The Map is a quarterly newsletter of useful information in quick-read format for business people seeking ways to improve their bottom line.

This publication is produced by Gail Finger of Finger Consulting, Laurie Breitner of Breitner & Associates, and Jeanne Yocum of Tuscarora Communications, Ltd. Drawing on decades of professional experience, these business owners and their guest authors target their message to the needs of other business owners and leaders.

The goal of The Map is to provide information that will help you:

• Become more competitive and profitable
• Work more effectively and successfully
• Create harmony and energy in your organization
• Manage significant change

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The Map includes information appropriate for a general audience. However, use of these opinions is no substitute for legal, accounting, investment and other professional services tailored to your specific organizational needs.

COPYRIGHT © 2004-2005

Virtual Work: It’s Here to Stay

Annual surveys conducted for the International Telework Association and Council (ITAC), a nonprofit dedicated to advancing the growth and success of work independent of location, have tracked steady growth in the number of people who worked at home during business hours at least one day per month. Last year’s survey showed this group grew from 23.5 million in 2003 to 24.1 million, a 2.6 percent increase.

The largest portion of this growth (57 percent) occurred in firms with 100 to 999 employees. Thousands of employers are seeking to improve productivity and lower overhead costs by allowing employees to routinely work from home offices and other remote sites. Leveraging technologies that enable teams from across the state, across the country, and across the world to work together, these companies are using virtual teams to respond to significant economic trends such as globalization and outsourcing.

In addition, the ITAC survey found that a huge percentage of regular teleworkers are self-employed. This group reached 16.5 million in 2004, up 4.4 percent from 2003. These individuals represent 18.3 percent of all employed adult Americans. Many self-employment individuals operating from home offices form virtual businesses with other self-employed professionals to expand their service offerings and pursue larger accounts.

For many companies, the days of all employees working under the same roof are long gone. Whether to reduce costs, offer employees more flexibility or get access to needed expertise, organizations have exploited technological advancements and established virtual teams or even become virtual companies.

The role of the leader in this new way of working remains the same: define the outcomes, clarify roles, establish rapport, build trust, give everyone access to needed information, and nimbly react to unforeseen events. The challenge is accomplishing this when team members are in different locations or even different time zones. Basic steps to establish and maintain effective teams don’t change, but methods need to be tweaked to effectively accommodate the virtual team.

Define the context – Ideally, your organization has made its vision, mission and goals abundantly clear to all; they form the context for every company endeavor. It’s critical that everyone shares this information, including remote employees or contractor workers. Include and reinforce these key touchstones at every opportunity.

Define, refine and repeat desired outcomes – Best management practices dictate that a leader clearly defines the desired goals for each effort or project. At the outset, however, outcomes are often unfocused. Periodically, revisit and refine goals and measures of success. When managing remote teams, I often start each meeting by restating what we are trying to accomplish, when we hope to accomplish it and why the goal is important. Inevitably that provokes clarifying questions and comments from  team members, especially those who aren’t on site to participate in the office grapevine. Having an explicit, shared agreement of the destination will help keep a project on track.

Build trust and interpersonal rapport - Team members tend to naturally build trust through informal conversation. They find commonality in family activities or recreational pursuits. Often remote workers are cut off from this interaction. The person on speakerphone can’t see that Sally is wearing a Red Sox cap or the big stack of baby pictures that Carl is proudly showing off. For long-standing relationships or virtual companies, face-to-face meetings are the best way to build and maintain rapport. Invite remote employees to visit the home office to get to know co-workers and observe the cultural clues that are very hard to pick up remotely. Schedule occasional get togethers for team building. Spend a couple minutes at the beginnings of meetings to catch up on happenings outside of work. Those few moments spent checking in can help the person who’s not physically present “get” that Carl’s suffering because his bouncing baby isn’t sleeping and avoid a gaffe.

Clarify what is expected of each contributor – Defining roles and responsibilities is important for success in any endeavor and critical when team members work remotely. Nothing destroys trust faster than missed expectations. Make sure that each person understands his or her role and explicit responsibilities in the success of the project.

Give everyone access to needed information – There are two kinds of communication – formal and informal. Formal communication is supported by tele- and video-conferencing, e-mail, and remote LAN access. Technology constantly offers new ways to capture and share the “formal” record. Informal communication - follow up conversations over coffee or answering questions as colleagues pass in the hall - is more difficult to replicate. The old maxim, “Out of sight, out of mind,” applies, yet the leader must ensure that all team members get access to informal information. Establish a “virtual water cooler” or consider instant messaging among team members if that fits your culture. Having frequent mandatory status meetings is a must. Even 15 minutes to check in with one another and agree all is on track is time well spent. Hearing a person’s voice may remind a co-worker of important information that needs to be shared.

Measure progress frequently and formally – In your plan, set milestones - periodic measures of progress - that are time bound and empirically measurable. Milestones should not be more than three months apart in large projects and more frequent for smaller efforts. Use these guideposts to tell you if the project is on track and build team camaraderie by having measurable success to celebrate. Recognize and rapidly address any shortfalls; positive momentum of virtual teams can be fragile.

Changing technology and competitive environments have increased pressure on many companies to be more nimble and cost-conscious. Virtual companies and teams are one way to respond. Leaders who adapt to this new environment can help their organizations thrive.

Supervising employees who work at a different location presents unique challenges. Managers must ensure that employees are engaged in their work and that productivity is high while having fewer options for communicating with and motivating employees. Mastering virtual supervision is essential if you want your virtual organization to be truly successful.

