SUCCESSFUL MANAGEMENT
IN THE VIRTUAL OFFICE

Bruce McGraw &
Bernie Kelly

Front Cover Picture

May 10, 1995

Introduction

Paper hosted by Cognitive Technologies

Context
Management
General
Managerial skills
Traits of successful telecommuters (3.5)
Themes for telecommuting (5.6)

Planning

Setting performance objectives for telecommuters (2.1)
Providing support and equipment for telecommuters (2.2)

Organizing

Organizing and assigning work (3.1)
Selecting types of work appropriate for telecommuters (3.2)
Addressing technical support issues to ensure productivity (3.3)
Ensuring access to required tools and support (3.4)
Providing growth, training and development (3.6)

Controlling

Keeping the supervisor informed (4.1)
Ensuring effective communications (4.2)
Conveying organizational culture and policies (4.3)
Implementing reviews and rewards (4.4)
Modifying supervision style to accommodate telecommuters (4.5)
Ensuring a balance between the telecommuter's professional and personal life (4.6)

Leading

Coaching and mentoring the telecommuter (5.1)
Inspiring telecommuters to accomplish their tasks (5.2)
Building a sense of "team" (5.3)
Ensuring visibility for telecommuters (5.4)
Motives for rewards and motivation (5.5)

Coordinating

Keeping the telecommuter informed of team, project, and corporate information (6.1)
Coordinating and maintaining a workgroup which includes telecommuters (6.2)

Summary

Planning is Key
Key to Managing is Paradigm Shift
Self Motivated & Knowledgeable Employees Important
Communications & Involvement Critical

Survey Questions

Sources for further help

INTRODUCTION

This guidebook was jointly developed by Bernie Kelly and Bruce McGraw in order to fulfill the requirements for the Executive Technology Management Masters degree program. The guidebook deals with the general management issues associated with the virtual office and telecommuting. The guidebook attempts to offer solutions to the most common management challenges brought about by telecommuting.

The solutions proposed in the document were compiled from industry and academic information published in paper or electronic form. Those solutions were then validated by a survey (see Appendix A) which was sent to 52 managers.

We received a total of 28 surveys from the target managers. Approximately 50% of our respondents were from Bell Atlantic, the sponsoring corporation. As a result, 71% of the respondents were from large companies with greater than 1,000 employees.

Our goal was to obtain input in the survey from mature managers, which was accomplished. Seventy percent of respondents have more than ten years experience as a manager. The breakdown of years managing telecommuters, as shown in Table 1, was much more evenly distributed between 1 to 3 years and greater than 3 years.

Table 1
Less than 1 year 11%

1 to 3 years 46%

More than 3 years 43%

Table 1
Less than 1 year	11%
1 to 3 years	46%
More than 3 years	43%

Each participant selected up to two solutions by placing a number beside their choice. They used a "1" to indicate their first choice and a "2" to indicate their second choice. A statistically-weighted average was used to identify preferences. All "1" responses were assigned a value of ten points; all "2" responses were assigned a value of six points. The values for first and second choices were totaled to reveal a weighted average and a preference for each solution. Preferences for the top solutions are discussed and explained in this guidebook, along with an analysis of each problem.

Context

As more companies build "Shamrock" corporations (Spigai 1994) in order to compete successfully in the 90's, new management challenges must be addressed. According to Spigai, the shamrock concept is an organizational paradigm of using full-time, temporary, contract, part-time, freelance and highly flexible employees in a diverse organizational structure. This organizational paradigm is fueling a phenomenon known as the "virtual office".

Technology has solved many of the problems that were barriers to having a flexible and dispersed workforce and has driven a new paradigm referred to as the "telecomputing or telecommuting" employee. Hoping for lower costs and higher productivity, increasing numbers of employers are abandoning office space and handing employees and contract workers laptop computers, portable phones and beepers with instructions to work from their cars, homes, or customers' offices. This approach, once limited to vendors of high-tech equipment, is being adopted by many leading corporations as well as small businesses (Schellenberg 1994) As a result, an estimated 2.6 million workers are being thrust into this new virtual office reality (King 1994)

Virtual teams are now a benefit and a necessity for companies. Brought about by the global nature of marketplaces, these teams must complete projects quickly in order to bring new products to these global markets, and this requires tapping the best brains for those projects regardless of their geographic location (Geber1995).

Management

The biggest challenge in analyzing the management problems was to organize managerial work into some framework or schema in which problems could be sorted. A search of traditional management models was helpful in putting a framework together for focusing the problems found in the literature.

