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• Benefits and Challenges of Virtual Workers and the Technology That Supports Them

Benefits and Challenges of Virtual Workers and the Technology That Supports Them

written on June 01, 2010 by Laura Pettit Rusick

Many organizations have some kind of virtual worker, or telecommuting program in place.  If you don’t, you are likely getting requests to support it.  Workers want the flexibility and managers would rather have someone available from home than taking a sick day for a child.

Why support virtual workers?

1. Telecommuting increases your ability to attract and retain employees.
• Employees eliminate commuting time, freeing up a chunk of time each day for personal use.
• Employees save money by eliminating the cost of driving, parking and dry cleaning, effectively giving them a raise.
• Employees who can work from home with a sick child can still be productive for at least part of the day.

2. Virtual workers support a strong business continuity plan.
• If your building is unavailable due to a disaster and you have a plan to keep your computer systems up and running, telecommuters will still be able to process company business.
• Depending on the number of telecommuters, you may be able to eliminate workspace provisions in your disaster recovery contracts which can be a significant cost reduction (you did plan for workspace, right?).
• Even if people aren’t working from home regularly, have those with laptops take them home each night so if they had to work from home they could.

3. With the lack of office distractions, employees can be more productive.  Note that increasing productivity is very dependent on the personality type of the individual worker.

4. If your company can be completely virtual, you save the overhead of a building and all the costs that go with it.

What are the challenges?

1. Depending on the type of worker, how do you ensure productivity?
• Create measurable goals and know how to measure work completed.  Positions that are “production-oriented” such as call center agents, transcriptionists and radiologists are ideal.
• Creating a virtual team can be complex.  If possibly, meet at least a few times in person.  Not even Skype video replaces getting to know someone face to face.  I recently heard a CIO panel advise physical meetings even for overseas resources.
• If there are some children at home or other distractions, have a policy that requires an office environment.  The worker must be available for conference or video calls.

2. Ensuring the security of corporate data is critical.
• Desktop virtualization technology allows any PC to act as a connection point to a corporate server without actually using the PC for processing.  This enhances security as data never reaches the PC.
• VPN (virtual private network) capabilities create a secured, encrypted connection to corporate servers.  They must be paired with adequate anti-virus and firewall protection on the PC.
• People are still the biggest risk in security.  Picture the parent who puts their password on a sticky note on their monitor.  A tech savvy 15 year old at home can become a liability pretty quickly.  Make sure policies and procedures are in place and training is required.

3. If employees need to have paper at home, particularly confidential data such as patient or financial data, it should be shredded or returned to corporate.  A standard on securing the data at home may be required.

When a good employee’s spouse gets relocated, why not start your program by allowing that employee to telecommute?  Start with a pilot program so you have a chance to tailor policies and procedures to your culture and compliance requirements.  Monitor retention, employee satisfaction and productivity.  As you confirm benefits, expand the program to support your business continuity policy and see cost reduction benefits in addition to productivity benefits.

Copyright © 2010 by Laura Pettit Rusick