When organizations and individuals start having conversations about workshifting, the discussion seems to naturally gravitate toward how to manage a person who isn't sitting around an office all day. It's a reality and unfortunately, this is where the workshifting concept can often get stuck.

A basic tenet of workshifting is being able to manage yourself. That's not to say people who work in offices can't manage themselves, but I've heard from many people over the years that they need an office to visit each day. Because working from home or the local coffee shop can sometimes be a distraction. And having an office away from home keeps them focused.

So I thought it might be interesting to start a discussion on qualities of self-management. Obviously, they apply whether you're in a workshifting arrangement or not. But if you are considering asking for a workshifting arrangement, this might be food for thought. And even if you find these are qualities you need to work on, that doesn't mean you won't be successful in workshifting. It just means you need to reflect a little and perfect your ability to self-manage.

The first quality is knowing yourself. It's about understanding your strengths and weaknesses. Being very honest with who you are. Let's face it - we're not all rock stars at everything.

There are a few ways you can spend time learning about yourself. I always say there are three ways to learn - hearing it, seeing it and doing it.

1. Ask for feedback. Talk with people who have a sense of your working style and ask them for feedback about your strengths and areas for improvement. If you don't have anyone you can ask right now, think about prior performance appraisals you've received and use that feedback.
   
   Once you get feedback, take the time to process and evaluate it. I'd caution people not to immediately dismiss it. You might agree with all of it, parts of it, or none of it. But think it though, make the decision for yourself, and then decide what you will do with the information. Do you need to create an action plan to work on something that was mentioned?
   
   
2. Read books about developing strengths. One terrific book is called, "Now Discover Your Strengths" by Marcus Buckingham. In the book, there is an opportunity to take an assessment that can help you define your personal strengths. Great way to create your own path of self-discovery.
   
   If you have ever taken any assessments in the past, this is a good time to take them out and review them. Consider the results and, like the process above, evaluate what you need to focus on moving forward.
   
   
3. Step out of your comfort zone and do something you haven't done before. For example, if you're apprehensive about public speaking...go out there and volunteer to do a public presentation. Use the evaluations from the sessions to improve. Then do it again.
   

Stepping back to assess and evaluate our personal strengths and weaknesses is a valuable exercise not only for workshifting but anytime. It allows us to keep ourselves focused and positioned to adapt as necessary.

Next up, how self-management and our careers are intertwined.

Photo Credit: Valerie Everett

Today's post is from Maren Kate, an entrepreneur who blogs about starting a small business, living extraordinarily and escaping the 9 to 5.

I always hear the stand by "You shouldn't live to work, instead work to live". It's true, I guess, but it always confused me because I truly love what I do, so I have no interest in just working to live, instead I love to work. Now to some this is a sign of workaholicism - but I disagree. I feel like calling productivity a disease is kind of silly in the first place - I mean if you love what you do, are happy and not only aren't hurting anyone but you're adding to the world - how can that be wrong? It's like saying that Mother Teresa was a compassionaholic or that someone who loves to write day in and day out is a proseaholic. So loving-work-aholics, unite, it's our time to shine and to show the world that work doesn't always have to be tedious and with a little creativity & persistence it can actually be one of the best parts of your life.

How to Love What You Do

1. Do you do what you love?

It's a basic concept. If you hate numbers and you work as an accountant you're going to hate your job and most probably your life. If you love writing and you work as a blogger you're going to enjoy life and feel as if you're job adds value to your overall existence. So ask yourself, if I could do anything in the world & get paid a decent wage for it - what would I do? Then figure out a way, come hell or high water, to do just that.

2. Don't get mired in the things you hate within your business.

Too often entrepreneurs start a business based around what they love, but within a few months are hating their lives. The problem is that instead of doing what they love in their business they've tried to become everything to everyone. Thus the artist starts balancing the books, making sales calls and learning HTML when all she wanted to do was paint. Make sure that when you start a business you either A. love the admin side of things or B. find someone who can do that for you while you focus on what you love and are great at.

