65 2014 - Leaning In To the Power of A Remote or Mobile Workplace

Instructor: Teri Morning
Description:
Not too long ago the thought of working at home seemed laughable. However, today it’s routine although not as routine as many employees believe. Tech companies were some of the first companies to embrace workingremotely. Yet recently, working remotely has begun to face a backlash from some employers while others continue to scale out their remote and mobile (R/M) workforces.
When Marissa Mayer ended Yahoo’s flexible policy of employeesworking from home, she was both criticized and credited.Many companies immediately followed her lead,citing her claim that collaboration began at the office as their reason.
This change of heart came, as a shock not just to affected Yahoo employees but many companies that had instituted R/M workplace polices when they had not even wanted to, having been shamed into such arrangements through employee accusations of being “old school”or not “family friendly” for not embracing R/Marrangements.
So what’s a company to do? Does working remotely really have to be less collaborative than working side by side? Does requiring employees to sit side by side in cubicles really increase collaboration if those same employees are routinely texting or emailing just as if they were 1,000 miles apart? Can employees be more productive if left alone to work in solitude?
The answer is maybe, maybe not. It depends on your company; including culture and the business purpose, the particular job, the person and it depends on how you set up your working R/M program to make it right for yourcompany now.Even Mayer pointed out that Yahoo was not trying to institute a new industry view on working remotely, butrather “This is about what is right for Yahoo right now."
By now most companies have enough experience with R/M arrangements (or have at least seen enough mistakes by others) to agree that productivity begins at home and collaboration does begin if not at the office then certainly in employee groups. Nevertheless, working remotely does not mean employees take off with laptops never to be seen or heard from again.
One thing everyone can agree on is that all employees seems to have strong views on the subject and employees continue to embrace and clamor for even more such types of arrangements, claiming to be more productive anywhere but at the office, which usuallytranslates into working at home. Many companies in these times of flat wages use such arrangements as rewards for employees or as a recruiting and retention tool.
Other companies are forced by the nature of their business to work apart from each other and have been doing so for as long as they remember. These companies way of doing business and even their mistakes can be adapted into many a workplace’s R/M plan. Those companies lean into and embrace R/M workforces as a necessary part of doing business. In addition, any company with R/M workforces would do well to follow their lead, embracing that which they have created rather than suffering through that which they have allowed to happen.
Any company that wants to lean into a successful R/Marrangement is going to have to build it intothe company structure not dangle it like a prize, endure, or be shamed into a relationship thatisnot right for their company. Employees who work better at home shouldnot have to worry thatworkingat home;while right for them may diminish,their chances within the company from their lack of face time or suffer the wrath of those left behind at the office. Nor should they have to worry that their arrangement will suddenly be snatched away one day.
Every workplace has a culture. The challenge is if a company wants to have an R/M workforce, even if just a small part of its workforce, then to embrace that and build that mindset into the workplace culture through every piece and part of its ranks. The idea that R/Mrelationshipsenhance not just the employee’s life but the company’s mission as well. When that is in place, everyone is encouraged by an R/M plan rather than discouraged, even those who do work in the office.After all working R/M is just a different way/place to work - not different work. If the company management doesn’t consider R/M workforces as an “an alternative arrangement/schedule” then no one else will.
Why Should you Attend:
Unsuccessful R/M plans commonly start small and then take on a life of their own, growing and rambling into a sudden hodgepodge of weedy work arrangements. If you do not “grow” a disaster of an R/M plan, you will not have one to dismantle.
Objectives of the Presentation:
How to weigh the productivity argument vs the creativity and collaboration argument for your own company ? not anyone else’s.
The 14 things you need to see in your employees to know if they will be successful working on their own.
Helping your R/M employees be as successful (or more) working elsewhere compared to in the office.
Managing from the outside in ? the 12 things you need to see (and not see) in your managers to know they can successfully manage R/M employees.
How to “see”, encourage, and capture innovative leadership emerging in unexpected places and within unexpected people ? when you don’t see them every day.
Unleashing the ambitions that are alive in everyone and keeping their goals aligned with your company even if those people are not physically on site.
Negative Disrupting Dysfunctional Managers ? usually hiding in plain sight; what to do about them and with them. Because they will ruin (or try to ruin) all yourR/Mplans and their R/M employees arrangements, if not their careers.
What to do with employees at the office who are losing productivity worrying about what others are doing at home ore elsewhere.
Creating a workplace with a cohesive culture ? without creating a stereotype of what manifests “success”, or on whom success is modeled and that success is not dependent on where someone’s physical worksite is located.
Encouraging and embracing independence ? putting people in charge of their own career paths vs. the company assigning one.
How to create the benefits of an R/M workplacewithoutanyoneworking outside the office.
Who can Benefit:
HR Generalists
HR Managers
Plant Managers
Management
Business Owners
Front Line Managers
Branch Managers
Those with Employee Relations positions
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