This guest post was written by Phil Montero, the founder of YouCanWorkFromAnywhere.com and recognized expert in cloud computing and mobile work. Phil has created a blueprint for "virtual work" that he calls The Anywhere Office. He conducted a webinar for WebEx where he shared his three secrets to mobilizing your work style and making your business and projects more flexible. This is part one of a two part series answering questions about how to succeed with The Anywhere Office®.
Late last year, I had the pleasure of presenting a webinar for Cisco where I shared my three secrets for turning your office into The Anywhere Office. In the presentation I discussed how the world of work has changed and that whether you're a freelancer, entrepreneur, telecommuter or remote worker, there are smart ways to work without an office.
It’s no longer a vision of the "future"
Working on a virtual team isn't futuristic; it's reality that most information workers collaborate with co-workers, vendors, consultants, and clients across time and distance. Trying to figure out the tools and techniques that will help you be productive generated a lot of interest.
We had a lot of questions during the WebEx and not all were answered, so I figured it would be best for me to answer these questions via the WebEx blog. If you have more questions, you can post them as comments to this post and I’ll attempt to answer them there as well.
Q: How can you stay connected with workmates and interact with your team in a virtual office while avoiding feeling isolated?
This is a good question, and one I get asked quite often. One of the recurring themes in the webinar was the need to be more deliberate about things that often happen organically when you are co-located with your team. I talked about some specific strategies for this during Secret Number 3 - Being a "Conscious Communicator". You aren't in the same location, so the informal communication and water cooler talk that usually takes place in the office doesn't happen by itself when you're distributed.
You can stay connected with your team by finding ways to encourage informal communication; like virtual happy hours and short team building exercises during meetings among other strategies.
I also find the use of instant messaging or shared virtual office space goes a long way toward increasing the feeling of "presence" on a virtual team. Being able to see others online or contribute to a discussion asynchronously helps people feel less isolated and ensures everyone that the rest of the team is just a few clicks away.
Q: What is the best way to convince 'old school' management that this will better for yourself and the company?
Unfortunately, many companies and managers have the mindset of doing things "the same way we've always done them" and resist virtual and remote work. They are stuck in their ways and their resistance to change can be a real challenge.
The best way to convince these managers that this works is by showing them examples and statistics of other companies that have embraced this type of work. There is no shortage of case studies and statistics indicating the increase in employee productivity and satisfaction not to mention the cost savings to the organization.
If they still resist you can comfort yourself in knowing these dinosaurs will soon be extinct (wink). As I mentioned, this is not some vision of the future but simply the reality of how work gets done today.
Q: How do you keep the team spirit and consistency in the quality of work when everyone is working from home?
Team spirit is an important element for any successful team. Other than the steps I mentioned earlier for encouraging informal communication, I would recommend managers setup regularly scheduled meetings for the whole team. These can be done using a conference call or better yet via a web meeting tool like WebEx, which allows for shared documents, video and recording.
As for consistent quality of work, I find that a web-based office or project management space that allows for shared documents, calendars, tasks lists, etc. to be an excellent tool. This lets everyone to keep up to date about milestones, take a look at all reports/documents that make up a project, and share feedback. There are many affordable tools available online. [Editor's Note: this includes the new Cisco WebEx shipping soon - learn more here!]
Q: How do you convince a customer to trust in remote management of his/her data?
This really comes down to what tools you're using to support your customers. I would suggest providing an FAQ document or one sheet that, in simple terms, explains your strategy as well as the security systems in place for the technology you use with their data. Without going into too much detail explain the encryption, backups, and other methods you have in place to protect their valuable data.
We'll continue with Part 2 tomorrow. In the meantime, if you have further questions or thoughts please share them in the comments below, connect with me on twitter (@philmontero) or visit my blog at TheAnywhereOffice.com as I would love to continue this discussion. Also, visit Phil's special offer for WebEx readers - use the coupon code "WebEx" in the shopping cart to get the 20% discount on our on-demand training for managing virtual teams.
