Two business researchers have a study coming out that suggests that many workers are afraid to speak out lest they be mocked by their peers and bosses. According to an HBR blog post, "we relentlessly work to avoid 'image risks,' ... In an analysis of responses from 425 employees in a variety of U.S. businesses, Yuan and Woodman found that worries about image risk significantly diminish employees' innovativeness."

In other words, people think shutting up is smarter than speaking out. And, in their workplaces, they may be right--which underscores the need for a broad culture shift to ignite innovation.

Can workshifters form the vanguard of this new movement?

This isn't an idle question. I was working on my own long before workshifting was a word and telecommuting was an acceptable business practice. I've found that workshifters innovate every day by trial and error, from testing new markets to tweaking our bookkeeping systems to something as mundane (but critically important) as figuring out the best way to recharge multiple devices on the go.

And we have one more big thing in common: we dare to be different.

Does workshifting make you fearless? If so, why?


Photo Credit: Man's Pic

Recently I had two more team members that started workshifting full time.  One moved to San Francisco and the other to Oregon.  This can be a little bit like tearing off a Band-Aid.  The sting of reality can hit quickly.
 
The transition from a fully supported employee, with things such as a creative culture, big brain peers, office chatter and laughter, a gym, a kitchen, stellar IT support, etc., to a coffee shop or home office, can make for a rough landing.  As a manager, it's important that the person making the transition understand that it's not always as glamorous as it appears.
 
What I have found really helps is to team them up with other remote employees or at least make the introductions.  In the case of the San Francisco workshifter, she has a counterpart in the city and we happen to have an office there as well.  Based on her personality type, she should make a very easy transition.
 
For the Oregon workshifter, it's just the opposite.  No counterparts, no office.  In this case, it's worth it to take the time to let them know about the challenges people can face when they make the transition out of the nest.  The following withdrawal symptoms are fairly common:
 
1.  Lacking a sense of team and comradery
2.  Fear that the lack of "face time" will hinder their career
3.  Adjusting to conference call or web conferencing etiquette (inability to raise hand)
4.  Missing the corporate culture
5.  Lack of IT resources
 
To help with the transition, it always good to explain that the symptoms are normal and can vary depending on the person.  I know I sound like an advertisement for the latest anti-depressant, but it's true.  The best thing to do is to take the time to understand what type of person they are, and give them what they need.  It could be a call once a day or a regular video call so you can add a human element.  Scheduling regular visits to the office, even if they don't or can't make it, are very important.  It says to the workshifter that I value the relationship.
 
On that note, the importance of "face time" can't be underemphasized.  Depending on the person's level or job responsibility, it's good to visit the mother ship at least once a quarter.  If for nothing else, to reconnect with your peer group at a personal level.  Because at the end of the day, its all about trust, and the relationships that are being built.
 
What's your advice for someone about to leave the Corporate nest?

Photo by: biggertree
 

In a recent cover story in Business Week, Gen-Y was painted as a helpless group. A large population that is settling for underpaying opportunities, moving into fields just to have a cube to call home or staying home with mom and dad while they wait out the Recovery Plan. Only 46% of people aged 16-24 had jobs in September of this year. Where does Gen-Y go?

School

They can head back to school. This certainly seems like a viable option. Learn more stuff and in turn, look more experienced or fit for a job a few years down the road. The options range from Grad School to Tech and Trade Vocations. While this may only dig you deeper into debt, it does prolong the idea of going out into the workforce and not finding something you love to wake up to do everyday.

Start a Business

Gen-Y can opt to start their own business. This is something that Gen-Y is taking to heart and in record numbers. Donna Fenn, author of Upstarts interviewed over 150 Gen-Y entrepreneurs for her book and was amazed at the growth, maturity and leadership qualities found in these young business owners. When we talked a few weeks ago, she mentioned that many of these companies (and not all are Internet companies) had better visions, customer service and creativity than most big businesses.

