by email and instant messaging. The beauty of this is that each method of communication offers a permanent record of the correspondence.

The manager defines the project. The manager sets a time for the employee to complete the work and the manager is available for consultation if needed.

Give the project to the employee best suited for that type of work. Determine a finish time and get the worker to commit to that schedule. The employee works at home, the manager gets the work done. There is no equipment cost to the company and everyone benefits. Now, more than ever, with the time and frustration of commuting, the high cost of gasoline, office space, utilities and equipment, it is to everyone’s advantage to have trusted professional workers abandon their office and work from home. It will help the employee and pay off big for your company.

The Best Jobs for Telecommuting

Not all jobs or professions are ripe for Remote-Staffing, but many are ideal for it. The professionals who work intellectually or independently are where you start. If someone must physically handle a tangible item, they come to work like always.

Here are suggestions.

Accounting – The accounting department sits at computers all day, let them sit at home. They have work to do, they know what to do. Just tell them when you need it. Artists, Illustrators and Designers – These creative types work better alone. Managers assign a completion date and make themselves available for follow up questions and mid-course corrections as required. Customer Service – When the cost of hiring, training and then outfitting a team of Help Desk personnel is considered, employers who get their staff to work from home can save enormous amounts of money. Coding and Medical Transcription – Coding and transcription companies are permitting even new employees to work from home. These pioneers are results oriented. Either the coder or transcriber completes the task on time. Engineers – Engineers sitting at computers who stay in touch with others, via instant messaging and email are good candidates for working from home. IT-Technical – Of the many types of IT jobs some offer greater telecommuting opportunities than others. An on-site IT technician is a Godsend to a lot of companies. Others however can operate completely online, and their help-desk technicians, programmers, or analysts, may work from home. Marketing – The creative types usually benefit from being able to work at home. Far from the noise and distraction, the marketing department seems to be even more creative. A project manager assigned to a brochure can satisfy the employer by producing equivalent work and delivering it at the employer’s timetable. Sales – Account executives can work from home. “The most effective salesman wakes up every morning and puts his feet down in his territory,” said Robert Pound, former Bostitch District Sales manager. Why? He wonders if the sales rep lives in his territory, should he drive to the office? Why have office space for people who need to be out-side making calls on customers? Give the rep a cell phone, a laptop and let them make sales calls. Sales Reps who work from homes and cars may need to come in for meetings and training sessions. Telecommunications – Jobs such as Telemarketing, Help Desks, and Customer Service are quickly gaining momentum in the telecommuting arena. New and emerging technologies, such as Voice Over Internet (VoIP) permit employers to monitor workers’ performance, keep track of the length of time they spend on calls and monitor quality. Writers – Reporters, Journalists, Technical Writers, Copywriters and Publicists don’t need to come in to the company to do their work. They have always worked alone, when and where they wanted. Lately newspapers and educational companies are beginning to realize that writers might perform better in a quiet, unrushed environment, such as their homes. Web Designers – Perhaps no other person is more “connected” to the Internet than a web designer. Do these folks really need to have someone monitoring them at every click of the mouse?

If they don’t deal with a tangible, there are many other positions in the company that offer savings to employers by letting them “phone it in”. The key is a manager who knows how to take charge, set deadlines and hold employees to those deadlines.

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