This blog was designed to serve the Workshifting community with relevant information contributed by the community, and when appropriate mention our services.  However, every now and again a really interesting and useful fact lands on my desk that I feel compelled to share.

The graph represents Citrix Online's internal use of GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar compared to our Average Travel Spend per Head Count.  The reduction in our Average Travel Spend is significant as our use of online meeting tools has increased (special thanks to Scott Allen).

I thought it would be useful to pull back the kimono and show internal data that demonstrates the value of online meeting tools.  I feel like I should add the disclaimer, "...individual results may vary".  However, I don't believe that to be true.  There are many choices as it pertains to Workshifting tools, and plenty is being written about adoption.  Once put into practice, whatever your tool of choice, the impact can be significant.

However, ROI for online meeting services is not always measured by a reduction in travel expenses.  In many cases your travel may increase because your use of the tools has allowed you to interact with an even greater number of clients and potential clients.  If you're that person, ROI could be measured in terms of an increase in Leads, Gross Revenue or Bookings.  For many others, ROI is defined by Productivity and Family Time.

The point is not to pigeonhole yourself into one or the other.  Select the tools that best serve your needs and the needs of your team.  It's your adoption of the tools into your life that makes them effective, not vice versa.  

How do you measure the effectiveness of your Workshifting tools?

Today Andrew Millard stops by from across the pond to give his input on how to retain business continuity in the face of the unexpected.  Andrew is the eCommerce Director of EMEA at Citrix Online.

This winter has seen some extreme weather conditions on both sides of the Atlantic with snowfall causing havoc for businesses and employees alike. Of course, as savvy workshifters know, it doesn't have to be like this! But the sad fact is that there are many who are just not as prepared for these unexpected conditions when they occur.

In the UK, we conducted some research during the heavy snowfall that hit in January and found that the cost of the inclement weather was £1.35bn in lost productivity for British businesses in just one week!

In addition to this, we found that despite 78% of small businesses saying they were prepared to cope with the snow chaos, over half admitted that their business suffered as a result of the winter weather.

When we look at the impact on employees, around a quarter of British workers claimed they lost more than five working hours, with as many as 124 million working hours estimated to have been lost in total.

Let this be a warning!

But now is not the time for us to breathe a sigh of relief.  More snow is predicted, and it's just one of any number of unexpected events that can prevent workers getting into the office. During the rest of the year we're likely to face a gamut of other incidents that will make life hard for employees and employers, whether its strikes on public transport, natural disasters or something totally unexpected.

So for all those businesses that were impacted by the snow, now is the time to get your business continuity plan in place, so that next time round there will be no nasty surprises and you have the right processes and technologies in place so productivity losses are avoided.



And it doesn't have to be hard! Here are my five top tips for businesses on how to prepare for the unexpected:

1.    Communicate clearly in advance - make sure your workers know what they need to do if they can't get into the office

2.    Equip employees with the right technologies - remote access and Web conferencing tools can help them remain productive even if they can't get to their desk

3.    Talk to your customers - Phone redirects and remote access software will allow you to go about business as usual, but if clients or customers are likely to be affected let them know as early as possible and keep communication channels open

4.    Consider alternatives - Travel to the office or to client meetings may be impossible, but instead of canceling, conduct the meetings online instead

5.    Put in place a business continuity leader - if the unexpected happens, it's wise to have one person in your organization responsible for coordinating efforts and informing all staff of the potential impacts and company policies


What will do you to prepare for the unexpected?


Photo Credit: Anirudh Koul

This past summer, Melissa and I were gone on a Workshifting Road Trip across Europe.  We were gone for sixty days.  During that time, we had more staff miscommunication and misunderstanding than we had in the previous 10 months combined.  Shortly after, I realized why.  No matter how well we use technology to connect and collaborate, nothing will ever be able to replace "face to face" communication.  Having said that, "face to face" doesn't mean you actually have to be physically present with the person (although that would be ideal).  A quick 5 minute daily video call with your team can do the trick. 

In the video below, I discuss a few reasons I believe this is important and a few tools that might be helpful to you.

Do you think "face to face" communication is important?  How often do you video call with you team while you are traveling?

Photo by: oxmour

Working on your own can be one of the most liberating feelings.  But it can also become very lonely when we leave the corporate nest.  We're humans dammit.  And although, as workshifters, we despise being consigned as cubicle farmers, we still need camaraderie; we still need interaction; and we still need water cooler banter about the season finale of Mad Men. 

As of a few months ago, I have the luxury of workshifting with my beautiful wife and business partner.  However, prior to that, I was all on my lonesome, sauntering the East Village for Coffee Shops that would bestow upon me a free outlet and a cold iced coffee.  After a few weeks, I realized something.  In the words of Dr. Tobias Funke: "There are dozens of us! DOZENS!!" (If you don't get that reference, stop reading this post and please rent this immediately).  There are tons of other workshifters out there!  If you are a power workshifter, you have to be social while workshifting. 

Here's a quick video with a few thoughts on why I think social workshifting is important:

Are you social while workshifting?  Any neat stories on people you've met while workshifting?

Photo by: thinkpublic

Today we have a guest post by James Ware.  James is the co-founder of the Work Design Collaborative and the Future of Work program.