3. Love where you work.

I had a job as a receptionist over summer break when I was 18. It wasn't a hard job and for the most part I liked the answering phones and filing a bit, but I went home every night crying. Why? Because I hated (with a capital H) where I worked. It was a window-less, cubicle, cell of death, nothing but white walls surrounded me and the horrible lights above me made me literally ill. If I had been doing that same job next to a bright open window, with warm wood walls and a cool summer breeze blowing in - I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have minded it at all. Loving where you work is incredibly important, especially when you are work shifting from a typical 9 to 5 into a career or business where you have freedom of location. Choose wisely, pay attention to your inner aesthetic needs and you'll find yourself 100 times more productive and happy at work.

Making the shift

Shifting from living to work to loving to work isn't an easy one, that's why so few people do it. Most people won't leave their comfort zones or force themselves to truly consider what they would be happy doing. Call it fear, call it negative self image, call it whatever you want - the point is that it's prevalent in our society. So to be different, will be difficult. But the pay off is oh, so worth it. Think of it this way - if you love to work you'll be 5 to 10 times more productive, easily. So you could cut your 8 hour work day into a few hours and still have the same results when you start loving your work vs. when you live to work you'll try to put off your work as long as possible. So you can slave away in a 9 to 5 for the next 30 years, living to work and not be very happy - or you could take a year to figure out what would really make you love to work and do that for a fraction of the time for probably the same, or more financial reward. When you love your work your whole world gets better!

Much like the shirtless dancing guy in the amusing but compelling video above, workshifting is a physical movement--but instead of flailing your arms, you seamlessly move the location of where you do work. One day, you're meeting your manager online from a coffee shop.  And the next, you're prepping a client presentation while sitting at an airport gate.  This is all possible thanks to the World Wide Web and its wondrous ways of allowing us to use remote technologies.

• www.workshifting.com ;)
• "Work Unchained: Workshifting and the Competitive Edge of the Anywhere Office" [podcast, eBook]
• "Leading Virtual Effectiveness: Four Strategies for Effective Communication in a Distributed Workforce" [eBook]
• "The Top Ten Strategies for Managers of Mobile Workers" [white paper]
• "Presenting the Business Case for Web Commuting" [white paper, podcast]

Today's post is by Tracey Webb, a 25-year business veteran with a depth of experience in high-tech, health care, software, and financial services segments. Having worked for global enterprises like Xerox, IBM, as well as some of the largest international learning and development organizations, Tracey has a long track record of producing success for her clients. Currently, she serves as the Director of Consulting Services for Cox eLearning Consultants.

For those of us who have spent years pouring over training manuals, being master-trained, or serving as master trainers, the advent of the virtual classroom can present a horse of another color (to quote that wonderful line from The Wizard of Oz).  We spent countless hours making notes and creating visuals (flip charts and PowerPoints) to use with our students.  Our goal:  to keep our students engaged and to make certain that they learned the material.  

What are the parallels between teaching in the virtual classroom and delivering training in a brick and mortar setting?  There are an abundance of skills that transfer between both mediums.  First of all, instructors have to know the material "cold" as we use to say in the training medium.  There is nothing worse than listening to an instructor who is obviously reading from the training manual.  The same is true in the world of the virtual classroom:  it is obvious when a facilitator is reading from a script, even if there is no visual.

The key to avoiding the boring "talking head" syndrome is to become extremely familiar with the material by making the contextual connections that make sense to us as trainers.  We might not use this color commentary in the deliver, but it helps us make the material "our own" so that the delivery is more natural.  

The Post-it technique works wonders in the live classroom as well as in the virtual "room".  As you are reviewing the instructor's training manual, PowerPoints, or other medium, you use no more than three Post-its per page to summarize the three key points that you must convey from that section.  This forces the brain to synthesize the material.

The next skill that is equally useful in both the virtual and the non-virtual classroom is the art of building in points of interaction.  Where do you ask a question?  How can the question be phrased in a provocative manner to illicit interest, responses, and discussion.  No one wants to listen to a talking head without some variation in the delivery.  Involving the audience is one of the easiest means of breaking up the delivery modality.  