The Freelancing, Blogging, Career Hopper

A close friend of mine has had an awesome time in her 20's. Heading up organizations in college, landing internships with mega media companies and graduating at the top of her class was just the beginning. When she left UCF doors seemed to open for her. She started at a magazine as an assistant and left as an assistant publisher. Next was freelance writing, a little time off and some brand building. Next was an opportunity at a large production company running their marketing department part-time. With Fridays off, she was free to frequent the coffee shops, browse through Guru.com or eLance and pick the jobs for her price. Her latest opportunity brings her to a Fortune 500 as a contracted writer where she got to name her price and hours. This makes her an asset to the company, builds her portfolio and gives her the freedom to enjoy her 20's while focusing on her future.

Lifting Rocks

The case of my friend is not an uncommon path. Take a look at the bloggers over at Brazen Careerist. I bet over half have links to freelance design, consulting or coaching. Those same people are working full time, looking for new opportunities and building huge personal brands that will enable them to work on their terms with companies they believe in.

The Gen-Y's in the Business Week article are depicted as the victims. The jobless in a nation faced with major unemployment problems. I like to call them the unmotivated. There are jobs. There are opportunities. You just need to lift the rocks before you can look under them.

Gen-Y gets a lot of press for a bevy of reasons. I just wanted to point out that the do'ers, not the say'ers are today's hit makers and there are plenty of do'ers within Gen-Y. I know Donna can introduce you to 150 of them. Brazen another 500 or so. Let's go say hi.

Photo by: billaday

Today Zack Grossbart stops by again to provide some tips for effectively hiring workshifters.  Zack is the author of the upcoming book The One Minute Commute and writes over on his blog.  Zack focuses much of his writing on exploring how to build distributed teams using best practices from the high-tech industry.

Hiring a workshifter is one of the most nerve wracking experiences a manager can have. Even thinking about hiring a workshifter seems fraught with risk. You don't know if they'll work out. If they aren't working out how will you know? How will they fit in with the team? What if you can't contact them? The potential problems are seem so insurmountable that many managers decide to never even  open that can of worms.

You can take a lot of risk out of hiring workshifters by knowing what to look for. Potential workshifters should have all the attributes of any good employee, but there are specific talents that every workshifter must possess to succeed. Hiring managers who know what to look for can judge these skills with a simple set of tests during the  interview process.

Talent 1: Clear Writing Skills

Writing well is the single most important skill for a workshifter. You don't need to hire Hemingway, but if the candidate can't clearly communicate their thoughts in documents and emails you'll both be in big trouble.

Start by looking at their resume. Is it well written? Did they make it easy to read and understand their qualifications? A resume acts like a magnifying glass for writing ability. If your teleworker candidate's resume isn't well written they won't write well once you hire them. But don't stop there; after all it's possible that they had help writing their resume.

Do a Google search and find any blogs, Facebook pages, and other social media pages. These pages don't always have to discuss professional topics, but the author should write clearly. Can you follow what they have to say? When you are finished can you summarize the content easily?

Another overlooked tool for evaluating writing skills is email. Always start an email conversation with candidates. Ask leading questions and see if they respond well. Make your questions open ended and give them a chance to impress you. If you get answers that are terse or unintelligible move on to the next person.

Talent 2: Accepting Criticism

Workshifters are inherently a little disconnected from the team. Being out of the office can bring with it the advantage of being more productive, but it also means that interpersonal issues are more difficult to resolve. Workshifters have learn to accept criticism well and not take it personally. If your new teleworker doesn't take criticism well they'll never survive outside of the office.

Ask them directly how they handle criticism. Ask them to discuss how they've handled difficult situations in the past and how they responded to criticism. You can learn a lot by their answers.

Blogs and Facebook pages can also come in handy here. If they have an existing social media presence they have probably received negative comments. How did they handle them? Were they dismissive or did they take the comments to heart and really try to understand them?