We all know there is a virtual explosion of distributed/mobile/flexible work occurring across theeconomy, including large organizations, small businesses, and free agents/entrepreneurs. In fact, our research suggests that fully 15% of the U.S. workforce now spends one or more days a week outside a corporate facility. We project that number to grow beyond 25% within five years.Yet managing mobile workers and distributed teams is an enormously difficult challenge. When your staff is working at great distances from each other, keeping them focused on their tasks and connected with each other and the larger organization often seems nearly impossible.

We've written previously about the "anywhere office" and the growing desire, if not need, of most knowledge workers to tune in and log on from anyplace at any time. But being connected technically is actually only a small part of the solution.

The most frequent objection we hear from managers concerned about the possible loss of shared knowledge and corporate culture when workgroups start operating more virtually is the fear of reduced accidental meetings at the coffee pot or in the hallways. They worry that distributed teams will suffer from a reduction in the serendipity that so often leads to important business breakthroughs--those unplanned, spontaneous conversations between people who don't interact normally in the course of doing their jobs.

More importantly, however, is the need to keep team members focused on common goals. One CEO several years ago posed essential questions about leadership of a distributed workforce:

"How do I know that our 5,000 employees spread out all over the globe are focused minute by minute on doing the things the company needs them to be doing? How do they know in the moment that they are making the decisions and taking the actions we want them to? And how do we know what they're thinking?"

There is no simple answer to this fundamental challenge, but here are four basic principles for connecting distributed team members with each other and the organization at large:

Use Highly Participative Approaches in Distributed Work Environments

People who are involved in decisions affecting their work are much more likely to go along with them. That doesn't mean that you have to get 100% buy-in before doing anything; just being asked about their views will go a long way towards satisfying most people, even if in the end their manager doesn't agree. It's primarily a matter of valuing staff ideas and acknowledging their individual perspectives.

Define and Publish Formal Policies and Procedures for Distributed Work

As soon as you allow employees to work remotely you are opening a can of worms, including legal issues, financial disputes, and potential misunderstandings. Legally, when an employee who is working at home trips over a rug and breaks an arm, is he or she eligible for workers' compensation? Who will pay for the home office furnishings, the telephone that is being used for work, or the Internet connection? And when is the employee expected to be accessible to other employees and management?

It is critically important to treat employees consistently--in all matters, of course, but particularly as they move into flexible work programs. Nothing will stir up employee anger or legal action more quickly than the discovery that some of them are receiving different levels of financial support or being held to different work schedules.

Establish Explicit, Tangible Measures of Individual and Team Performance

This is the single most important thing you can do to keep distributed team members aligned with company goals and each other. Formal performance and productivity measures (here are some tips on being a productive workshifter) serve several important functions:

• They establish clear guidelines and common expectations about how each distributed employee will be measured and rewarded.
  
  
• They help create an atmosphere of accountability in both directions and across the organization.
  
  
• They provide senior management with clear evidence of how cost-effective (or not) the distributed work arrangements are.
  
  
• They help shift the dominant management culture away from managing time spent on tasks to focusing on the results produced.
  

 "Managing by walking around," which was a common rule of thumb in the 1980's and 90's, has deep common-sense appeal in that it encourages managers to be visible and to interact regularly with their subordinates.  In that context, however, "interact" generally meant face-to-face communication (though it also often included peering, uninvited, over employees' shoulders to scrutinize their work).

But clearly that kind of interaction just can't happen in a distributed environment. It's absolutely essential to replace such close-in monitoring of employees' actions with a focus on the results they produce.

Develop Formal Agreements about Regular Interaction

One of the inevitable consequences of working in a distributed team is that members just don't see each other or their managers as often as they do when they are co-located. Yet we all know that more frequent interactions generally lead to higher levels of trust and greater comfort with other team members.

But with distributed teams frequent face-to-face interaction just isn't feasible. However, there are several critical points in the life of a team when being together in-person can make a huge difference:  at the very beginning, as the team converges on a design solution, and as it winds up its work and disbands.

For managers of distributed teams the bottom line is really very simple: Make the invisible visible for team members--be proactive in reaching out and paying attention to the personal/social side of your team's members, no matter where they are physically.

For more information on connecting and engaging distributed teams, read the full whitepaper.

Last week I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with Steve Bristol and Allan Branch, the founders of Less Everything.  Our company uses both Less Accounting and Less Time Spent, two cloud based, small business applications that the duo has developed.  (Disclosure: I would make love to both of these apps if they were women, and Melissa would approve).  It led to a lot of great internal discussions regarding my proclivity towards cloud based business apps. 

I am a massive proponent of cloud based technology for a variety of reasons, but namely because that's where I feel we're headed so why not dive in head first now.  I decided to post a video talking about why I'm big on cloud computing, which cloud based apps I use, and of course why I feel these applications empower workshifting.

Cloud-Based Apps I use for my business:

Gmail - Mail Server
Google Calendar - Team Calendar
Google Docs - Collaborative Docs/Spreadsheet (Blog Post Backup)
Less Accounting - Easy Accounting Program
Less Time Spent - Track Time and Expenses on a Client Basis
Basecamp - Project Management System
Batchbook - Customer Relationship Management
Box.net - File Sharing and Collaboration
Protoshare - Website Wireframing Application (For Internal & Client Projects)
Yammer - Twitter for Business
Google Wave - Collaborative Workspace
TinyChat - Video and Chat for Multiple Users (Team Meetings)
ConceptShare - Collaborate on Design Direction

What cloud-based apps do you find useful for your day-to-day needs?