Modern virtual platforms allow for a great deal of interaction between the instructor and the student and among the students themselves, such as in separate chats or break out groups.  These are the same tools that instructors use in a live classroom when they ask the group to break up into smaller sub-segments and to report back to the group at large.   This skill is very useful in the virtual classroom as long as the instructor becomes very familiar with the technological attributes of the selected e-learning platform.

There are two major differences between facilitating an on-line session and teaching in a virtual classroom.  

1.    Voice pitch, tone, and diction become even more critical in an on-line delivery session.  We have to test our voices and delivery through recorded medium to ensure that we are varying our tone.  In fact, one very useful technique is to use Post-it notes of a different color than those used for summary points as described above.  This other note color is used sparingly to make notes about tone (indicated where to emphasize a point by raising or lowering our voice for example) and about verbal content ("tell a short story" here or "make an analogy here").  This "coding" helps us remember that we have to be verbally interesting otherwise the delivery will fail.

2.    Pause a bit more to allow transmission of the data so that you are not verbally "running into yourself."  There is nothing more distracting than an instructor who is moving too fast through on-line material--faster than the students can absorb it.  Remember, in the on-line world, when you put up a slide, people really do try and read it--or at least most of it because the visual distraction of the live presenter is absent.  They focus on the material.  

The key to successful on-line delivery and facilitation of training content is to be mindful of the benefits and the challenges with technology.  The successful instructor understands that presenting in cyber-space requires that their voice, word choice, and intonation carry the weight of the delivery.  In other words, their voice is a very important vehicle for influencing the outcome of the training.  They also have to spend considerable time melding the content with the technology to ensure that interaction, engagement, and interest are maximized.

What do you think?


Photo Credit: Mr Flip

Today's post is from Jennifer Marcus Newton, a freelance writer located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She routinely works from all the usual workshifting haunts--cafes, park benches, airports--and also maintains a tidy writing studio and messy home office. Her most remote work location was among the yaks in Shangri-La. Work/life balance for her means using both a Mac and fountain pen. Contact her at fidhlear@gmail.com.

Did you know that since 1963, the U.S. President has declared an official National Small Business Week every year? This special designation is a way to "recognize the contributions of small businesses to the economic well-being of America," as stated on the National Small Business Week Web site.

Contributing to the economic well-being of America is a tall order and, quite frankly, an extremely critical task. From Boston to Berkeley, an estimated 27.2 million SMBs in the U.S. conduct business, create products and provide jobs and services every single day. It's difficult to fully appreciate the enormity of a number like 27.2 million.

While we're talking numbers, consider this:
 

• "More than half of Americans either own or work for a small business. They also create 60 - 80 percent of new jobs in the country. Small businesses drive innovation, create 21st century jobs and increase U.S. competitiveness."
  

• "Small businesses are major contributors to the strength of the American economy."

  http://www.nationalsmallbusinessweek.com
  

As the 2010 National Small Business Week kicks off, Citrix Online is abuzz with the topic of SMB mobility and productivity. In a recent survey, Citrix Online polled SMB employees on their work habits. Survey findings paint an intriguing disparity between mobility and access to productivity-enhancing tools. In the last 5 years, the majority (54 percent) of survey respondents have become more mobile. Yet, 60 percent of those surveyed report that their current employers do not provide mobile tools and resources to increase productivity.

That's kind of appalling, especially when you consider IDC's predictions about the mobile workforce: "The U.S. is expected to remain the most highly concentrated market for mobile workers, with 75.5 percent of the workforce mobile by 2013." Mobility has certainly taken root in the U.S. workforce, and the demand for greater mobility will only continue to grow in the near future. So, too, will the demand for productivity-enhancing tools.

This week is an ideal time for SMB organizations to think about how to strategically address the mobility and productivity needs of their current and future employees. There's no denying that the economy is showing signs of recovery. Companies of all sizes - including SMBs - will be looking to hire top talent in the coming months. In the candidate pool, there will be plenty of Gen Y workers, a group increasingly identified by its attraction to workshifting.