Talent 3: Quickly Learning Conventions

When a workshifter starts in a new job they will probably attend orientation lectures and learn the basics of how work gets done in your organization. This will cover the big issues, but what about the dozens of other smaller details that go into working in your office and working with your specific team. Important details how to format a presentation, the best way to file expense reports, are a critical part of any job? Workshifters are at a disadvantage here because they can't just stick their head over the cubicle wall and ask. They must learn conventions quickly.

Always ask to see some work from a previous jobs. Does it look like the same every time or did they adapt to the specific requirements of each new workspace?

Ask them how they would go about learning the ins and outs of your organization, and look for specific, detailed answers.

Talent 4: Self-sufficiency

Workshifting gives you freedom and along with that comes responsibility. Good workshifters manage their own time and their own needs. They can't just call the IT department every time they have a problem.

Workshifters should have a plan ahead of time for the following issues:

• A home office - Do they have one set up? What is it like? Were they planning to work out of Starbucks? Successful workshifters have made a serious commitment to their office environment.
  
  
• Telephone and Internet connections - Do they have a good land line and a fast Internet connection? Are they expecting you to pay some of those costs?
  
  
• Tools - Do they need you to buy them a computer? A printer? A desk or a chair?
  
  
• Computer support - How much do they need and how will they get it?
  
  
• Backups - Will they take part in your backup systems or do they have their own?
  
  
• Data security - What steps will they take to make sure your data is secure when it leaves the office? This might include encryption or a virtual private network solution.
  

A good workshifter candidate will have detailed, specific  answers to all of these questions during the interview.

Talent 5: Staying Motivated

Sometimes an office is a distraction, but it also offers a certain camaraderie. Going to a shared work place surrounded by other working people is a great way to stay motivated. Workshifters, on the other end of the spectrum, must stay motivated on their own.

This is one of the most difficult skills to judge since most candidates will lie to you. They aren't doing it maliciously, but unless they have a lot of experience with workshifting they may underestimate the importance and difficulty of staying motivated when they work from home.

One of your first clues to self-motivating candidates  is excitement. Everyone should show some excitement during an interview. If they can't do it then they won't do it from home.

Hobbies are another good indicator of the self-motivated. What does the candidate do outside of work? Do they have long term hobbies or just fleeting interests?

Can the candidate tell you specifically how they were proactive in their previous jobs? Did they wait for someone else to show them the path or did they lead the way? Can they talk about how they got their work done in other positions?

Talent 6: Showing Their Work

In the office you can see someone arrive early and stay late. At home you can't just trust that a workshifter is doing their job. They have to show their work.

Let them describe what previous projects. How did they communicate about their work? Were there status meetings? Did they send emails or documents? Ask to see examples of these documents whenever possible.

Every workshifter is a little different, but they all need a way to proactive show you they're getting their work done.

Talent 7: Being Consistent

Imagine this: at 10:00 AM you send Bob, a member of your team, an email with a question you need answered quickly. At 10:30 you see he isn't on IM yet. He isn't there at 11:00 either. You check your calendar and your deleted email folder, but Bob didn't send you a note about taking the day off.

By noon you are a little annoyed. It has been two hours without seeing him online. You ask other team members but they don't know either. By 2:00 PM you are thoroughly frustrated. You haven't seen Bob, you don't have the answer to your question, and you have no idea when you will get it.

In the office you might walk over to Bob's office, but when Bob is a workshifter you have no idea where he is. Is he taking a vacation day without telling you? Did his computer crash? Is he just ignoring you? This might not be a big problem if it only happens occasionally, but a member of your team that is consistently inconsistent will drive you nuts.

Ask them about their plan and what they expect. Are they willing to commit to a specific work schedule? Also ask them for references. References are very helpful in providing real feedback on a candidates consistency.

Recognizing Workshifter Talents

Workshifting is a skill and you have to judge that skill. The ultimate indication of workshifting ability is previous experience. Have they workshifted before? Did it go well for them? Can they supply references?

