Telecommuting Archives - Leading Virtually

Useful Technologies for the Remote Worker

Rebecca Jestice — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:36:30 +0000

I do a majority of my collaborating and individual work remotely, which I couldn’t do without the support of various programs. In this post, I thought I would share some of my favorite tools for working remotely. They may be useful to you in your collaboration work as well. I use most of these as a single user for private use. Those of you seeking to use them with commercial licenses might face different pay structures.

Google Docs: I mentioned in my previous post that we at Leading Virtually like to use Google Docs for collaborating on written projects. The spreadsheet and presentation capabilities also allow us to share data and work on group presentations together. Adobe has recently launched its own set of collaboration tools at Acrobat.com. The document, spreadsheet and presentation tools are designed to replace many of the functions for which one would use Microsoft Office and it offers many of the same functions as Google Docs. Acrobat.com is offering both free, basic accounts, and subscription based accounts. A review of the new tools can be read here.

Skype: Although most people know Skype as a way to communicate via instant messaging and VOIP with other Skype users for free, Skype also offers some services that make communication with non-Skype users inexpensive and easy. Skype account holders can purchase an Online Number, which acts as a regular telephone number and can be given out to non-Skype users or people that you don’t necessarily want to share your home or cell phone number with. You can choose the location for your phone number as well. For example, I can choose to purchase a phone number local to Indiana to give to associates from there so that the calls remain local for them when calling me. The phone number will ring your Skype account; when you are not online, you can always forward the calls to your home, office or cell phone. I can even use the call forwarding to forward to my pay-as-you-go cell phone I use in Germany–so those who need to get in touch with me can call a local US number and reach me on Skype or on a cell phone in Germany for only a small cost to me.

Another great service that Skype offers is Skype To Go. This is a number that you can use to call internationally from any phone using your Skype account. One US based phone number can be linked to up to 6 international numbers. When I want to call one of those numbers, I dial the US number and am prompted to choose which contact I am calling, and then I am connected. So I can make very inexpensive phone calls to international locations from my cell phone or home phone! I use one or both of these services several times a week and pay less than $15 a month on average in Skype credit and subscription fees.

Another potentially useful communications tool is on its way from Google. In a previous Leading Virtually Digest, we covered an article on Google’s new project, Google Voice. The new service will allow users to manage all of their phones (home, office, cell, etc.) through a single phone number that will ring them all simultaneously, so one can be reached anywhere without setting up call forwarding services. Previously, Google Voice was only open to subscribers of its previous incarnation, Grand Central. It has been announced that Google is now opening the service up more widely to those that requested invitations.

Team Viewer: Team Viewer is an easy to use client for remote desktop access and control. I use it for getting remote support when I encounter a problem, transferring large or forgotten files between my office and home computers, and meetings in which I need to share visual data or presentations. A great feature of Team Viewer is that you can set up permanent access to a computer with a computer ID and password. I set up permanent access to my office computer and access expensive statistics software that I don’t have at home. The speed and quality are excellent–far better than LogMeIn, which I used to use. Team Viewer is free for non-commercial use.

Similarly, DimDim is a popular, easy to use web conferencing tool that allows the sharing of presentations and web pages. It offers the added capabilities of sharing voice and video, which Team Viewer does not have.

YouSendIt: YouSendIt allows you to send files to others that are too large to go through regular email. YouSendIt is free as long as files are 100 MB or less. You upload the file you want to send and the recipient receives a link to the download site to retrieve it. There are several services similar to YouSendIt such as TransferBigFiles and DropSend,

Twitter: Although technically it may not be considered a productivity tool, Twitter is proving indispensable to me in learning about new developments and products available for remote workers. Twitter is an excellent place to keep up to date on what is happening in technology, remote work, and virtual collaboration. Quick searches on any of these topics or following knowledgable others uncovers a wealth of new sources of information, even from seemingly unlikely sources. For instance, today I discovered through Rachel Maddow’s feed, a service called Read The Words. This is a text to speech program that allows you to create audio files of RSS feeds, documents, and web sites. These can be saved and transferred to an mp3 player, embedded in your website (with a talking avatar), or made into podcasts. I used a similar service for listening to articles and keeping up on news while traveling, however the service I used was slow and only compatible with Windows. Read the Words seems much easier to use, is web-based, and, although the free account doesn’t offer much, the price for a year subscription is rather inexpensive. The voices are still rather robotic, however.

Here is an article on the best search tools for Twitter that take searching a step above Twitter’s own search capability. Lastly, although it is less talked about in the press, Google also has its own micro-blogging service called Jaiku, with many of the same features as Twitter as well as the ability to see friends’ calendars and availability.

By the way, Leading Virtually is now on Twitter @leadvirtually.

What do you use to help you accomplish your goals? I’d love to hear about your favorite tools!

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Communication is Key in Virtual Work

Rebecca Jestice — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:21:16 +0000

Surinder is my advisor and mentor in the doctoral program at Binghamton University. We have written several conference papers and collaborated on other projects together with Betsy and Professor Rui Huang at the university. Very often the two of us, or all of us, have worked together while geographically far apart. We have used tools like Google docs, Google groups, Yugma, Skype, e-mail and Team Viewer to communicate and collaborate. This has worked quite well and is often more convenient than trying to meet face-to-face, even if we are all in town. These days, however, I am working on my dissertation and we have found it different from working on other projects virtually, with its own challenges.

