Managing a Mobile Workforce

Managing a Mobile Workforce Today, more and more people are working from home or out in the field, as employees, whilst many business owners today are managing their business on the go, perhaps embracing the remote working lifestyle sipping a cocktail whilst swaying in their hammock on some tropical island… yet, whilst this lifestyle sounds idyllic, there are plenty of challenges to managing a mobile workforce.   In this article we’re going to look at a number of tools, technologies and strategies that can make life a lot easier in terms of managing a mobile workforce. COMMUNICATION IS KEY As a manager or business owner it’s your job to keep employees in the loop, and whilst in an office environment it’s very easy to schedule meetings or just have a brief and informal chat by the photocopier, when you have a mobile workforce, life can be made a lot more challenging; particularly if you’re dealing with an international workforce where people are all working in different time zones. If you’re team are working “deskless” then there’s a fear on both ends of the employment equation that things become “out of sight, out of mind” in the sense that you don’t always know what your employees are getting up to, in the real world, and similarly your employees don’t know whether their demands are being actioned back at head office… meaning, a lot of times people can feel quite isolated and unheard. Just like with anything in life, communication is key, and when it comes to communication with a mobile workforce, technology is required.  A Zogby Analytics study demonstrated that remote workers stated a lack of information from management and the timeliness of said information to be the biggest obstacles in terms of working from home (39 percent and 38 percent respectively). In that vein, let’s look at two ways of improving communication in order to manage employee requirements. USE VIDEO There are companies such as Librestream that offer video enabled services for rapid response (see: http://librestream.com/solutions/video-enabled-service/) which are particularly useful for empowering your team out in the field, or even having live interaction with customers that can impact customer experience in a very positive way. Similarly, when it comes to training, it’s very simple to create an online hub of learning materials that are facilitated by on-demand video training.  You could, of course, employ a professional company to take care of filming, but for the majority of use cases, a decent iPhone with a wireless microphone, a simple backdrop, and some decent lighting is enough to create professional quality educational videos that can be used by both your team and your employees. SCHEDULE 1:1 MENTORING SESSIONS It’s important to touch base with your team, and therefore, scheduling consistent 1:1 mentoring sessions via video conferencing, or perhaps a phone call if technologically necessary, is a good idea. The technology is simple, as you can use services such as Zoom.us or Skype.com, both of which are free or very low cost and ubiquitous in terms of employee engagement.  The consistency of contact is key, as if your team know that every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 11am, for instance, there will be a team call, it meets the emotional need for certainty and seriously helps people to feel more connected and nurtured.