Author:revenueprotect
Managing Mobile Productivity… and Productive Mobility
by Erik Priezkalns / Dec 30
One Size Does Not Fit All
If you manage enough different people, in enough different jobs, you get to realize there is one universal truth about how to get the best from people: that there are no universal truths about how to get the best from people. People come in many shapes, colors and sizes, whether you look at them from the outside, or are trying to get inside their head. Some people are more motivated by what is in their compensation package. Others are driven by the prospect of promotion. Whilst high-achievers tend to get the most management attention, not every job is, or should be, ideal for high-achievers. Every team, even a team of nomads, will have some jobs that are better suited to the less ambitious. The goal of a good manager is to maximize motivation and productivity overall. This requires a mix of pragmatism, amateur psychology, listening skills and trial and error. There are lots of motivational techniques, just like there are lots of different people. You would not motivate an artist the way you would motivate a salesman. To some extent, you can infer what motivates people just from their choice of job. To take a simple example, gregarious people typically seek jobs that give them social contact, and will often be motivated by the praise, esteem, or signs of status given to them by managers and peers. It is a manager’s job to look for the best ways to get his team motivated and productive. Inevitably, this will involve a regular striving to find the best approach for the individuals in the team. This will involve a mixture of tried and tested techniques, and new ideas to avoid the feeling that the team or manager has become stale.
I managed to get a whole paragraph into this answer before I mentioned technology. Why am I not starting by talking about the digital aspect of digital nomads? There are two reasons. First, people who make, supply or work with technological products and services are equally as likely to have chosen a career that suits their personality. That will influence their opinion on what a remote worker needs, but there are lots of digital nomads who have no interest in the technology itself, and only use it as a means to an ends. It is worth remembering that when trying to make the leap of imagination from what the technologist offers to what the user really wants and needs. Even that last sentence does the user is a disservice, as if one user was just like the next. Each user is an individual. That axiom is the starting point for good management of people. Being wary of the potential bias of technologists (and of the would-be business gurus that surround them) is doubly important, because the user may not always know, or be able to express, what they really want and need from technology. However, they can usually tell what does not work, once they start to use it. The evidence for that can be found lying dusty in desk drawers, in the form of expensive gadgets that failed to live up to expectations. What is more, for every surprisingly successful innovation, there will be another supposed sure-fire winner that turns into a flop. Of course, the disappointed technologist may wonder what is wrong with people, whenever they fail to appreciate his product. We might as well ask why people behave differently to the way we expect them to. It is probably at then that we remember there may have been factors that motivated their behavior, but which we had not considered.
The second reason for not mentioning technology in the opening paragraph is that technology involves the art of what is possible. Just because something is possible, does not mean it is desirable. Just as importantly, what is desirable to one person may not be desirable to the next. Technological straightjackets may fit some people perfectly, but leave others very uncomfortable. Freedom suits some, but is a burden to others who prefer structure and order. Freedom also carries a burden of responsibility, and may be open to abuse. By the same token, staff that crave freedom may, consciously or otherwise, use it to evade important tasks which then have to be taken on by other team members. A good manager seeks the right balance of skills and motivation in his team, and also the right range of tools that they can utilize. Digital technology is a tool, which can be used to enable remote working. This analysis is about the relationship between people and the technology that enables them to work on the move. The technology defines what is possible for remote and distributed workers. To understand motivation for mobile workers, and what they need and want from technology and management, first we need to identify what kinds of work there are, and how they determine the manager’s goals.
Necessary Mobility vs. Freedom and Flexibility
It is possible to forget that there were mobile workers long before there were mobile computers or mobile phones. Some jobs require people to be on the road, whether it be a salesman, home decorator, or business consultant. With jobs like these, mobile productivity is about helping the worker to be more efficient, by enabling them to do things that would otherwise require a return to base, or by simplifying the communications that take place between them and their colleagues. One good but striking example of how mobile technology can help nomadic workers would be firefighters who use camera phones to relay images of the injured people they rescue, so a hospital can be prepared for the kinds of treatment needed. Another example is sending constantly updated work schedules to domestic plumbers, so they avoid wasting time on cancelled appointments. …Read More
The Value (And Cost) Of Working Away From The Workplace
by Erik Priezkalns / Nov 17
The meaning of the word ‘workplace’ has become fluid like never before. Instead of representing a specific building, it has come to represent wherever the worker is when they are doing their job. Is having a remote workforce a benefit or a cost? Like so much in business, the answer may depend on what you count as a benefit or a cost, and how you count it.