Using the framework established by the work of Richard Boyatzis (Boyatzis1982) , a basic schema for management can be developed. This framework is represented by five functions: planning, organizing, controlling, motivating, and coordinating. Building on this framework, we utilized material from more modern management texts (Mainiero & Tromley, 1989; Schermerhorn et al., 1991) to develop a model which depicts management functions organized into specific attributes.

We conducted a literature search to identify currently accepted management practices, techniques utilized by existing management, and related telecommuting data. We included literature on leadership practices in the search in order to gain a current perspective on management techniques and the revolutionary thinking in businesses of the 90's. (Bennis & Nanus, 1986; Biehl, 1989; Peters, 1987; Quick, 1992) These attributes were then synthesized and merged into the schema shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 - Management Attributes.

This schema was used to identify the common problems in virtual office environments, as well as the solutions that have been implemented. This guidebook is organized according to the five functional areas that comprise good management.

GENERAL

The following characteristics related to the virtual office are of a general nature and express manager's opinions on several broad topics. They are overall opinions that can be used for management guidance that can be applied to successfully managing in this new flexible workplace.

Managerial skills

Managers were asked to identify which attribute of management they considered most important when managing telecommuters. Over 50% of these managers identified adequate planning skills as a critical requirement to achieve success in this environment.

The second critical skill identified by these managers was leading. This skill was seen as the ability to motivate, facilitate, and inspire telecommuters as effectively as if they were traditional office workers. Additionally, this skill is necessary to build effective teams, which include telecommuters.

1 Planning: Goal setting, action planning, and distributing plans

2 Organizing: Identifying resources, setting standards, and structuring the organization

3 Controlling: Monitoring performance, providing feedback, evaluating work, and facilitating communication

4 Leading: Motivating, developing people, team building, and stimulating interest

5 Coordinating: Fostering cooperation, promoting, managing the political environment, and resolving conflicts

1	Planning: Goal setting, action planning, and distributing plans
2	Organizing: Identifying resources, setting standards, and structuring the organization
3	Controlling: Monitoring performance, providing feedback, evaluating work, and facilitating communication
4	Leading: Motivating, developing people, team building, and stimulating interest
5	Coordinating: Fostering cooperation, promoting, managing the political environment, and resolving conflicts

Traits of successful telecommuters (3.5)

When evaluating potential telecommuting opportunities, a manager must give careful consideration to which traits are most important to ensure success as a telecommuter. Similar to the fact that not all jobs are suited for telecommuting, the same is true for people. Certain characteristics and personalities are better suited to working alone for extended periods from a remote location. Managers must consider many factors when attempting to make their decision regarding an individual's potential to be a successful telecommuter.

Many of the traits that a manager might look for include:

1 Flexibility

2 Strong organization skills

3 Strong communications skills

4 Low need for social interaction

5 Team player

6 Self-motivated

7 High level of job knowledge and skills

8 Enjoys responsibility and empowerment

9 Trustworthy and reliable

1	Flexibility
2	Strong organization skills
3	Strong communications skills
4	Low need for social interaction
5	Team player
6	Self-motivated
7	High level of job knowledge and skills
8	Enjoys responsibility and empowerment
9	Trustworthy and reliable

Managers place the most emphasis on two factors when determining if an employee will likely be a successful telecommuter: self motivation and a high level of job knowledge and skills. They consider these factors to be almost equally important. While both of these traits are important characteristics of almost all high performers, these factors are ones that a manager has much less control over in a telecommuting environment. The manager cannot easily assess the employee's motivation level nor can he or she easily assist with problems related to a lack of knowledge or skills when the telecommuter is not in the office. In addition, access to co-workers for assistance and morale support is significantly reduced when the employee is telecommuting. For these reasons, telecommuter managers rank these traits extremely important when selecting candidates for telecommuting positions.

Themes for telecommuting (5.6)

Given the following statements applicable to the work environment, corporate culture and strategic vision that places a higher emphasis on the achievement of goals, rather than the specific methods used to accomplish them, was deemed to be most applicable to telecommuting by two-thirds of the managers.

1 Pride in what one does is the most powerful of all rewards.

2 Telecommuters need intellectual and emotional stimulation; the telecommuting environment is key to making that happen.

3 The new security is not employment security but employability security(i.e., the ability to find new jobs if laid off).

4 The corporate culture and strategic vision place a higher emphasis on achievement of the goal, rather than the specific methods used to achieve it.

1	Pride in what one does is the most powerful of all rewards.
2	Telecommuters need intellectual and emotional stimulation; the telecommuting environment is key to making that happen.
3	The new security is not employment security but employability security(i.e., the ability to find new jobs if laid off).
4	The corporate culture and strategic vision place a higher emphasis on achievement of the goal, rather than the specific methods used to achieve it.

E-Mail to Bruce McGraw <bruce.mcgraw@cogtechinc.com>