Indeed, SMBs (all 27.2 million of them) play a critical role in the economic recovery. And to make the greatest possible contribution to the well-being of America, mobile SMB employees need the right tools to be as productive as possible.

What do you think?


Photo Credit: ThinkPanama

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

Many articles have been written about the personality traits needed to be a successful workshifter. Most stress the importance of finding people who are flexible, adaptable go-getters and disciplined workers. But in my opinion, the traits of those people who manage workshifters are equally important. A strong relationship between managers and workshifters is one of the most important elements in a sustained remote working environment.

I'm lucky because two of the three people who supervise me also work out of their homes and as a result understand the situational factors that influence a workshifting environment. But I know this isn't the case for everyone. As a workshifter, the people who manage you are often the only lifeline you have to the office and sometimes even clients and customers. It can quickly become frustrating if you're stuck with a manager who isn't in tune with your unique needs or tries to control every move you make.

As a result, it's important for organizations to not only focus on the workshifters that are part of the team, but also the managers who oversee them. Identify the people who have a management style that best supports worshifters, and provide them with the freedom they need to successfully manage a remote workforce.

From my perspective, here are some of the traits I've found to be most important in people who manage workshifters:

1. Be an over-communicator. In my opinion, there's no such thing as communicating too much with a workshifter. Workshifters are not around to hear the back and forth about ongoing projects in the office, which is valuable information they're missing out on. Make sure you keep your remote team in the loop. Develop mechanisms that will help them stay informed without having to constantly call their office cohorts to get the information they need.
   
   
2. Be a team builder. Feeling a part of the team is important to the success of workshifters. It increases motivation levels and helps reduce feelings of isolation. Managers who are natural team builders will succeed in acting as a bridge between the culture within the office and the remote team.
    
3. Don't micro-manage. Excessive scrutiny increases stress, fosters insecurity and doesn't empower workshifters to contribute their own ideas. It also gives the impression that that you don't trust them. Managers need to figure out a way to monitor the workshifter without micro-managing them. Build trust. Emphasize deliverables instead of actions.
   
   
4. Be responsive. Appointing your busiest employee to manage a team of workshifters is probably not the best idea. Workshifters who don't hear back from their manager until the end of the day will become frustrated at their inability to move projects forward due to lack of information. Managers need to make a conscious effort to be responsive and make themselves available to their team. 
   
   
5. Be curious. Take time to understand your workshifter's world.  It's easy to build relationships with the people you see every day in the office. For offsite employees this becomes more challenging. Workshifters who believe their managers do not understand their world will feel unsupported and skeptical about their managers' ability to give performance feedback. Managers should go out of their way to get to know workshifters and make them feel more connected. Visit each other's home office. Share family photos. Meet regularly.
   
   
6. Be flexible. Workshifters are a self-motivated, autonomous and dedicated group. This means that managers must look at workshifters as individuals and not as a group entity. Understand each individual's unique needs and motivations and how to respond to them.
   

Do you have any other traits that you would add to this list?

Photo Credit: Round Indigo Rock

In any relationship, trust is a critical part of the foundation. For Workshifters and the companies that employ them, working arrangements must be based on mutual trust to be successful.

Businesses need to trust their telecommuting employees aren't slacking off and are actually working when they say they're working. Workshifters, on the other hand, need to be able to trust that their physical absence from the office doesn't isolate them from the team and negatively impact their chances for growth within the company.

So what builds trust? Here are some tips from a Workshifter's perspective that may help:

For Managers:

• Maintain a sense of teamwork. Feeling as though they're part of the team can often be one of the most challenging aspects from Workshifters. Find ways to create and sustain a sense of camaraderie among your employees. One way to do this is to schedule regular team meetings, by phone, video conference or other methods.
  
  
• Assess the needs of your remote workers to determine the tools they need to succeed. This isn't going to be the same for everyone, so I recommend addressing these needs on an individual basis. If you demonstrate that you're invested in their success it will go a long way in establishing trust.
   
