Author:mobigeek
Digital Nomad Challenges Are Often Role Dependent
by Greg Fenton / Sep 16
Mobility means many different things to many different people. Maturity of infrastructure and mobility solutions vary widely amongst small, medium and large enterprises. Larger enterprises often implementing more stringent and automated systems, whereas smaller businesses often depend on the individual mobile workers to determine their requirements and often implement them themselves.
Depending on the job function, access to different types of data dictate the user’s mobility and connectivity needs.
Trainers, field service personnel and many types of sales roles can get by simply by having a static copy of relevant data on a hard drive. Infrequent access to email and availability by cellphone are more than sufficient for this type of worker. These workers have laptops rather than desktops and therefore travel with their entire work environment. Their laptops are the repository of their key data, having either created documents with or copied required documents to this device. Responsible individuals or IT departments have secured those devices with appropriate passwords and encryption though often this is not the case. Backups of this key data are done haphazardly to network shares, content management systems or, less frequently, enterprise backup software.
Other roles dictate the need for up-to-the-minute style of access for information. These users are in the minority of “mobile workers” but often are senior employees/executives whose mobile requirements command a larger portion the attention of IT department’s attention. These individuals typically can get by with less powerful devices such as tablet PCs or micro PCs. However, their lowered need for horsepower is replaced by their need for immediacy of data; ready access to the Internet for email and to mobilized applications, typically enterprise applications that have been enhanced with a browser-based interface.
Supporting A Healthy Mobile Culture
by Greg Fenton / Aug 13
When a worker becomes mobile, they detach themselves from the typical nine-to-five, timecard mentality that is typical for an “office worker”. To that end, tracking a mobile worker’s performance becomes one of goal setting and measuring results rather than measuring attendance. This, for many organizations or managers, is a fundamental cultural shift.
For an organization to have successful mobile workforce, they need to support a healthy “mobile culture”. To start, management must establish clear objectives for their workforce. Mobile workers must understand that their performance is measured (and rewarded) based on the success of fulfilling those objectives, and mobile workers must be empowered with the tools to meet those objectives. One such tool is the ability for them to set their own work schedules, including the right and ability to disconnect from work.
In addition to empowering employees, the organization needs to instill in this “mobile culture” the tenants of a healthy work/life balance. In the same way that the employer often cannot dictate the days/hours to be worked by a mobile employee, they cannot dictate the days/hours to be taken off. The culture should ensure employees that a healthy life outside of work will lead to a longer, stronger career and lead to better results for both the employer and the employee.
Some organizations take the step of enforcing workers to disconnect by removing access to work tools (email, applications, network, mobile devices). This approach flies in the face of the mobile culture’s self-empowerment mantra, so should be avoided.
Periodic reviews of objectives and performance with mobile employees allows the employer to determine whether workloads are appropriate to support a healthy work/life balance. This also offers the opportunity to re-enforce the “mobile culture”.
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- Security challenges of a mobile workforce
- Connectivity and access for nomad employees everywhere
- Ensuring productivity when employees are on the go