I am in the developmental stage of my dissertation proposal; I’m developing my research model, hypotheses, and methods for completing the dissertation. This is very time consuming and requires a lot of reading, reflection and creativity. Surinder and I have been connecting over Skype to discuss ideas about how to proceed and the direction my dissertation should take. These discussions help me formulate my thoughts more clearly for the next round of revisions. After our meeting last week, Surinder asked me to keep him updated on my thoughts as I went about writing the next draft. What happened, however, is that I didn’t speak with Surinder again or share any thoughts with him until I sent him the next draft, which sadly was also incomplete. It was incomplete because working alone without sharing my thoughts and bouncing ideas off Surinder slowed me down considerably and I was unable to finish before the deadline.

Why didn’t I discuss things with Surinder as I thought about them? Well, because we didn’t have any set meeting times during those days and we didn’t see each other face-to-face; I wasn’t sure when he might be available. Often, my ideas seemed so trivial that I didn’t want to disturb him with something that seemed, at the time, frivolous. So I found myself spinning my wheels, trying to get my ideas solidified and down on paper before interrupting him at home or on Skype. Had he been across the hall in his office, I probably would have dropped by to bounce some ideas around rather than continue spinning on my own. We had another meeting over Skype recently which quickly cleared up a lot of my troubles in further developing my ideas and put me back on track for writing my proposal.

The lesson we learned from this experience is that, for some projects or project phases, frequent, set meeting times are very important for continuing progress when working virtually – especially in a situation that requires a lot of creative energy and when one person is teaching or mentoring others for the project. Even if instructed to contact one another when something comes up, the tendency will be to not bother the person or try to save up all the ideas for one phone call or email that never seems to happen. It might be a bit more time consuming in the beginning to set up regular check-in meetings, but I’ve learned from this experience that it is, in the long run, the most efficient way to complete intensive, creative projects while working virtually.

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Another Paradox of Virtual Work

Surinder Kahai — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:04:14 +0000

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.

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.
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.
Since LiveOps’ agents work from home, there is less need to spend on office buildings. Therefore, operations are greener and more cost-effective.
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.

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The Implications of Cloud Computing for Business Leaders and Teams

Betsy Carroll — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:47:53 +0000

It’s both good and bad that I can’t take my work home. These days my biggest limitation is technology. The work I do depends heavily on several expensive software packages. My employer has a policy disallowing the organization from paying for software for home computers, and these applications are too expensive for me to buy on my own dime. So often I’m unable to work from the comfort of my home or after work hours even when I’m inclined to do so.

Recently in my field there has been a lot of talk about cloud computing, a possible solution to my dilemma. Cloud computing is the increasingly common occurrence of accessing computing applications via the Internet. Cloud computing separates the software from the logical functions of the local hardware, so instead of needing computing power or specific applications locally (e.g. a specific desktop running a particular application in your office), major computing functions are housed on a server that people access from afar, usually via the Internet. Computing power and the requisite software are purchased or used as needed.

What are some examples of cloud computing? A good example is Google Docs, which allows the Leading Virtually team to store documents and collaborate entirely online and at the team’s convenience from any computer with Internet access and no use of our own storage capacity. The National Center for Education Statistics now allows users to perform basic statistical functions (e.g., regression analysis) on the website where users retrieve the data. MagCloud, a service from HP, offers all the computing necessary for magazine production as a utility available on the web (see a multimedia presentation from NY Times about this).

One of the big selling points for cloud computing is that it significantly reduces (if not removes) the capital investment companies have to make in the applications of interest. Rather than having to buy a system or a software, cloud computing offers a new model. A company might pay an access fee or membership, rather than buying entire systems. The promise is that many people and organizations will have access to important business technology that they might not have been able to afford before cloud computing.

While that business model is interesting, and many details of its sustainability are still in question, the interesting side to the Leading Virtually team is what this means for work teams and leaders. As cloud computing gains popularity, capital resources are less of a concern or barrier for teams to access technology. This means that the way people can use technology to enable their knowledge, ideas, and creativity will be even more crucial than it is now. Cloud computing, by democratizing computing, will take us one step further into being an economy in which your knowledge and talents, rather than access to technology, give you an edge. Who might this affect?

IT leaders will spend less time focusing on managing capital investments and more time focusing on effective and efficient use of technology
IT support will not need to focus as much on troubleshooting hardware, and can invest more in training people in the organization to take full advantage of applications.
Using technology to try out new ideas will be less risky – even if the idea fails, there will be little sunk capital costs.
Even physical space and interaction might change. For example, I am currently chained to my computer, so to speak, because of specific applications I use regularly. But I work with people throughout the organization. If my applications were accessed through cloud computing, I could work in many physical spaces other than my office. This could enhance our ability to collaborate both face-to-face (by accessing work together on a computer in one office) and virtually.
Virtual teams may be formed more often and in more organizations because cloud computing will give teams the tools they need to collaborate effectively and at a reduced cost to the organization.

Workers may see an increase in flexibility of work hours and opportunities for remote work.

A potential drawback is that cloud computing may continue to blur the distinction between work and non-work time which began with communication technologies like email and work cell phones. As workers became “reachable” all the time, expectations to work outside of regular work hours have increased. Cloud computing could increase this effect. Where previously I could only perform certain work functions at my office computer, cloud computing might make it possible for me to perform those functions from home, or vacation, or anywhere. This means that leaders must also be responsible and carefully consider what they expect of their work teams. Just because work can be accessed and done doesn’t mean that every hour of the day is fair game for work. People need and often value their down time.

