Distributed Workforces Are A Fact Of Life

by Chris O'Donnell / Nov 14

Today’s knowledge worker increasingly expects workplace flexibility as a standard part of the employment contract. It may be explicit, or it may just be implied. However the days of everybody being in the office at 8 AM are gone, and they are not coming back. Ordering the entire distributed workforce back to the office in most situations will probably result is an immediate wave of resignations, and reduced productivity from the rest as they spend their time looking for jobs. Neither is likely to be good for ROI. And if it is, that probably points to a serious recruiting issue at your company!

If we accept that distributed workforces are a fact of life, then measuring the return is no different than measuring the return on any other employee. Employees are paid to do a job. Whether it is sales or writing code, mature companies probably already have standards in place to measure those issues. The distributed employees shouldn’t be under different standards just because they work from home or coffee shops. It comes down to being results focused, not activity focused. If your sales rep has a $1 million quota, and he regularly meets or exceed it, should you really care how he spends every minute of his day?

Company wide, there are several areas where companies can look for returns associated with a distributed workforce. Although there are quantitative benefits available, I think a lot of the ROI associated with a nomadic workforce is more qualitative in nature.

Fixed Costs: Digital nomads don’t consume office space, parking places, HVAC or any other expense associated with every employee being in the same place at the same time. Office consolidations and closings due to the growth of nomadic employees can certainly be quantified.

Salary: Can you pay nomadic employees less? Certainly a home based employee in Omaha NE will probably be satisfied with less salary than somebody doing the same job in San Fransisco. It’s a simple cost of living issue. Also, the lifestyle benefits for nomadic employees (no commute, being home for dinner, ability to make the school play at 6 PM, etc) are clearly valuable to employees. Given two otherwise identical jobs, I think many of us would happily take 5% less in salary to be a digital nomad versus enduring the commute and office lifestyle for the same work.

Turnover: Are digital nomads less likely to change jobs? Studies have shown that work location flexibility is an important factor in job satisfaction, and satisfied employees are less likely to jump ship.

Personal productivity: Are digital nomads less likely to take a sick day? Personally, I don’t think I have ever called in sick when working from home. If I’m well enough to sit on the couch and watch TV, I’m well enough to sit in front of the computer and at least keep up with my email. It might not be my most productive day, but it’s not a total loss either. Also, a recent HR World article suggests that telecommuters are more productive than their office bound coworkers. This is due to less distractions, meetings, and less commute related stress. The same article also reports that flex time workers (which is a step in the direction of a digital nomad) exhibit healthier lifestyles. It probably doesn’t matter if you sleep in or exercise during the time you would be commuting if you went to the office. Either is healthier than sitting in traffic!

In summary, the question to ask is “Are we as a company better off today” and then look to both quantitative and qualitative factors for supporting data. Some of it will certainly be traceable to your distributed workforce. However, the distributed workforce is not really optional anymore, and it’s going to continue to become even less optional.

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Digital Nomads Need To Take Control Of Their Own Security

by Chris O'Donnell / Oct 25

I am a digital nomad. I’ve telecommuted from home and worked from various coffee shops between appointments for about 4 years. I’m a sales executive, not an IT person or a developer. Those folks should know how to maintain a secure computer. Corporate IT simply can not control all those laptops being used by remote employees. They have no control over how they are used, where they are used, or what software gets installed. If you are a digital nomad it is (or should be) incumbent on you to take control of your machine and learn enough to not be a menace to the corporate IT support staff. If I was in corporate IT I might consider making it a quasi requirement that remote users get educated enough to be at least partly self-sufficient. If you need to call the help desk for help rebooting your wireless router you are not going to be a productive remote employee.

Corporate can support that by providing training that enables remote users to make smart decisions, and by making smart decisions themselves about what goes on the remote laptops. However, that probably doesn’t happen often. That said, safe computing is not rocket science. As a digital nomad I’ve found that just a few simple things can dramatically improve the security and stability of a remote corporate laptop, making life easier for both end users and IT support staff.

1. Use Up to date anti-virus software. You would think this would be obvious, but I’ve seen a frightening number of corporate owned laptops with expired AV applications. Operating a company owned computer running a MS operating system without antivirus should be a punishable offense. Laptop security is just as important as company car security, and leaving the keys in teh car while you run into the donut shop is a definate no-no.
2. Use Firefox as the primary browser. It’s free, and it can auto update just like IE. However, it is inherently more secure because it is not tightly tied into the MS application stack. The improved standards compliance from Firefox may also lead to less support calls complaining that some web site doesn’t work for the user.
3. Use anything other than Outlook for email. I don’t allow Outlook on the computers I own, and I don’t use Outlook on my work laptop. I use Outlook Web Access when I need to do something with my Outlook calendar. I use Thunderbird for email. You can either connect to the exchange server via IMAP or POP, or you can go even further. I use Gmail to pull all my corporate email into a dedicated work Gmail account, then use IMAP from Thunderbird with the Gmail account. This gives me far better virus and spam filtering then the rest of company gets from the Exchange tools. It also gives me access to all my mail from any Internet connected computer. Of course, this all depends on corporate IT allowing POP or IMAP access to the server.
4. Don’t open any attachment you are not sure about. Again, that should be common sense by now, but it’s not.

That’s it. Follow those 4 steps with your corporate laptop and you’ll be more secure than many of the office dwellers in your company.

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