Focus on these workshifting talents and you can hire teleworkers with confidence.

Photo by: AJ Leon

Today we have a guest post from Katty Kay.  Katty is the Washington correspondent for BBC News America and co-author of Womenomics: The Workplace Revolution that Will Change Your Life (2009).

Stephanie is sitting at her desk, half an eye on the clock, the other half on the light in her boss' office. She has finished her assignments for the day and there's really not much more she can accomplish until the next morning. It's midnight in Hong Kong and her Chinese client is fast asleep. Stephanie wants to go home but senses that leaving at 5pm would be frowned on, so she sits out the wait for her boss to leave and browses the J Crew sale. 

Stephanie is of course an imaginary figure. But she could well be anyone of us. She certainly has been me. And, told like that, her situation sounds absurd. She is simply wasting time - hers and her companies. Fortunately Stephanie's made-up situation is increasingly anachronistic. All around the world companies and their employees are waking up to the fact that clock-time is unproductive and flex-time makes sound business sense.

The workplace revolution, and it really is just that, is made possible by technology. Mobile devices allow us to do our jobs anywhere, anytime. Today we can deal with business queries just as easily from our kitchens as from our cubicles. Why waste an hour in traffic commuting to a downtown office when we can fulfill many of our tasks staying right home?  Just imagine how productively you could use that hour thinking, strategizing or talking instead.

Your client/boss/colleague/boardmember has no idea whether that email came from the sidelines of the football pitch or the desktop at your corporate headquarters. The BlackBerry is a thing of great beauty for everyone wishing to escape the tyranny of the office. What matters today is your performance not your location.

Technology may be enabling this shift but it's people who are demanding it.

In company after company, employees, both men and women, say greater control of their schedules is one of the things they would like most. Women with young children have been in the forefront of this charge. Faced with the crunch of career versus kids many professional women have decided to quit (in 2003 the New York Times dubbed this the opt-out revolution). These educated, career women felt they simply couldn't do the fifty hour weeks and have enough time for their families. 

But these women were useful, talented, experienced, and annoyingly expensive to replace so smart companies tried to find ways to accommodate them.  Capital One, a Virginia based financial services business, surveyed its women's network and asked what they needed to stop them from quitting. More flexibility came the answer. So Capital One introduced its "alternative work schedules" - a range of different work options including five days squeezed into four, part time schedules, conference calls and telecommuting. The alternative schedules were so popular Capital One took them out of the women's network and made them available to the whole company.

Electronics retail giant Best Buy has an even more radical approach. Best Buy has taken the clocks off the walls and implemented a Results Only Work Environment - a ROWE. Professional employees can work anywhere, anytime and are measured solely on results.

What's most encouraging about the companies which have implemented this novel approach to work is the results. At Best Buy productivity increased by an average of 40%. Capital One says employees become more committed, more productive, happier and retention improved. Other companies with similar flexible schemes are equally convinced - treat employees like grown ups, give them more control of their schedules and they will return the favor.
 
I know that I will sneak out the office back door to go to my son's school play whether I'm "allowed" to or not. But if I have to sneak the chances are I'll feel resentful. If I go with my boss's blessing I feel grateful and more inclined to do a good job.
 
What makes this revolution permanent is a generational shift. Gen X, and their even techier younger cohorts Gen Y, grew up in a mobile world. They conduct friendships on Facebook. They study online at Starbucks. They do pretty much everything virtually and they know, instinctively, that you don't have to be in a certain place (the office cubicle) to be productive. Indeed for Gens X and Y the very idea of having to be tethered to a physical location for 10 hours a day is anathema. They don't and won't get it.
 
That is as true for younger men as it is for women. Surveys suggest men in their twenties have similar attitudes to balancing work with family life as women. The genders sound remarkably similar. So the push for flexibility will no longer be a "women's" or a "mother's" issue, prone to always being marginalized, it will be an "employee" issue.
 