It seems quite likely that cloud computing is going to become more widespread, and that it will be a form of disruptive technology – uprooting old ways of doing things for new. Disruptive technology tends to breathe new life into some people and businesses while making others obsolete. IT leaders and workers alike should take note of cloud computing, and start thinking of how it can open up new possibilities for the work they do.

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Managing the Multiple Identities of Virtual Work

Betsy Carroll — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:53:56 +0000

Recently, warfare expert P. W. Singer appeared on several shows (NPR’s Fresh Air, The Daily Show) to talk about his new book Wired for War. While not necessarily the central focus of the book, one point he made caught my attention for its relation to virtual teams. Singer talked about a drone pilot who engages in war, but from afar – drone pilots are often halfway around the world from the battle zones in which they fight. Singer recalls one pilot who spoke of how psychologically confusing it is to be at war in Iraq (virtually) all day, and then to get in his car and within an hour be sitting at the dinner table with his family.

Thinking about this experience, I realized that virtual collaboration and virtual work has created a new kind of work-life challenge. Being immersed in one context (or several) during the work day, then in a drastically different context at the end of the work day might have a strong impact on workers. Academics have started to consider the effects of the emotional labor involved in many virtual situations, but virtual collaboration technology is new enough that we have had little time to explore the psychological and emotional effects of moving between contexts and identitites within a work day. These multiple identities are not totally different from the roles that are considered in work-life balance issues. Perhaps we can adapt understanding from that area to begin managing the multiple identities of virtual workers.

In this post I will discuss:

The challenge that exists when workers have multiple identities.
Three ways that multiple identities can lead to beneficial outcomes.
Some ideas for how managers can influence those beneficial outcomes.

The challenge of multiple identities

We know that people who work in a virtual context often develop a strong identity within that context. In fact, organizations encourage meaningful identity in order to strengthen commitment and productivity. While this seems harmless enough, we have failed to recognize that moving from one context and identity to another may take a toll on employees.

Take, for example, employees of Indian call centers who are asked to adopt a completely different identity at work in order to “fit in” with the mostly American customers they help by phone. These workers are trained to adopt an American-sounding accent, and learn to speak in the pace and cadence of American English. In addition, many workers find it necessary to know something about US current events in order to make convincing small talk with customers. They are even asked to adopt an alias – an American-sounding name – to use when customers phone. Between the effort put in for speech training and the adoption of an alias, the result is that many of these call center employees have a work identity that is not the same as their non-work identity (see abstract, full research paper on this issue).

I believe that, in the era of virtual work, multiple identities will become the modern analog of people playing multiple roles in their lives. The idea of balancing multiple roles gained attention in the US as women entered the workforce in large numbers. This phenomenon meant that home roles and work roles were no longer neatly divided up between a husband and a wife. Today, most American workers have roles both at home and at work. Technology is creating the next wave of this phenomenon, in which many virtual workers have not only several roles, but even several identities between home and work.

Finding harmony among multiple identities

How then can we manage multiple identities? Perhaps research previously applied to multiple roles can help. In recent years, the work-life research perspective has shifted. Previously, models assumed that work and personal life were necessarily at odds with one another. Because of this, suggestions for dealing with multiple roles had to do with trying to balance work and personal life.

More recently, with the positive organizational behavior movement, this thinking has shifted. Models of multiple roles no longer assume that work and home are “enemies”. The focus is now on integrating work life and personal life, in the sense of accepting that both are parts of the individual. Newer evidence shows that this “role accumulation” can have positive outcomes, rather than necessarily causing stress. In a 2006 Academy of Management Review article*, Greenhaus and Powell outline three ways this can occur. We can apply their explanation to multiple identities as well.

1. Additive effects on well-being

First, the authors cite evidence that when people are satisfied with their home and work roles, the positive effects on their well-being are compounded. Applied to identities, this would mean that workers who have a work identity (or multiple work identities) and a home identity might be happy and productive if they are satisfied with those identities.

Achieving satisfaction with multiple identities is probably idiosyncratic for each of us, but there are ways that managers can help team members achieve satisfaction with multiple identities. For example, in a previous post, Becky points out that allowing people autonomy (such as choosing their avatar’s appearance) in virtual identities can go a long way toward satisfaction. In another post, Surinder points out that removing ambiguity and instilling a sense of ownership create team identity in virtual teams, which helps the team function more effectively. This should also have a positive domino effect on a team member’s individual identity related to the virtual world. Team leaders have the opportunity to positively impact a team member’s work identity to bolster overall satisfaction.

2. Diversification for hard times

The second effect is a lot like diversifying your portfolio – the authors say that playing multiple roles can be useful when one’s role is especially stressful or difficult temporarily. In other words, if a person has just work, and work becomes very stressful, his whole world is stressful. But if he had work and several outside activities and close ties to family members, when work becomes stressful there are still aspects of life that feel calm and stable. This seems applicable to multiple identities as well – when one work identity becomes temporarily stressful, perhaps having other identities can lessen the impact. In this way, having multiple identities is a blessing during hard times.

This effect provides another tool for leaders to help team members with multiple identities. Without prying, stay in touch with how your team members are doing. Show interest not only in the work context and identity that you share with them, but also feel out how they are faring in their other contexts. When team members struggle in one context, do what you can to support them in your team’s context. This is where building social relationships can help.