Even a junior accountant should be able to identify the impact of mobile working on basic cash costs. Benefits to the business are measured in reduced overheads related to the dedicated corporate buildings. Some examples would include: reduced rents as the business can operate from smaller facilities; reduced expenditure on furniture, fixtures and fittings as staff need fewer desks; reduced costs for heating and lighting; and a reduction in ancillary costs like physical security. On the flip side, the business bears the extra cost for the equipment, services and support that enable remote working. This will include at least the laptops and handsets needed for the job, the cost of the telecommunications services to connect people, and the hardware and software to support remote connection. Incremental costs like laptops and cellphones need to be netted against savings in desktops and desk phones. It may also be necessary to assess the cost of going beyond the minimum needed for remote working. For example, the company may pay for or subsidize the purchase of furniture for home offices, the provision of printing and photocopying equipment or services, and the increased use of mail. Over the last few years, the shifting balance in basic cash costs has encouraged a trend towards mobile working. Equipment and communications costs are falling whilst technology keeps getting better. Meanwhile, traditional costs associated with buildings, like electricity, look set to keep rising. However, not all of these trends need continue as before. For example, a recession will likely lead to reduced commercial rents. Whatever the trends, a business needs to look at more than just the basic cash costs when evaluating whether to change its working patterns. Though these are easiest to measure from an accounting perspective, they will not tell the whole story of how remote working impacts the business.
All businesses need to manage their risk, but few businesses factor risk into their assessment of the costs for mobile working. This is unfortunate. Risk is hard to evaluate, but that is why it should be evaluated. Mobile working can greatly change the dimensions of risk for a business. For example, there may be less risk of an interruption in business with a distributed workforce. A distributed workforce may be able to continue unaffected when a central location is rendered inoperative due to a fire or flood. This in turn may reduce costs related to insurance or to business continuity planning. On the other hand, there will need to be adequate planning and investment in backup resources for communication and access to common data and applications, in case access to the primary resource is interrupted. There need to be contingencies for every eventuality that may affect the remote worker, from the loss of a server at a given location to the need for redundancy throughout network connections. Distributed working will often mean remote access to data, with an implied security risk. Poor security risks both corporate espionage and the legal and the reputation damage caused by any violations of customer confidentiality. To offset this requires an up-front and ongoing investment in security to deny access to unauthorized users and minimize the impact if data is lost. For example, data models should be designed to limit the need for staff to work with remote copies of sensitive data. Robust and secure protocols are needed for transmitting information. Because laptops and memory sticks will inevitably be lost or stolen from time to time, encryption should be used to prevent the exploitation of the data stored on them. Ignoring these preventative steps only increases the danger of that the business will be more severely and adversely impacted sometime later on.
Legal and regulatory responsibilities relating to mobile working are closely allied to the costs and benefits associated with risk. Obligations vary from place to place, but any employer should carefully consider the potential for being held liable for what their employees do, and for what happens to them. Remote working may change this dynamic. For example, if an employee has a car crash whilst using a corporate cellphone, can the company be held liable? Having a corporate policy that bars use of cellphones whilst driving may be a cheap and simple way to reduce the liability, but it may not be effective if, in practice, the company expected their employee to drive and take calls at the same time in order to meet deadline pressures. Offering staff hands-free kit for their cellphones might be a better investment in the long run. Remote working may also make it easier for employees to steal and abuse corporate resources, whether using the internet and other communications services for personal reasons or stealing commercially sensitive data by simply taking a laptop. The company should seek to limit its liability in all the situations where mobile working may exacerbate the potential for misuse of corporate resources. Similarly, businesses need to research their obligations for providing staff with a safe and healthy working environment, even if they work away from the office. Again, it is worth noting that a legalistic or accounting approach to evaluating these costs may not be adequate to really assess the impact on the business. Obligations may vary, and businesses may have differing views on whether these obligations impose a fair or unfair burden upon them. Underneath the legal jargon, however, there will likely be some worthwhile motivation that the company should consider when assessing its own interests, as well as those of its employees, government and the community. For example, what is the cost to the business of losing a valued employee in a car crash? Is it desirable to have employees to be working from a home office that is not adequate as a working environment? Putting a value to these considerations is much more difficult than the basics of bean counting, but no less important. …Read More
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Collaborate with some of the leading minds in technology and define what it means to be a digital nomad. The community will collaborate to answer questions about:
- Security challenges of a mobile workforce
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- Ensuring productivity when employees are on the go
