Telecommuting & Virtual Teams:
Advocacy & Resources

 
I've been researching and advocating the practice of online volunteering (virtual volunteering) since 1996, and managing remote volunteers since 1994. When I started, there was no research regarding online volunteering, so I used a combination of traditional volunteer management research, resources and publications and telecommuting manuals to come up with the original suggestions for how to work remotely with volunteers using the Internet.

Also, during my first year at the Virtual Volunteering Project, I worked from home. I telecommuted. My supervisors were in Washington, D.C. and California. I adhered to those telecommuting manuals in putting together my home office, defining my work day, providing my supervisors with regular updates and creating a balance between my home and work life (which were just inches apart).

I've also managed hundreds of volunteers online, people working a few miles or hundreds of miles away from my geographic location, and worked on projects together with dozens of paid staff in remote locations, relying on a variety of communications tools and methods to collaborate successfully.

Through these experiences, I became an advocate for telecommuting. I don't advocate that we all give up onsite office work and face-to-face meetings entirely -- I don't know anyone who is advocating that. But I do believe that workers can be more productive, cut down on travel time and reduce their fuel costs, and that the environment can be made much cleaner and our roads less congested, if more workers were given the option to telecommute part-time.

Sadly, the vision many managers have of telecommuting staff is someone sitting at home, surfing YouTube on their computer or continually raiding the refrigerator while their kids run around the house and need attention, with neighbors at the door ready to visit, etc. Or the telecommuter runs errands all day outside the home. But for most telecommuters, this is NOT the case. In fact, telecommuters are notorious for overwork, for not knowing when to quit their workday, and always being "on call" out of a sense of guilt for not being in the office.

How to combat telecommuting misconceptions your company may have?

First, accept that telecommuting is not for everyone, nor for every job.

• You cannot telecommute effectively if you are also looking after children at the same time.
• You cannot telecommute if you cannot be available to colleagues for spontaneous online meetings, or meetings during regular business hours.
• You cannot telecommute if your job functions cannot easily and practically be performed offsite.

If you want to telecommute, you have to be able to well communicate the following to your employer, or your potential employer, in clear details (not just affirmations):

• How your job functions (work tasks) can easily and practically be performed offsite. Specify how you will meet each job requirement and your boss's performance expectations without continual onsite face-to-face contact (will you use online face-to-face contact?) or access to office-based equipment and materials.

• That you will be as accessible by phone or Internet communications during business hours to co-workers and clients as you are at the office. I like instant messenger programs, so that colleagues can see me online and contact me instantly via such, or use such to request a phone call or a live audio chat. Other people like programs that have both instant messaging and online audio and video functions, like iVisit or Skype. You log into the account you want to use at the start of your work day and you log off when you leave your desk or at the end of the work day. Many employees use these programs onsite, asking questions of colleagues who may be on a different floor or in a different building. Otherwise, you will have to either get an additional phone number at home for work, or give out your home number and hope that people won't call you outside of work hours.

  (There are free programs that allow you to see all your various instant messaging/chat accounts in ONE window. No need to log into each platform (AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, MobileMe, MSN Messenger, Jabber, Google Talk, LiveJournal, Yahoo! Messenger, etc.); instead, you login just once, and any one of your connections can see you online via whatever platform they happen to be using. I use Adium; other programs, all free, include Kopete, Pidgin and Miranda IM.)

• You have a way to show your progress regularly to your supervisor and co-workers, probably much more than you would have to if you were onsite. How will you show your supervisor and colleagues what you are accomplishing every day, or every week? Help your manager identify ways to measure your productivity. Detail how you will provide updates on established goals and objectives. That said, you, as a telecommuter, shouldn't be held to a different standard than onsite personnel; reporting requirements should be equitable across the work place, no matter where people are working.

• You will initiate and maintain communications with managers, co-workers and team members, you will ensure that matters don't fall through the cracks, that you will handle problems right away, and you won't let questions/concerns fester.

• You are prepared to dedicate 100% of your attention to your work during working hours at home, you have a separate room or area of your home that is quiet and insulated from the various domestic activities of your household, and you are ready to treat your telecommuting day as you would a work day, "getting to work" on-time and working a full day. That means no dog barking during teleconferences or video conferences. Doing work from a coffee shop or the park may not be okay with your supervisor or co-workers; best not to try it until you have proven your productivity from your home office and telecommuting is accepted at your organization.

  This also means that you should NOT use FaceBook or MySpace during working hours unless your profile is used ONLY for your professional activities. These are online social networking sites, as opposed to, say, an online professional networking site like LinkedIn or an online professionally-focused community on YahooGroups. If your boss decides to check up on you and sees newly-updated photos of your last vacation or your kids, or reads that your latest status is "can't get the kids to take a nap" or "such-and-such soap opera is getting really interesting!", he or she will know that you are not focused on work during working hours, as you said you would be.

• You are prepared to affirm that you will not hold business visits and in-person meetings with business customers or co-workers at your home (do these at the company you work for, or in a public place).

• You are prepared to comply with company policies while on the job at home (you won't have a martini during your work day, for instance).

• You do NOT see telecommuting as a way to combine your work while taking care of children - if you do, you are NOT ready for telecommuting.

• You won't telecommute five days a week, at least not to start. Consider proposing that you work from home just one or two days a week. Later, you can increase the number of days you telecommute, if things are going well.

• You have identified exactly what it is you will do from home. Even if you produce reports 50% of your time, how much time do you spend knocking on doors, attending meetings, tracking people down, and going through onsite files to get the data you need? These sources of information will be harder to reach from home, even if your colleagues use email regularly and even if you can access the company intranet from home. Also, its easy to ignore email or requests for a video conference; it's harder to ignore someone standing in your doorway asking for information.