3. Positive spillover

The third effect the authors discuss is a sort of positive spill from one role to another. They explain that social capital, and even social skills, generated by one role can be invested in other roles. For example, learning patience as a parent can make a person more patient with a difficult co-worker. Without the parental role this patience at work might never have been developed. As long as a person’s multiple identities are integrated (not feeling forced), it seems likely that this effect could occur for identities as well as for roles.

This is another area where leaders can make a difference. For example, you might periodically remind team members of the skills they have learned or enhanced as a result of your team project. Explore with team members whether aspects of those skills (such as problem solving) are useful to them in other aspects of life. Similarly, you might explore skills your team members use in other contexts that they haven’t yet utilized in your team’s context.

Conclusion

We don’t know much about the impact of multiple identities on workers. Virtual collaboration technology has created a whole new set of possibilities. We know that virtual team members are increasingly experiencing not only various roles, but various identities, and the effects of this new phenomenon need to be studied.

I believe that previous work in multiple roles and work-life integration provide a model for dealing with multiple identities in the virtual age. I also believe this model demonstrates that if employers and employees take a positive approach to integrating multiple identities, there is potential for very positive outcomes.

*Footnote: Sometimes the academic journal articles we cite are hard to find without a membership to the association or to a college/university library. Academy of Management Review is one of those. If you have access through a library, I recommend searching for the article on scholar.google.com.

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So Far And Yet So Near

Betsy Carroll — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:10:41 +0000

This week I read an interesting research article (Perceived Proximity in Virtual Work: Explaining the Paradox of Far-but-Close) that talked about perceived proximity. The authors (Wilson, O’Leary, Metiu, and Jett) define perceived proximity as two or more individuals having the feeling of being close, regardless of physical distance between them. Often, one assumes that physical proximity and perceived proximity are highly correlated, but the authors of this article investigate why actual geographic proximity doesn’t always coincide with a feeling of closeness.

In this article I cover the following:

What influences perceived proximity,
Perceived & physical proximity matrix,
Suggestions for moving a team from low perceived proximity to high perceived proximity, and
Suggestions for maintaining a positive situation of high perceived proximity.

What influences perceived proximity?

The authors argue that within a team, actual physical proximity, level of communication, and level of identification with other members are the main influences on perceived proximity. For instance, in a previous post Surinder talked about the outpouring of emotion that fans of Ms. Nielson’s blog offered when she was seriously injured in an accident. We can see from the reaction of her fans, who were located all over the world, that they felt very close to her. This feeling of proximity arose from Ms. Nielson’s frequent communication and her fans identifying strongly with the content of her blog.

Individual characteristics such as openness to experience and level of experience with dispersed work can influence this equation as well, as can socio-organizational factors. One example of a socio-organizational factor might be the collaboration technology employed by an organization – if it works, it helps team members to feel closer; if it doesn’t work well, it might make team members feel distant.

Perceived & physical proximity matrix

Perhaps the most useful part of this article for practitioners is a matrix the authors include, placing teams into one of four quadrants. The axes are based on two dimensions: physical proximity and perceived proximity of members. Generally, quadrants 1 and 2 are more desirable than quadrants 3 and 4 for the positive effect on productivity and team effectiveness.

Consider which quadrant your team is currently in. We offer some suggestions for what a team leader can do to help teams in quadrants 3 and 4 move towards quadrants 1 and 2. Similarly, we suggest things to look out for when your team is in quadrant 1 or 2 and you wish to stay there.

Low physical proximity

High physical proximity

High perceived

proximity

2. Far, but feel close

1. Close, and feel close

Low perceived

proximity

3. Far, and feel far

4. Close, but feel far

Moving from low perceived proximity to high perceived proximity

In most work situations, teams are more productive and effective when they have higher perceived proximity. Chances are there is little to be done about physical proximity in the near future. However, it is possible to lead a team from quadrant 3 to quadrant 2, or from quadrant 4 to quadrant 1.

Quadrant 3 – far, and feel far

This quadrant can be disastrous for virtual teams. The authors cite that teams with half of their members in one country and half in another often experience this lack of perceived proximity. Based on the examples they give, it seems that a lack of common goal is the most pervasive problem here. Leaders should be sure that all team members are dedicated to the same goal, and have similar ideas of how to get it done.

Be sure that no unit feels isolated, or like they are overlooked. The authors indicate that frequent, high-quality communication can help remedy this problem.
Develop a team compact to reduce uncertainty about the team’s goals and how it will accomplish its goals.
Support the move towards a shared team goal by showing individualized consideration to members in all locations, for the sake of the team as well as individual development.

Quadrant 4 – close, but feel far

Based on the article’s explanation, lack of perceived proximity for a geographically co-located might be based on individual differences, such as introverted team members. Also, it may occur because team members are not highly interdependent during completion of the task (for example, team members do separate work and compile it for a final report).

A team leader should first consider how important it is to achieve perceived proximity before dedicating resources to attempting a change.
You should also look for sources of dysfunctional conflict within the team – perhaps team members don’t particularly like one another on a personal level. In that case, find ways to increase the positive, task-related interactions while reducing dysfunctional conflict.
Perhaps the use of collaboration technologies could help team members to share necessary information without irritating one another.

Maintaining a positive situation of high perceived proximity

Higher perceived proximity is generally a good thing. However, even teams in quadrants 1 and 2 should monitor for some potential pitfalls.