Some managers say they are still nervous of giving employees flexible schedules. They fret about the domino effect. "What happens if I let Anna, the office star, work from home one day a week and then Sarah, who is less great, wants it too? Soon the whole office will be clamoring for flextime."

Well actually, no. Accountants Deloitte and Touche have been in the forefront of what they call customizing careers (there are as many names for flextime as there are schedules). And they found that at any given time only 10% of employees actually wanted alternative schedules.
As for the Anna-is-great-but-Sarah-not-so-much argument that's frankly a red herring. If Sarah isn't doing her job well, that's a performance issue not a schedule issue. Moreover, if you start measuring your employees solely on their results and you set them clear benchmarks, rather than measuring them on how many hours a day they spend in the office, it is actually easier to see whether or not they are being productive.
 
Flexibility works. For men and for women. For people with children and people without children. It is no longer a favor to be handed out like candy at a kids' birthday party, it is a sound business strategy.  

If you found this interesting, you can register for this free Webinar on Friday, October 23 at 1p ET to hear Katty Kay explore how the 21st-century workplace is evolving, the role of women in this revolution and how companies that "get it" will acquire a huge competitive edge.

Photo by: Providence Public Library

It used to be that office = work and everywhere else = life. I listened to lots of small business owners talk about work/life balance in a focus group recently. A theme that I heard repeatedly was that there's no line between work and life now.  Workshifters have anytime access to work and the people they work with. I couldn't help but ask myself, are we losing the "life" in work/life balance? Here are two different perspectives I heard from the small biz owners group:

Work and life should be more intertwined. The most passionate business owners are those that have made work an extension of their lives. I heard from architects to book store owners about the fact that their work isn't really "work." For these people work and life happen simultaneously where one minute you're drawing blueprints for a house and the next minute you're drawing artwork for your spouse (that wasn't intended to rhyme). You really have to love what you do for this philosophy or you will burn out quickly. But for those who have this nailed down, good for you.

Set expectations and turn off. The other school of thought is that we need to keep work and life separate thus developing a balance. I fall into this group more than the other. I heard from one woman who tells her clients that she's not available on Monday or Tuesday after noon and Sunday altogether. If the client needs something they'll just have to wait. If this is your philosophy then you need to be able to turn off and hold strong. Your customers build expectations based on what you do, not what you say. If you say you don't work on Sundays then you better not answer work email on Sunday.

What do you think? What is work/life balance to you? Do you fit into either of these groups or do you have a different perspective?

Photo by: Kaitlin Shiner

I'm a Gen Y'er. I've heard many versions of what my generation wants in the workforce so I thought I'd share my perspective. My perspective is in no way the answer to fulfilling Gen Y in the workforce because one of the staples of my generation is that we're very different from person to person.

Here's what I want when I look at the next 20, 30, 40, 50 or even 60 years of my career:

I want to learn. Learning is at the top of the list. I always want to be in a position where I feel overwhelmed by the potential to learn. I like to surround myself with smart people.

I like flexibility. This one is probably the most relevant to workshifting. I like companies that reward results and don't micromanage the way the work is done. I'm lucky in that our corporate culture at Citrix promotes workplace flexibility. I'm comfortable with technology and like to use it to communicate at a distance. Sometimes I'll have 5 online meetings in a day and that's ok with me. I value the ability to work wherever I want as long as I produce.

I don't necessarily need to know everything, just where to find it. Claire Schooley, Analyst at Forrester Research, likes to say that "unlearning" is a skill of the new generation. I did a podcast interview with her regarding this topic that you can find on iTunes by searching "Claire Schooley." What she means is that with information changing so quickly it's actually an advantage to be able to unlearn something quickly. Growing up with technology I realize how fast things change. With this in mind it's sometimes counter-productive to become an expert in certain areas. For a corporate training department this means "Teach me high level concepts and show me where to find the details if I need them."