• You are tech-savvy enough to not overburden at-office colleagues or IT support by working from home.

• whose computer you will use at home
• how you will back up your data
• how you will protect company confidentiality, as appropriate
• how you will protect your computer from being accessed by anyone in your household
• how you will protect company equipment you have at home from theft or damage
• how you will ensure that your virus protection is up-to-date and always activated
• if you will get reimbursement for your Internet access at home
• what insurance covers company equipment you have with you out side of the audience

• Two excellent resources written by Esther Schindler for www.cio.com, reprinted at Telecommute!Connecticut:

  Telecommuters Need to Develop Special Skills

  Getting Clueful: Seven Things the CIO Should Know About Telecommuting

• Robert Moskowitz's "Are You Ready To Telecommute? An Objective Checklist To Determine If Your Company And/Or You Are Ready For Telecommuting." This was a key resource for the early days of the Virtual Volunteering Project.

• Successful Management in the Virtual Office
  This outstanding, extensive guide, released May 10, 1995 by Bernie Kelly and Bruce McGraw, is still incredibly relevant. It had the most influence on the original Virtual Volunteering Project of any telecommuting resource.

• Pacific Bell Network Telecommuting Guide. Pacific Bell's telecommuting program was one of the first in the nation. Unfortunately, Pac Bell removed this pioneering document from its web site. But you can still find it by cutting and pasting this URL:
  http://www.pacbell.com/products/business/general/telecommuting/tcguide/index.html
  Internet Archive Wayback Machine

• Proposal to set up a virtual office by Object Services and Consulting, Inc. This document, written in 1995 and updated in 1996 and 1997, outlines how this consulting organization would be set up as an entirely virtual office, with all employees working from home offices - at the time, its nine employees were spread across six geographic regions of the USA. Excellent model for any organization wanting to develop a telecommuting strategy.

• Gil Gordon Associates / Telecommuting, Telework & Alternative Officing
  This is an outstanding set of and links to resources for managers of telecommuters. This site - operating since May 1995 - consolidates a wide variety of information from around the world, and from many different perspectives, on the subjects of telecommuting, teleworking, the virtual office, and related topics.

• Communication and Trust in Global Virtual Teams
  This is an in-depth academic study by Dr. Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa that "explores the challenges of creating and maintaining trust in a global virtual team," particularly those that involve people of different cultures and interest, and varying degrees of commitment. It's from June 1998, but let's face it -- technology may change, but the fundamentals of communication and trust do not. Still an outstanding resource.

• The Psychology of Effective Business Communications in Geographically Dispersed Teams
  In September 2006, Cisco released this white paper that identifies rules for communicating that will help virtual teams to work together successfully. Virtual communication 'best practices' recommended in the report include agreeing to protocols on response times, and establishing rules for the selection of media and the frequency of communications, especially in multi-cultural teams. Encouraging socializing and ad-hoc chats over a virtual 'coffee machine' by using spontaneous and richer media for communications can also speed up the development of trust. Whether you work with online volunteers or with paid staff in dispersed locations, this is a very interesting and helpful white paper. One of the things I like about it in particular is it's focus on the cultural differences that can become exaggerated within virtual teams and lead to misunderstandings. Great stuff. Read the press release about this (it's a good list of highlights of the white paper). You can download the Executive Summary (PDF 137.10KB).

• Involving People With Disabilities in Virtual Volunteering Programs
  A benefit of online volunteering is that it can allow for greater participation of people who might find on-site volunteering difficult or impossible because of a disability. This in turn allows organizations to benefit from the additional talent and resources of more volunteers. This resource provides suggestions on how to accommodate and encourage people with disabilities in online volunteering programs, and to help agencies develop volunteering programs and systems flexible enough to meet the needs and preferences of the broadest range of users of computers and telecommunications equipment.

• Questions and Answers About Telecommuting for Persons With Disabilities: A Guide for Employers
  Produced by Dr. James E. Jarrett, Graduate School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, and the Independent Living Research Utilization Program at the Institute for Rehabilitation and Research in Houston, Texas. While this guide is focused on managers working with paid employees, the advice is easily adaptable to managers working with online volunteers who may have disabilities.

• Establishing a Corporate Telecommuting Program
  Part of "The HR Manager", an online reference guide to the broad range of Human Resources topics. It's produced by Auxillium West.

• The Telework Coalition
  "Enabling Virtual, Mobile, and Distributed Work through Education, Technology, and Legislation." The Telework Coalition brings together a diverse array of organizations, companies, and individuals with the common interest of promoting awareness and adoption of existing and emerging Telework and Telecommuting applications including telemedicine and distance learning, as well as addressing access to broadband services that may be needed to support these applications.

• Oregon Department of Energy - Telework/Telecommuting Resources
  This site contains loads of information: an introduction and setting up a telework program, case studies of successful programs, tax credits for telework equipment, information on videos and brochures for Oregon-based employers, and more. I love Oregon. I want to move there.

• Studies and research regarding online volunteering / virtual volunteering
  A compilation of publicly-available research regarding online volunteering, and a list of possible angles for further research regarding online volunteering.

• Online culture and online community
  It's becoming the norm for mission-based organizations (NGOs, NPOs and others) to use Internet tools to work with volunteers (including board members), staff, donors and others. This section of my site has been greatly updated, providing even more ideas and resources on how to work with others online, in language that's easy to understand for those considering or just getting started in using online technologies with volunteers, donors and other supporters.

 

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