Quadrant 1 – close, and feel close

This may sound ideal, and it can mean the team is high-performing. However, this quadrant is where groupthink can commonly occur. Be sure the team is not cohesive to the point of disregarding dissenting ideas. Also, a group in this quadrant might be in danger of excluding others. The dark side of having a cohesive in-group is excluding those who feel like part of the out-group, even other teams and units within the organization.

Utilize a little functional conflict to keep ideas flowing. This can include something as simple as assigning a devil’s advocate during brainstorming or decision making sessions.
Make sure team members can keep their focus on organizational goals in addition to team goals if their focus is becoming too narrow.
Provide reminders of the relationships and dependencies with other org members who are outside your team. Keeping those relationships salient to your team will counteract a dysfunctional out-group mentality.

Quadrant 2 – far, but feel close

Leaders of geographically dispersed teams are often aiming for this quadrant. Team leaders in this quadrant should make sure that team members not only feel close, but are also productive and effective. Feeling close is an antecedent of team productivity, but not necessarily a guarantee. In this quadrant, a team leader can probably relax a bit on monitoring perceived proximity and focus the team’s attention on high performance.

This means making sure that collaboration technologies employed work for the team, and that team members have access to information they need without being bogged down with information that is unorganized and overwhelming.
If you have a team compact, focus on milestones and how well they are being achieved. After Action Reviews are a simple and short, but effective, way to assess goal achievement.
In this quadrant, teams are in a great position to focus on individual development and self-actualization.

This article has much content that is useful to practitioners, and we have inferred some recommendations from their theory. Perhaps most important, though, is that it encourages us to question the assumption that physical or geographical proximity necessarily leads to a feeling of closeness among members. There are a number of other factors that can influence a team’s sense of proximity, which is good news to teams whose members are far from one another, and fair warning to those teams whose members are near.

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Confessions of a Telecommuter

Angelo Sasso — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:22:48 +0000

Part of the value of working with LeadingVirtually.com is that the group actually operates as a virtual team, allowing us to face the challenges that we write about in a working environment. LeadingVirtually.com is only one of the many things that each of us is involved in. One job I had previously was a telecommuting job for a company in New York City. I worked part time during the week and on weekends from my home. Before making the transition from working in the New York city office to doing telework from Binghamton, I thought that the job would be easy since I could do it from the comfort of my own apartment. Was I wrong! There are tons of challenges that are unique to a virtual / telecommuting job that many workers do not even consider when taking the position. Some of the challenges I faced were due to the nature of working unsupervised and away from the resources of a main office. These challenges can be associated with the IT infrastructure of a company that is unable to support virtual workers or management that is not trained to support telecommuters. Other challenges that I faced were psychological in nature that made telecommuting a stressful job. In this post, I am going to discuss:

The challenges I faced as a telecommuter,
- resulting from the organization, the work, and my psychological state;
how I overcame these challenges;
and some tips on how to successfully telecommute based on my experience.

One challenge I faced was the inability to access key information from my company’s headquarters in a timely manner, and this made it difficult for me to perform my duties effectively. My company supported a Remote VPN that gave me access to their network; however, this access was taken away from me because the company’s IT security measures overlooked virtual workers. No one was able to help me gain access back to the company intranet. Even when I did have access to the intranet, it was difficult for me to access key information and documents that I needed to perform my duties. This was very frustrating to me as it made certain tasks very time-consuming and difficult because I had to contact the appropriate people, who were also busy, for the information I needed. The fast-paced nature of the company meant that policies were constantly changing and all employees had to remain abreast of product changes and new standards in the way we interacted with customers. The main way these changes were communicated within the company were through weekly meetings and sporadic emails that were sent to members in the appropriate departments. Because I was telecommuting, I would not be part of these meetings or be able to find the few emails that were sent concerning changes amidst the mass of (mostly irrelevant) emails that were sent daily throughout the office. Wading through the hundreds of internal emails that would accumulate everyday in my Inbox was time-consuming and I would often miss the important updates or fixes I needed to know about to perform my job effectively. The system in place at my company was not suitable for supporting a teleworker nor conducive for the virtual team situation I was in. This is a challenge that many telecommuters do not think about when considering a telecommuting job. The job can become tedious and frustrating when support systems are not in place and your productivity may take a hit because of things that are out of your control. Depending on the organization’s structure and policies, many of the “roadblocks” in place could take a long time to disappear.

Psychological challenges also change the nature of a telecommuting job as opposed to a face-to-face job. Since your home becomes your office, you sometimes begin to feel that you are always at work. This can make your home become very unappealing or even depressing to be in. It also becomes hard to focus on the task at hand because there can be many distractions around you that do not appear in a regular office setting. Staying motivated is sometimes difficult because of this. I found it hard to not take constant breaks because I was unable to stay focused on my work or I became frustrated with what I was doing because of the logistical challenges. Not being able to interact with coworkers in person made the job a lonely one. The mental challenges of working virtually are often not considered by someone who wants to undertake a telecommuting position; however, they can make the job even more difficult than the organizational problems that one can face and are even harder to avoid.

