2012 Workplace Trends Report: Virtual Workforces

BRIEF: Virtual Workforces

By Arie Ball
Vice President of Sourcing and Talent Acquisition, Sodexo

In a recent study conducted by WorkSimple, (WorkSimple, 2011), 61 percent of participants surveyed believe their companies will allow more telecommuting over the next three years.

While this is terrific news for those wishing to work from their homes (or the local coffeehouse), companies must still address the implications of this growing trend - not only on business outcomes, but also on the logistics of this “new” way to work.  Can employees truly be more productive, and how can this shift happen if cultures are slow to adopt this trend?

Enabling a Virtual Workforce
Virtual teams offer a number of benefits - including the opportunity to hire the best staff regardless of their physical location.  To develop a successful virtual workforce, you must have a clear vision with specific goals to guide your employees.  In addition, you need to be prepared to focus on the tasks that are completed and goals achieved - not necessarily how they got there.

• Building a strong training and development program is important for engaging virtual employees.  From onboarding to professional training, to the regular sharing of best practices, providing consistent development opportunities for virtual employees helps support an outcome-oriented culture. 

• Deliberate communication is a key to engaging a virtual workforce.  These employees crave a constant flow of communication to help combat some of the downsides to working from home - such as feelings of isolation and being disconnected from the business, feelings of being undervalued and, not surprisingly, weight gain.  Therefore, establishing regular, intentional communication within your team is important.  Examples include weekly team conference calls and bi-weekly individual calls.

• Providing planned live meetings can be motivating, too.  Perhaps it is an annual meeting or maybe your team is close enough to meet more frequently.  Live interactions are a great opportunity to celebrate accomplishments, energize and motivate employees, and provide time to enjoy the personal company of each other.

While it is natural to connect to one another in a live workplace, you have to be intentional in a virtual environment.  It takes more effort, but it is very possible to have the same, if not greater, level of performance.  By providing training and development and online support, teams can succeed in the virtual environment.

Virtual Water Coolers & Intentional Recognition
Working virtually, there is little time to socialize with colleagues in casual conversations or hold impromptu meetings in the hall.  So, you have to build in water-cooler time. During team calls and even during one-on-one calls between supervisors and employees, scheduling time for personal musings and informal chatter is important for helping people feel that they are part of a larger team - a team that is connected virtually and available for collaboration.  And, intentional recognition is essential to engaging a virtual team.  Providing consistent recognition for the contributions and successes of team members helps build a culture of recognition, innovation, and engagement.

HR & Operational Partnerships
Developing virtual teams requires more than just a focus on the employees.  It also requires the alignment of strategies with business objectives.  This may require a new way of thinking for management, operational and HR teams who will need to set the stage for this paradigm shift through training for various departments in the organization.

Your approach to virtual employees may require your company to tailor each virtual (or flexible) work arrangement to individual workers.  Alternatively, you may consider pay for performance or pay for productivity compensation plans and supervisory structures that align with deliverables vs. time.  Each organization's business objectives are unique.  Fortunately, there are many solutions to allow virtual work arrangements while meeting those objectives.

Thinking Beyond the Brick & Mortar
So, do you need office space at all?  What does that mean for the real estate you already have?  Just as it is important to think beyond time and technology to enable your virtual workforce, it is just as important to think about ways to engage your workforce remotely.  Chances are, when your virtual workers do come into the office, it is for the purposes of collaboration.  Creating space where collaboration is comfortable will make the space more inviting and more engaging.  This space can also be a place to celebrate the accomplishments of the team and to publicly recognize what your workforce has been able to achieve through collaboration.
Creating space for collaboration, creativity and celebration will only make the office a place in which your workforce will want to come because it is a break from the monotony of the daily grind and, more importantly, a place to experience the camaraderie of what can be achieved together.

Flexible work arrangements and innovative workspaces are the way of the future.  As companies take a broader look at productivity, as opposed to hours worked, we will continue to see many new work situations pop up, as well as new and exciting ways to make use of the space they already have.

With excellent management, flex work can provide the opportunity to perform better, faster and more willingly!  The key to enabling this trend will be successfully managing change at the mid-management level of organizations, and establishing trust and accountability.