Keeping Employees Connected

by Matt Jansen / Nov 6

Problems with a mobile workforce:

• Interpersonal relationships can become mechanical because there is no personal connection between employees
  • Team building is enhanced by live interaction between employees. Trivial (but critical) side conversations build a foundation of understanding between people who otherwise would interpret interactions from a purely objective and reserved perspective.
• Brainstorming can be stifled by a lack of live interactivity
• Otherwise good employees are sometimes overlooked because they don’t have the necessary technical skill set to make mobile work feasible
• Distractions in mobile work environments (e.g. coffee shops, shared workspaces, basements, home offices) can dilute focus
• Infrastructure is sometimes reliant on consumer-oriented services. For example, consumer Internet access, electricity. Gaps in service are outside the organization’s control.

Advantages with a mobile workforce:

• Employees are ultimately empowered to make their own decisions regarding time management and feel independent. That translates into motivation and an overarching obligation to meet deadlines. It also reduces the foot dragging rampant in typical corporate environments that enforce 40 hour (or more) work weeks. In 40 hour work weeks employees often do not provide output commensurate to the time requirements, instead they “rightstream” their time and effort to reduce stress and keep themselves lightly occupied throughout the workday.
• Diversity is typically inherent in mobile workforces because members can be scattered across the globe. That typically encourages new ideas as eclectic backgrounds mesh to create something even better.
• Members of mobile workforces must be self-motivated and focused on success, otherwise they will not perform well. That means the quality of people you work with is generally high, though it often can be difficult to realize that within a team because reasons to chitchat are limited.
• Generally communication is recorded, which makes it easy to review previous discussions. Voice, chat rooms, forums, social networking platforms, text messaging, instant messaging, and video all are easily archived.
• If things aren’t working out, it’s fairly easy for the employee or company to end the relationship and move on.

What strategies can maximize these advantages while minimizing the disadvantages?

Most of the problems with mobile workforces center on keeping employees connected and feeling like a team. That happens by default in a typical office environment when people say good morning to each other and ask how the previous night went, when they gather around the water cooler, when they go out to lunch, or when they participate in a team building event.

Some of those activities aren’t realistic to expect in a mobile workforce, but others just require the right tools and encouragement. One critical tool for any mobile team is instant messaging. It provides other team members with an immediate understanding of how busy a peer is (based on status message), and makes casual conversation very easy. That’s especially relevant for generation Y and earlier. They grew up IMing their friends online and casual conversation is sure to develop. Add file transfers and desktop sharing in the IM client and usage of the tool will skyrocket along with collaboration.

IM isn’t the only way to encourage interaction though; social networking platforms were built for this sort of thing! Challenge employees once in a while to post a goofy video of what they did last Halloween, or start a brief quiz that gets at a few lighthearted personality questions. A mobile group that enjoys online gaming may also like virtual events in World of Warcraft or Second Life. It gets employees out of the routine and essentially pulls team building events into the online world. Frequently great ideas grow out of these sorts of interactions, because team members feel free to express themselves and act a little bit goofy.

That said, welcoming a little bit of goofiness isn’t the norm right now and leaders in the organization have to reiterate that it’s ok. For new team members joining a team, it’s often difficult for them to figure out what’s acceptable on the forums and what will be constituted as offensive, so let them know!

Of course, these suggestions assume that the mobile team assembled is meeting deadlines and delivering on previously agreed upon goals. But if it isn’t working for some reason, it’s fairly easy for employee or company to end the relationship and move on. That means everyone involved is focused on meeting expectations.

With vision, the right tools, and a little bit of friendly interactivity, mobile workforces will deliver compelling results.

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