It took me some time to overcome the challenges I faced in my telecommuting position. I worked with my manager and others in my organization to make the information sharing process more effective for me; however, it never seemed as if I was a priority so it was still difficult for me to receive the tools I needed in a timely manner. The psychological challenges of working in a virtual team were the ones I was able to overcome, since they were in my control. One thing I did was make goals for myself based on the task I was performing. I set these goals hourly, and if I reached the goal before the hour was over I would take a short break for the remainder of the hour. This not only ensured that I finished my work, but also gave me incentive to work quickly and effectively. It gave me something to look forward to and made the nature of the work almost like a game, where I would try to hit my goal more quickly each time or increase the goal to challenge myself further. I also found that splitting my shifts up and doing something in between these shifts, like going to the gym or grabbing a bite to eat with a friend, made me feel like I was not trapped in my apartment and that I was not always working alone. Distractions were minimized because of the goal setting that I put in place. This allowed me to remain focused so I could finish and take my short break.

I now realize how effective some of the research we do at Leading Virtually can be to a virtual worker. The tips that Surinder and Betsy write about could have helped me when I was trying to become an effective virtual worker. They also could have helped my manager understand how to boost my productivity. Tools such as the Team Compact and After Action Review are highly useful and can be used in a telecommuting situation.

Below are some tips that I would give to someone who is considering telecommuting based on my experience:

Make sure you take into account both the psychological and organizational hurdles you will have to overcome in order to be an effective worker.
Communicate your goals with your manager and understand what type of infrastructure you will need to accomplish these goals. Ask your manager to be your advocate within the organization for the changes that will need to take place to help you do your job.
- Understanding what type of infrastructure you need to accomplish your goals begins with keeping note of all the resources you use when you regularly work.
- Communicate with your IT department before transitioning into a telecommuting role to see if the systems in place adequately support this type of role. They will usually be honest with you as you will be bugging them whenever you have an issue!
Set goals for yourself while working to keep yourself focused and motivated. When you have reached your goal, take a short break.
If possible, split your shift up during the day. In between shifts, leave your home and go somewhere else. Try to meet up with a friend and interact with others during these breaks.

Of course, a manager of a telecommuter can also use these tips to determine if telecommuting would be suitable for a direct report and how to effectively lead or manage this person if s/he decides to telecommute.

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So You Think You’d Like to Telecommute?

Betsy Carroll — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:59:37 +0000

We have pointed out in several Leading Virtually Digest posts that telecommuting is all over the popular press lately (check out the coverage captured by Google News). But the majority of articles merely mention telecommuting without providing any specific information about doing telework. However, research does exist on this topic, and we have some evidence about the conditions that make a telecommute more or less effective. Therefore, this post will discuss some of what is missing from popular press articles: factors that make a difference in the effectiveness of telework. If you are interested in the possibility of working from home or a remote location, here are some major points you should take into account if you are considering telework:

The nature of your job;
Whether or not your organization allows telecommuting;
Your personal work habits; and
Your supervisor’s leadership style.

I elaborate on these below along with how you can make a pitch to your supervisor.

1. The nature of your job

One thing to consider is the nature of the job, or set of tasks you typically do, since some jobs are more easily done remotely than others. Remember that you might be able to do some of your work in the office and some work remotely, depending on whether you can break tasks up into separate blocks of time (e.g., 2 days in the office and 3 days telecommuting from home). Consider the following when you are thinking about whether your job is suitable for telecommuting.

Task predictability

One research paper we came across points out the importance of task predictability to effective telework. A task is predictable when the boundaries and expectations of the task are clearly defined – that is, when you know more clearly what you need to do. Tasks with low predictability answer more ambiguous questions, and often require significant adaptation in the process of completing the task. Such tasks don’t lend themselves well to telework.

Collaboration

Do you work closely with others, or do independent work? The less you count on active, same-time collaboration with others, the more likely that telecommuting could work for you. Even if you and others are interdependent, the way in which you’re interdependent can make a difference (see http://tinyurl.com/5mt2ox for explanations of several types of task interdependence). If you do a lot of brainstorming, group decision making or problem solving, or other naturally group-based tasks, chances are you will have a hard time telecommuting (it’s not impossible, but requires more technological support and self discipline). If your interdependence requires each group member to do their own work and aggregate, perhaps telework is a viable option. Ask yourself how much of your time and effort comprises working on problems or tasks together, and how much that collaboration influences the set of tasks you do.

Customers

What is your relationship with your primary customers, internal or external? Many sales people already do some kind of telecommuting; the feasibility of telework is harder to determine for those whose customers are internal, and at a centralized office location. Ask yourself whether you can maintain high customer service if you work part of the time outside the central office location. Does your work require that you have frequent face-to-face contact with customers, and if so, where does this contact occur? Must you be available to your customers at all times? Ask yourself how you usually communicate with your customers. If most communication is by email or telephone, as opposed to face-to-face, you may be able to transition smoothly to telecommuting.

Information and other resources

How much does your work rely on information? The companion question to this is what kind of information sharing system your organization currently employs. If you need to respond quickly to information, you can only telecommute if there is good infrastructure for getting that information to you remotely. Does your organization have file sharing? An intranet? A reliable VPN client you can use to log in from home? To be successful at your work from a remote location, you will have to have reliable access to the information you need. More broadly, consider all the resources you depend upon on a daily basis, and whether you can access them from a location outside the office.

2. Organizational considerations

Your company’s current policies are another major consideration when thinking about telecommuting. Do others in the organization telecommute or work part of their time from another location? Are the policies for this official or are they determined on a case by case basis by each supervisor? If you present this information to your supervisor when making the case for telecommuting, be sure to present it as examples of success, or ideas you can adopt. Avoid anything that sounds like “Sally gets to do it, why can’t I??”