A great deal of research has been done on how important employee engagement is to an organization’s bottom line, yet employee engagement overall remains low. A top driver of employee engagement is management’s interest in employees’ well being. So how does a virtual supervisor demonstrate their interest in employees’ success? There are three key components: one-on-one time, soliciting feedback, and taking action on that feedback.

One-on-one time

Nothing builds trust, credibility and positive supervisor-employee relationships better than regular one-on-one meetings. All supervisors should meet with their direct reports bi-weekly at a minimum. These meetings can be brief. Ten to fifteen minutes will suffice. The purpose is to check in with employees on how their projects are going, learn what else you can do to support them in their work and to listen for and respond to any concerns they might be having.

However, most of the time in a virtual organization, face-to-face meetings with every employee are not possible. The next best approach is to schedule regular telephone meetings to ensure adequate one-on-one time. Speaking on the phone is more personal than e-mail. Although much can be communicated through e-mail, it is not an effective way to convey caring and build a trusting relationship with direct reports. The personal contact will improve team performance.

In addition to these frequent conversations to touch base, supervisors and managers should have longer quarterly meetings via phone or video conference to look more closely at long-term projects, goals that have been set for the employee’s development, and employee’s progress in meeting those goals.

Think about ways that you can arrange to meet face-to-face periodically. For example, if you have to be at a remote site for another reason, make a point to schedule meetings with your direct reports that day. If it is possible to arrange face time with employees once or twice a year, do it! The benefits will far outweigh the costs.

Soliciting feedback

When you are co-located with your employees, you have opportunities to observe people in their work environments, hear the tone of interactions, and solicit informal feedback.  When managing virtually you must develop excellent interpersonal rapport with each employee so you can ask for that crucial feedback.  If employees don’t trust you, they won’t be honest; they’ll just say what they think you want to hear. 

Once you have developed rapport, you can ask employees how they are getting along with co-workers, how they are feeling about the division of labor on projects, and whether they feel supported by you and upper management in their work   Anonymous surveys and web based tools can also provide a wealth of information and should be used at least twice a year.

Taking action on the feedback

Supervisors, managers and leaders must all be willing to follow-up on all of the input received from employees. When supervisors demonstrate that employees’ opinions and feedback are valued, employees will be more engaged in their work and will put in extra effort to increase productivity and efficiency. Let them know you have thought about what they said and your plan for addressing the issue. Ask their opinions about the solution. The more input employees have the more likely they will become advocates for the solution.

Remember, supervising and motivating employees is no easy task even in the best of circumstances.  Supervising virtually brings added challenges. Avoid problems before they occur by implementing the steps described above. You’ll be glad you did when you see productivity increase!

While at times it can seem more like a curse than a blessing, e-mail is an essential communications tool in virtual organizations. Lacking the body language, facial expressions, and voice tone that typically help us figure each other out, e-mail, while useful, is not without hazards. Meanings can, and often are, misinterpreted. Wrong or confusing data may be conveyed when messages are carelessly composed. Sloppy grammar and spelling, including all upper or lower case, creates bad impressions. And information intended only for the recipient gets forwarded to others, embarrassing the original sender.

Such problems can be heightened in virtual teams where members have little or no “real-life” contact. For example, if you haven’t witnessed Bill’s devilish sense of humor in face-to-face meetings, you may take something he says via e-mail seriously when it was meant in jest. Such potential problems can be avoided by following these suggestions when communicating with virtual team members via e-mail:

Take It Seriously. Many people operate under the mistaken belief that grammar and style aren’t important in e-mail. But poor grammar and heaps of typos send a bad impression to other team members about your professionalism. Perhaps even worse, sloppiness may tell the recipient that you don’t care enough to take the time to do it right. Also, a carelessly written e-mail often leads to needless back and forth exchanges as the recipient tries to determine what you meant to say in the first place.

While brevity is important in e-mails, clarity is critical. Don’t just dash off thoughts off the top of your mind and hit send. Make sure you’ve said exactly what you mean to say and that you’ve done it in a style that shows your professionalism and your respect for the recipient.

Take Time for Niceties. Establishing business relationships with people you may never meet in person is a challenge. You’ll do better in this regard if you take time in your e-mails to be polite and pleasant. Instead of just saying “Hi,” use the recipient’s name in your greeting. End with a kind word. For example, if it’s Friday, wish the person a happy or relaxing weekend.

These little things are not a waste of time. In situations where you’re working face to face with people, you would probably never pass someone in the hallway without saying “Hi” or “How are you?” Even though the only place you’re “passing by” each other is in cyberspace, carrying on these conventions of polite intercourse is still important to forming and maintaining good working relationships.  

Avoid Emotional Outbursts. No doubt you have every right to be upset with a team member whose mistake is going to double your workload or cost the company money. But dashing off an e-mail in which you convey your anger is never advisable. Not only can such a message immediately damage team dynamics, it can also come back to haunt you later. Always take time to cool down and respond thoughtfully, so you never have to worry that an angry outburst may be forwarded to others or saved in print form to be used against you at some future time.

Be Discrete. I tell my public relations clients never to say anything to a reporter that they wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the newspaper the following day. The same can be said of e-mail. Never convey information in an e-mail that you wouldn’t want to tell your whole organization–or the outside world.

Disaster stories abound of the bad things that have happened to individuals or to companies when someone hit the forward key, either with malice or without thinking of the potential harm that could result. Virtual team members may not feel a great deal of loyalty to you or to the organization, especially if you rarely or never meet in person. Or, in some cases, a team member may simply lack good judgment about whether an interesting bit of e-mailed information should be passed on to others. Discretion is crucial in all aspects of business but never more so than when you’re composing an e-mail. 

Following these simple guidelines will benefit the entire organization. You will prevent e-mail hazards and help to create a positive virtual work environment.