I use social media and networking at work. I like companies who can see the value of social media for business. I use tools like Twitter and LinkedIn at the office to develop relationships and have conversations. Sometimes the conversations are with clients or business partners and sometimes with friends. Social media at work can cause some debate between generations. But think of social media at work as the virtual water cooler talk. Some of the conversation will be about business and some will be about the plans for the weekend.

Not all of my conversations need formalities. Most of the time, I prefer twitter-like emails and voicemails. A lot of text is wasted getting to the point in communication. I often get emails where I have to scroll to find the action needed on my end. Twitter requires 140 characters or less and it's amazing how much can be squeezed in there. I like emails, voicemails and people that get to the point. Here's a great article from copyblogger.com by Jennifer Blanchard about "How Twitter Makes You a Better Writer."

We tend to be candid. We're not afraid to jump in with questions and challenge the status quo. This can cause some issues within an organization as more senior employees may feel that Gen Y oversteps their bounds. Donna Nebenzahl wrote up a case study of how L'Oreal dealt with this generational conflict in The Gazette.
 
I want to have constant visibility to the company vision and how I fit in. Gen Y'ers are known for being in it for more than the paycheck. This means we need to understand how our contribution impacts the company and where it's going. Keeping Gen Y workers engaged with the company direction can be as important as compensation at times.

Again, these are just my thoughts. What do you think? Does this match up with your ideas of Gen Y in the workforce?

Photo by: Randy Stewart

Today we have a guest post from Andrew Mahaney.  Andy is a contact center solution architect and consultant at eLoyalty Corp specializing in the deployment of Cisco Unified Communication technologies. He has been workshifting for 6 years from hotels, airports and client sites around the world. He now works from his home office in South Florida.  You can catch up with Andy on Twitter and LinkedIn.  He blogs over at [andymahaney.com] and is currently blogging his activities at CiscoLive this week.

The #workshiftingqotd for Thursday, June 25th 2009 asked: "How do you ask your boss for a raise?"  I responded with a series of answers to this question and the nice folks at workshifting asked me to formulate a guest post on the subject.  This post reflects my personal experience working my way up through a variety of IT roles over a 15 year period. During that time I have asked for raises several times, and these general guidelines have always served me well.

Determine why you want a raise in the first place.

Are you asking for a raise because you are stressed out at work, exhausted and undervalued? If this is the case, stop here and think about what you really want. Getting a raise, although an ego boost in the short term, cannot make your job better. A raise alone is rarely a long term solution for dissatisfaction at work. Perhaps you should discuss your work/life balance with your boss before you talk about a raise. It may be possible that your boss is unaware of the situation that is causing your stress. Especially in the case of workshifters who may not meet with their boss in person for months (or sometimes years) at a time, it is critical that you maintain an open, ongoing conversation with your manager. You may be surprised to find that actively communicating with your boss may result in positive changes.

Make yourself invaluable every day.

The most important part of the process is earning the raise. In my experience the best way to do this is to work like you already received the raise that you want. That may mean volunteering for that tough assignment or going above and beyond to make a project successful. This is not something that you can do in the two weeks leading up to your request for a raise. Make sure that you build your rapport internally and externally early on and then continue to maintain it.  This step takes time and consistent effort.

Keep track of your efforts over a 12 to 24 month period.

This step is critical if you are asking for a large raise or promotion. You must be able to quantify your contributions. This may mean tracking your sales closure rate, your consistent achievement of a top-tier service level, your personal contribution to the company's bottom line, or whatever key metric is appropriate for your job. Companies reward continuous, consistent effort.  There are also plenty of other reasons why tracking your time and effort will prove valuable to you.

Determine your market value.