In a company that has official policies on telecommuting, you are less likely to have any surprises in the process. On the other hand, those policies may limit your ability to come up with a creative telecommuting plan. Think carefully about the political implications of what you are asking for – if being away from the office will hurt your abilities to progress, it may be a poor idea for the long term. Of crucial importance, be sure to discuss how your work will be evaluated if you are working from another location. Evaluation processes tend to be seriously flawed even when employees work in the same physical location as their supervisors. If you are trying to telecommute, you and your supervisor should document an evaluation plan and clear it with HR, to avoid confusion later.

Here too, you must consider where you will do your work, if not in the central office location. Telecommuters currently work from home, from the road, from satellite offices, or from a combination of these. You must figure out where you will have access to email, intranet, phone, fax or any other technologies you need. Are you asking your company to pay for a phone/fax line and your high speed Internet at your house? Be prepared to explain what is needed and how much it will cost.

3. Individual differences

This one requires some honest self-reflection, and is not easy for most people. One of the most important considerations is whether you have the work habits to be productive outside a traditional office setting. Telework requires very high levels of self-discipline every day, and that’s not for everyone. Being a good, smart, reliable worker does not mean you will take naturally to telecommuting. Consider experimenting with your self-discipline and motivation even before pitching a long-term plan to your supervisor. Telecommuting sounds good at face value, and is superficially very appealling to people. Keep in mind that it is nothing like time off – with the flexibility comes a whole new set of responsibilities.

Also, give some thought to your social needs. After several weeks or months of doing telework, a person who needs interaction with others can become dissatisfied, distracted, or even depressed. You should think about whether you are an extrovert or an introvert, and how much you need interaction and affiliation with others. Do you look forward to having a cup of coffee and a chat with others at work? Do you tend to initiate socialization in the workplace? Are you the person who brings baked goods or doughnuts regularly? If so, telework might fail to meet your needs as a social human being. It’s hard to predict how a person will react to a major change, so again, try to do a little test run for a week or two before committing long term. Remember that you might be able to work several days a week in the office (getting your fix of social interaction) and several days from another location.

4. Leadership

Any manager of supervisor has influence over workers and their productivity, so you must consider not only your own characteristics, but also those of your supervisor. First, if your supervisor isn’t open to the idea of telework, or isn’t comfortable with the change you suggest, it is unlikely to work. Have others asked for a similar arrangement? Has your supervisor allowed flexible time or other accommodations (for sickness, family needs, etc)? Prior reactions can help you understand the odds of your pitch being accepted.

Also, consider how much you depend on regular guidance from your manager, and the dynamics of your work group. For example, if working remotely will put you in the “out group” and have a long term, negative impact on the resources you receive from your superivisor, you need to consider that in the cost-benefit analysis of telecommuting. Being in the same location as your supervisor can be very developmental, and you should consider whether that development will happen if you are working remotely part of the time. Think about your supervisor’s style of leadership and how he or she tends to communicate with work group members. Will you be missing out if you are not in the office?

Making a pitch to your supervisor

You should have a clear idea of all of these considerations before discussing the possibility of telecommuting with your supervisor, so your pitch looks polished. The more you demonstrate that you have thought it through carefully, the more likely his or her approval. Remember too that you can enact your plan on a trial basis if you and your manager aren’t sure whether it will be successful. It’s not a bad idea to do your own little pilot study on whether telecommuting is right for you, your company, and the work you do before you commit to something long term.

Research articles on telework

The following are a few of the articles that influenced the content of this post. If you search for “effective telework”, “effective telecommute”, or “telecommuting effectiveness” on http://scholar.google.com, you will find numerous other articles (access to some of them may require payment of a fee; however, by clicking on the link that shows you the different versions of the paper, you may sometimes reach a site that makes the paper available without payment).

Feldman, D.C., & Gainey, T.W. (1997). “Patterns of telecommuting and their consequences: Framing the research agenda.” Human Resource Management Review, 7(4), 369-388 (available here).
Fritz, M.B.W., Narasimhan, S., & Rhee, H. (1998). “Communication and coordination in the virtual office.” Journal of Management Information Systems, 14(4), 7-28 (available here).
Gajendran, R.S., & Harrison, D.A. (2007). “The good, the bad, and the unknown about telecommuting: Meta-analysis of psychological mediators and individual consequences.” Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(6), 1524-1541 (available here).

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The Leading Virtually Digest, June 27, 2008

Betsy Carroll — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:52:56 +0000

What: This past week, there continued to be a number of articles in regional newspapers about companies who are considering or trying out telecommuting. Check out a few from Michigan, Virginia, and Connecticut. There are plenty more available with a search.
Posts to which it is related: Journal article cited in the Digest on June 13, Leading in Face to Face Versus Virtual Teams.
Bottom line: Telecommuting is a hot topic. Very basic articles continue to show up in the popular press, saying that people are struggling with different pressures and thinking of telecommuting as a solution. However, most articles aren’t going in depth enough to help workers or managers understand the issues surrounding telecommuting. Sounds like great fodder for a full fledged Leading Virtually post.

What: This isn’t an article per se, but an opinion piece on WalletPop about the limits of working when not at work.
Posts to which it is related: The Leading Virtually Digest from June 20.
Bottom line: This piece raises the question of whether people should be compensated in some way when they have to check email (e.g., on a Blackberry) constantly. It seems to be increasingly expected that people are accessible any time, any place for work related issues. The bigger issue might be how people can manage work and non-work aspects of life when technology and norms are blurring the boundary between the two.

