A while back, Betsy blogged about paradoxes in virtual work. Yesterday’s NY Times had an interesting article that illustrates another paradox. Basically, virtual work can both decrease and increase visibility. Since virtual workers can be located anywhere, they are not visible to their managers. However, since virtual workers conduct a significant part of their work on or via information and communication technologies, there is greater potential to track their work, including their communication, than if they were not working remotely.

The article discusses a ‘Panopticon’ like software created by LiveOps, a Santa Clara company that operates virtual call centers manned by about 20,000 independent agents free-lancing from home across the U.S. These agents take orders for products sold on TV, sell insurance, take pizza orders, etc. The software, which the company believes gives it an advantage over competition that operates similar virtual enterprises, monitors and measures the work done by the agents and enables clients like Kodak and Colonial Penn to direct their work to the most productive agents. According to the article, “If a client wants agents to persuade callers to buy additional products, the software tracks that — and then directs calls to the agents who do it best. ” Good performers get more business whereas others get less or no work. LiveOps’ software does more – see an interesting video of their software in action. (Note that a while back, we had covered oDesk, another virtual business that offers monitoring software.)

The article is also interesting because it illustrates many features of virtual work.

1. Without the constraints of tapping into those available locally, virtual work enables you to recruit the optimum talent for the job. The LiveOps software directs more business towards agents who perform well on criteria demanded by clients.
2. Your workforce is happier because of the greater flexibility afforded for managing the work-life balance. Attrition at LiveOps is less than 10% after the first 300 calls. This is a lower number than that seen in the call center industry.
3. Since LiveOps’ agents work from home, there is less need to spend on office buildings. Therefore, operations are greener and more cost-effective.
4. In certain cases where work can be tracked digitally, smartly designed technology can substitute for a manager by monitoring the work of a virtual worker and providing/enabling feedback. For instance, in the case of LiveOps software, agents that don’t perform well on certain dimensions don’t get future work that demands good performance on those dimensions.

But the article illustrates a downside too. Since the Live Ops agents are independent contractors, they don’t get benefits.

In conclusion, I should add that not all kinds of virtual work lends itself to increased transparency. In creative and development work, it is challenging to really measure the thinking that goes into the work and make judgments about its suitability. But still, I thought that the article provided good illustrations of many of the features of virtual work.