The third step is sometimes the most difficult. In this step you must determine your own value. If you are asking for a raise, it is incumbent upon you to ask for the amount you feel is reasonable and appropriate. You don't want to go into the raise negotiation without a clear idea of the amount you are willing to accept and the position of that amount within the market range for your position. You can start with research online at sites like salary.com, where you can input your industry, title and zip code to find a salary range for your position. There are also numerous salary surveys available online for a wide range of industries, either for free or for a fee. Ultimately, you may need to interview (discreetly) with other companies in your industry to determine your current market value. Use common sense when interviewing for this purpose, since your co-workers may be applying and interviewing for the same positions. This is particularly true in niche industries or for jobs that require post-graduate education or extensive professional certifications.

Negotiate for a raise, don't beg. Justify with evidence.

Asking for a raise is a negotiation. Successful negotiators know what they want, provide supporting evidence to support their position and are willing to compromise in order to achieve a solution that allows all parties to get what they need. Never threaten to quit unless you have already secured another job. A good policy is "Don't quit unless you mean it." Have you ever heard a story about someone who resigned specifically so they have leverage with their current employer? Admittedly, this last-resort tactic may work with some companies but it may also burn your bridge with the new company who has invested time and money to recruit, interview and process you for hire. You never know what the future will hold. Sometimes competitors become partners and vice versa. Be aware of the long term impact of your decisions. Is this raise worth it?

Understand how timing affects your request

If your company just made a strategic sale, closed new business that you helped to secure, is performing well financially, and you have contributed consistently to that success; then it may be an appropriate time to ask for a raise. If on the other hand your company is drowning in red ink and considering layoffs, you may want to wait for a more opportune moment. The approval or denial of your request may simply come down to a matter of budgets and accounting. Don't set yourself up for disappointment. Understand the landscape before you enter negotiations.

My final thought for all the raise seekers out there is simple. "Know the chain of command." Sometimes your boss doesn't make the final decision about raises. It is critical that you understand the chain of command within your company and that you make your value known to senior managers who may actually have the authority to approve your raise. If you perform consistently, keep an open channel of communication with management, perform as though you already received the raise you are seeking, and understand the strategies of successful negotiators, you may just get that raise. Good luck.

Disclaimer: I am currently a Sr. Principal with eLoyalty Corporation (a Cisco partner). The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent eLoyalty's positions, strategies or opinions.

Photo by: veken

Over the course of the life of this blog, other authors will approach this different ways. I convinced my supervisor at a wireless telecom company (this was in 2005) to let me become a workshifter for three out of five days a week. It wasn't easy, but I found several keys that got me the freedom to work out of a coffeeshop, and the flexibility to do more with the two hours a day that shift brought me.

Get On the Boss's Side of the Fence

If you're going to convince your supervisor to let you workshift, it's not going to be because they really want you to enjoy an extra cup or two of coffee in the morning. Start the process by identifying what's in it for the boss. In my case, my commute was over an hour each way, so I told him that giving me a few days to work remotely would add two hours of productivity per day. Showing him the benefit up front gave him a chance to wiggle his eyebrows on what six hours (2 hours x 3 days) would give him each week: practically another working day!

Get Accountability Figured Out Right Away

The biggest shift I encountered in workshifting was that my boss (like many supervisors) was still considering me productive as measured by "hours spent with butt in chair." Yes, sadly, with all the world has brought us in technological advances, it's human nature to equate physical presence with productivity.

The truth of the matter was, because of my position, people often sought me out at my desk to discuss technology changes and work-related issues. I pointed out to the boss that we had some fairly tangible deliverables to my work, and that if wasn't turning things in promptly, it would show pretty quickly, and he could reassess whether I should be a workshifter. He bought this reasoning, and I endeavored to deliver ahead of time as often as I could.

Touch: the Art of Presence Management

When you're out of the office, silence on your part is always met with frustration and concern. It's again a matter of human nature. The cure? Connect with your supervisor often through electronic means. Send a brief email every hour or so with some work-related piece of information. If your company is cool enough to use something like Socialcast or Yammer, that would be the very best tool for the "touch" job.