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Leading In Face-to-Face Versus Virtual Teams

Surinder Kahai — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 19:43:02 +0000

As more companies are considering the option of allowing their employees to telecommute (see the recent flurry of news about telecommuting), there is an increasing need to understand how leading in virtual teams is different from leading in face-to-face teams. In many cases, people have challenged the idea that leading in virtual teams is different from leading in face-to-face situations. I believe that leadership in virtual teams is different in at least two key ways:

In order to achieve the same level of effectiveness as in face-to-face teams, virtual team leadership takes a lot more effort.
1. Relationship building requires effort.
2. More mechanisms are needed to foster teamwork.
In virtual teams, there is a greater level of shared leadership.
1. Members are equals.
2. Build ownership.

I will now elaborate on these points.

The extra effort in leading a virtual team arises partly from the need to build relationships. Because of the difficulty in coordinating synchronous (same-time) meetings, we end up relying a lot on email communication. The problem with email is that it tends to be task oriented. We tend to get to the task right away and the social conversation that is so critical for building relationships doesn’t happen. The leader of a virtual team has to work on building relationships in a virtual team starting at the very outset of a virtual team’s life. The leader of a face-to-face team does not have to do much by the way of relationship building because members of a face-to-face team may know each other from before or they often have a shared context (e.g., same company, same campus, same weather, same city, similar values, similar expectations, projects they may have worked on together in the past, etc.) which facilitates communication. When people who share a context get together, they have something other than the immediate task that gets social conversation going among them. The leader of a virtual team, on the other hand, has to find or create a shared context that enables team members to see that they are similar in some important aspects to others in their team. A feeling of similarity to another individual spawns feelings of liking that individual and gets social conversation going. If the leader is unable to find a shared context, then that leader may have to build familiarity among team members; familiarity with others is also known to lead to liking them. Building familiarity or a feeling of perceived similarity (or both) can be done using ice-breaker exercises and by the leader taking the time to learn about other members.

Leading a virtual team requires extra effort also due to the level of structure that has to be created to foster teamwork. In the case of a face-to-face team, a leader has many face-to-face opportunities for fostering teamwork. By walking over to team members’ offices or when running into them in the office building, a leader can build relationships with team members by engaging in social chit-chat, coordinate important work, help team members with issue, or put subtle pressure on member to move the project along. Not only are such casual opportunities lost in the case of a virtual team, the need for promoting teamwork becomes even more acute in the case of a virtual team. Research indicates that as proximity among team members decreases, the level of teamwork decreases naturally. One of the reasons because of which this may happen is that distance reduces the immediacy of threat from failure to deliver on your commitments (see this paper). Therefore, in virtual teams, team members have to be reminded more often to contribute. Another reason why teamwork has to be promoted even more in a virtual team than in a face-to-face team is because it (i.e., teamwork) is needed even more in a virtual team. Virtual teams are often working on innovative projects that are not possible with face-to-face teams; research indicates that as the level of project innovativeness goes up, the requirement for teamwork also goes up. Thus, the leader of a virtual team has to be proactive and create a structure that fosters teamwork and helps the team regulate itself.

Creating the structure required for promoting teamwork begins with precise communication of the team’s project and its mission and the core roles of team members at the project’s outset. This is followed by the creation of opportunities to help team members get acquainted with one another and the creation of a team compact. As part of the process of creating a team compact, team members create rules of engagement which make explicit the what, when, who, and how of decision-making and communication within the team. Among the things covered by the rules of engagement are the nature and frequency of communication, communication media to be used, the values that the team will live by, the response times for messages, how conflict will be resolved, and how the decisions will be made, including who makes what decisions. Structure can also stem from conducting After Action Reviews (AARs). Periodic AARs help team members learn from experience on the project if they should change the course on the project and if they should engage each other differently as the project moves forward. Structure alleviates the need for trust, at least the relational or affective kind, by substituting for it. Recent research indicates that trust becomes less relevant for how we interpret the lack of communication from others if there is an existing structure to regulate interactions within a team. In the presence of structure, team members understand that there is a mechanism in place to address lapses in communication.

Leading in a virtual team requires shared leadership. First of all, virtual teams are often composed of experts who add an equal amount of value to the team. In such a situation, having a leadership structure in which everyone shares leadership works much better than a hierarchical leadership structure. Furthermore, the structure that I refer to above works better if it comes from the team. That is, the team has to take ownership for its structure. Members of a team are more likely to take ownership of the structure if they have a say in the direction of the team. I have seen ownership occurring in teams when team members assume leadership for different aspects of the team (e.g., in a web application development software team, one member becomes the database lead, another becomes the security lead, a third becomes the interface lead, and so on). Shared leadership does not mean that everyone has an equal say all the time – it simply means that someone has more say than the others for different aspects of the task or at different times during the task. We see a good illustration of shared leadership in massive multi-player online games, such as the World of Warcraft (see a recent Harvard Business Review article about leadership in such games).

In summary, I am saying that leading in a virtual team can take more effort than leading face-to-face teams and might require a different kind of effort than most leaders are used to expending. But if a leader understands the challenges specific to virtual team leadership, achieving success in a virtual team is well within reach.

RELATED POSTS: Overcoming Virtual Team Challenges: After Action Review, Helping Your Virtual Team Take Ownership of the Team’s Project

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