I recently had the pleasure of attending a BTV (business television) broadcast held on March 20, 1996. The broadcast was based on the recently released report entitled "Managing the Reinvented Workplace" by Dr. William Sims of Cornell University. The broadcast is part of an ongoing series which is sponsored by Steelcase, IFMA and IDRC.
The report concluded that to be successful, an organization must focus on multiple business reasons for remote work. Dr. Sims identified nine keys to success. The first is commitment from senior management; they need to release that such a program represents a major investment and a major change. Senior management also needs to be prepared to not only support initial efforts to change but to also focus on sustaining the concept. The commitment from senior management needs to also be matched with a high-level of commitment from those who work remotely.
Another key to success is to ensure that the move to the new workplace is a cross functional effort with support from Information Technology, Facilities Management and Human Resources resulting in a coordinated and integrated strategy. A critical aspect of these programs is to have someone in charge who "owns" the strategy -- a champion/leader of the cause.
Careful planning, implementation and ongoing management is also essential to success. This planning must also include integrating the new workplace model with other existing workplace strategies recognizing that working at the regular office will be different under the new system.
Another critical key to success is the development of a new set of attitudes. This will include enhancing the level of trust between managers and remote workers, developing new ways of supporting remote staff and the development of objective measures to track progress.
Sims' concludes his list of keys to success by reminding us that we will likely need to develop new relationships with suppliers and that we will need to develop programs to maintain communications and a sense of community within the organization.
Richard Tiani, Director New Business Development at American Express spoke of the program they have had in place for the past five years. The American Express experience started with the travel-related service and sales group. The goals of the program were to improve sales quality by providing people with portable technology. They also eliminated the need to drive to and from the regular office by giving staff the tools to perform their jobs either from home or the customers' location. They started with a voluntary pilot which was extremely successful. Today the program is firmly entrenched as a way of doing business at American Express and is now mandatory for some positions.
Tiani described several of the challenges of this type of program. The first is communications. Since the workers are rarely in the regular office it was necessary to establish new methods of communications. For example, everyone participates in a 30-90 minute conference call every Monday morning. The group also meets in a hotel once a month for lunch and meetings. Finally, American Express requires each remote worker to have a "buddy" back at the regular office to ensure all aspects of communication are covered off.
The second major challenge has been middle management resistance. American Express addresses this challenge by providing managers with adequate information on how and why remote employees are more productive. They use real life examples from their pilot group to present consistent and convincing data to the managers. American Express made the remote work program an overall corporate strategy as they feel that it was necessary to show a strong commitment to management and staff. Tiani stated "one-of arrangements tend to lead to difficulty as it is not accepted corporately and it becomes extremely difficult for us to realize the real estate savings."
Mr. Steve Fautch, Manager Corporate Real Estate, R&D and Corporate Planning for Sprint Communications described their experience with remote working. Sprint has several groups which have implemented remote work but Sprint is now trying to develop a corporate-wide program to ensure that the expected benefits can be achieved across the organization. The primary benefits include being closer to the customer, improving the level of customer satisfaction and improving overall corporate performance.
Fautch talked about many of the same challenges experienced by American Express. Communication is obviously a key and Sprint has addressed this by having what they call "phone lunch." Remote workers call in at lunch time and interact with their colleagues on both a business and personal level. Management support has also been a challenge. Fautch spoke of managers wanting to "remote control" their employees. Sprint is working with its management team to move to managing by results.
Sprint has the added challenge that they are marketing the remote work technology and concepts to their customers so it is critical that Sprint be successful. Sprint also recognizes that it is working in an industry which is changing rapidly and where qualified professionals are hard to find and retention of key resources is critical. Fautch sees Sprint's remote work program as a competitive advantage for attracting and retaining key staff.
The broadcast concluded with a discussion of the lessons learned. Fautch explained that remote work programs which are solely focused on real estate savings will likely fail. An integrated strategy and piloting were critical to success.
Tiani concluded that at American Express "the virtual office concept was not a test -- it is something that makes sense for us and we are committed to it."
Dr. Sims' parting statements were that a cross functional integrated strategy was essential and that the use of remote work must be seen as a key strategy of the organization.
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