Another point on this: brief emails with very succinct needs listed are better for you (and your boss) than longer emails that bundle things together. It would seem that bundling things is better, but most times, this serves two purposes: it allows you to properly thread pertinent conversations, and it keeps your supervisor abreast of situations. Is this the best? No. Does it ease tensions? Yes, indeedy.

Be Very Available and Flexible

Early on in my workshifting efforts, I found myself suddenly saddled with lots of local chores. Because I was down the street at the local coffeeshop (I prefer to work out of the house, because if I stay home, I play with the kids too much), I'd be tasked with things like picking up prescriptions or all the other various family-related things. This was okay, but it meant that I had to stay very available.

Simple things like answering the phone as often as you can when the boss calls go a long way towards easing relationship tensions and management concerns around workshifting.

Sometimes, the boss might need you to come in on your "away" day. As long as this doesn't become a habit, I've taken the stance that it's still a job and that onsite is still the primary way of doing business. As a concession, you might ask for a different day that week. That said, be attentive to whether or not your supervisor might be potentially abusing your agreed-upon experience. Tread gently here, but be firm. It may be a sign that things aren't working out.

Over the coming months, we'll be giving you lots more information on this. Any ideas or questions or tips you can share with us?

One of the active debates going on in the world of work right now (given the horrible state of the economy) is whether flexible work (aka "telecommuting" or "web commuting") is a useful alternative to layoffs and other ways of cutting operational costs.

I'm clearly a believer in flexible work - and there's lots of evidence that flexible work programs do help reduce costs and maintain the corporate culture and capability in the face of tough times.

But recently Kevin Powell (a senior architect and researcher at the General Services Administration) pointed me to an article published in the Washington Post suggesting that many employees are getting nervous about the "out of sight, out of mind" problem at a time when their companies are actually laying people off  ("As cuts loom, will working from home lead to a layoff?" - free registration may be required to access the article).

Here's the basic theme:

In good times, workers frequently seized the opportunity to use "flex time" and family leave, to telecommute and to take paid sick days. But, according to workplace consultants, human resources specialists and employees themselves, those days are slipping away. More workers are giving up those arrangements, or resisting asking about them in the first place, out of fears that doing so will make them appear less committed to their work and therefore more expendable.

I can certainly understand the employees' fears, but they should be unfounded (not that that they are, of course).

In fact, we recently "went public" at the 2009 IFMA Industries Forum conference with a story about a client we've worked with for almost three years that has realized more than a 40% return on investment, higher productivity, with no loss of employee engagement (see "Getting Real:  Transforming the Workplace at SCAN Health" on the Future of Work blog for the full story).

In my humble opinion, flexible work is actually a far better solution for companies than layoffs (assuming that there's enough work to be done). Layoffs are far more expensive than most managers realize, and the employees who leave take incredible working knowledge (and good will) out the door with them.

Add to that the damage that layoffs do to an organization's culture and its commitment to the future, and I'll bet that keeping people around, even if on a part-time basis, is a far more cost-effective strategy than wholesale layoffs.

For more of that kind of thinking - and to counter the WaPo story, see "Rethinking Redundancy," by Bay Jordan, that appeared in the January 2009 Future of Work Agenda newsletter.

And then there was the story in Business Week back in late February titled Telecommuting:  Once a Perk, Now a Necessity. That article also mentions SCAN Health, and suggests that flexible/mobile work programs can be a very effective means of reducing operating costs.

But we usually focus mostly on the corporate benefits of telecommuting, even though there are many positive aspects to it for employees too. But,  unfortunately, those employee fears that it's the first step towards a layoff are very understandable, because far too many managers still don't "get it."

It's an unfinished story, but I certainly find it disappointing that so many companies still seem to want to take the easy way out.

Photo by: rbrwr

James Ware is a cofounder of the Work Design Collaborative and the Future of Work.  He has more than 30 years experience in research, executive education, consulting, and management, including five years on the faculty of the Harvard Business School. Read his blog at