• Share organizational knowledge. Develop tools to keep your Workshifters plugged in. Whether it's Google Docs, a server that's accessible via a VPN client or other applications, remote workers need to be able to access organizational knowledge anytime and anywhere to be successful.
   
• Finally, be accessible to your remote team and make it a point to connect on a regular basis. This will go a long way in building the relationship with your Workshifters and building mutual trust.
  

For Workshifters:

• Establish a consistent routine so coworkers know when and where to reach you. Being predictable in your actions will build trust with the people who aren't able to observe you work every day.
  
  
• Be responsive. This is even more important for Workshifters than our office counterparts. After all, your colleagues will probably begin to wonder what you're up to if you haven't returned phone calls or checked your email all day.
   
• Deliver as promised. Although this is a bit of a no brainer, I feel it's still worth mentioning. One of the quickest ways to build trust, after all, is to deliver quality work when promised and on a consistent basis.
   
  
• Finally, go beyond emails when you're communicating with your coworkers. We all send and receive hundreds of emails a day. Go out of your way to build stronger relationships with the people you work with by picking up the phone or making time to stop in the office, if possible.
  

What are some of the tactics you've used to build trust?

Photo Credit: vagawi

Today we have a guest post from Sean Ryan.  Sean is a research analyst with IDC focused on mobile enterprise software.

Things get a bit tricky when it comes to helpdesk support for mobile and remote workers. Organizations don't typically have their own Geek Squad to race out to employee homes and resolve computer issues. Trying to resolve software problems solely over the phone can be cumbersome, time-consuming, and could ultimately lead to other issues if the employee misunderstands some part of the instructions given.

For these reasons, helpdesk technicians need tools to let them provide remote support to an employee's computer in order to directly troubleshoot and resolve the problem. With a growing variety of devices needing support, it's preferable that such solutions be clientless, hosted solutions. Such tools are becoming even more essential for helpdesks to invest in as the business landscape continues to favor an increase in the number of mobile and remote workers.


Below are 5 reasons why organizations must prepare to support a growing mobile workforce:

• Changes in business culture are enabling a growing number of knowledge-based business professionals to work from home one day a week or more. Companies are doing this to promote work/life balance for families, to retain good people by rewarding them with flexibility, to enable employees to extend business hours or work on the weekends from home to meet deadlines, and to allow employees with longer commutes to be more productive.
  
  
• The need for business continuity in light of unforeseen disruptions such as poor weather conditions or concern over the spread of a flu pandemic means that helpdesks need to be able to support employees regardless of employee location and regardless of their own location.
  
  
• Due to current economic conditions and the ever-increasing need of enterprises to trim costs, IT helpdesks face resource constraints, with fewer helpdesk personnel responsible for supporting more workers. In some cases, the helpdesk technician may need to be on call to support employees outside normal business hours and at a variety of locations.
  
  
• Mobile workers (those who travel frequently for business) are often executives, outside sales people, and others critical to the success of an organization. It's imperative that helpdesks have the right tools in place to effectively support these individuals.
  
  
• A growing number of devices and connectivity options are enhancing productivity -- but are also adding complexity for the enterprise. Beyond PCs and laptops, helpdesk technicians must now also contend with BlackBerrys, iPhones, and netbooks running over WIFI, WIMAX, 3G, and the like. They must be outfitted with the right software tools to effectively support such a variety of devices, and across a vast territory as mobile workers are the ones using these devices and connectivity options.
  

The market for clientless remote support software (remote support software that's hosted and does not require a native client installed on the end device) is one that IDC has been tracking for some time. For the reasons above, as well as others, we expect the adoption of these solutions to grow by a compound annual growth rate of 22.6% over the next five years.

Yet, this is not to say that clientless remote support software can solve all ills; hardware issues such as a hard drive crashing still would require the remote worker to go into the office or to ship the device to the helpdesk, or would require support from a local third-party provider contracted by the organization. By and large, however, such tools can reduce the amount of downtime for mobile workers, reduce resolution times for the helpdesk, provide IT with greater controls and visibility, and extend support across locations and device types.