Do you ever think about what the next big revolution will be in your industry? In the last century, we've had many revolutions or ages that have turned the world upside down. The atomic age, jet age, space age, and now the information age to name a few.
What if you, or your company, could be among the early adopters? Could you change your position with the competition?
What if you could do everything you do today, but significantly cut, or eliminate the cost of your physical offices? Where would you put those lease, power, and maintenance costs if they were released?
Now, add tax incentives for that making effort. Would you have an edge over your competition?
Those are exactly the benefits that await the first companies to truly adopt the concept of a distributed workforce. There has been massive adoption of residential high speed internet access, voip phones, video conferencing, and collaborative tools like Webex. Today, the market is prime for a company to embrace 100% work from home policies.
As with any edgy move, there are some hurdles to overcome, and some lessons to be learned. Billy Beans had a slump before he starting winning games too:
- Remote collaboration requires new skill sets. Managers will need to learn how to support employees in learning these skills, and the skills they need to keep everyone engaged from afar.
- Culture shift: There needs to be a shift toward work accountability over butts in seats and hours worked. Moving people to a home office provides them with greater freedom to manage their own time. With that freedom comes responsibility. Rather than trying to manage and motivate in traditional ways, we need to hold those same people accountable for their assigned tasks, and ability to collaborate.
- Adoption of technology: Everyone needs to be trained on the collaboration tools, and use them. No exceptions.
- Time management: This is a major problem in our workforce today by my account. Management does the majority of time management, and individuals clock in and clock out. This skill needs to be delegated to each individual. Everyone can manage their own time if given the training and motivation.
For companies that take this on, there will surely be some bumps in the road. But now let's consider what you get out of it:
- Facilities costs: Every person that does not need to come in to the office saves physical space, and support costs. Depending on your location, this can be extremely expensive.
- Ecology: Let's face it. I think we all know that we'd be better off with fewer cars on the road.
- Tax Incentives: In some states, there are business tax incentives for every employee that works from home. This incentive is specifically to help reduce traffic congestion and emissions.
- Higher efficiency: Even for a person with a 20 minute commute, you are cutting 40 minutes of wasted time out of every day. Assuming a 16 hour wakeful day, that's a 4% increase in valuable time every day. Atleast some of that time will probably be spent working.
- Fewer distractions: Given a good time management skills, and some training, working from home presents a much more focused environment. This is heavily dependent on good policies, and support for remote employees.
- Higher morale: More time at home with families, friends, etc.. is a good thing
- More independent, well rounded employees: Successful home workers require self directed mind sets. The skills learned to do this successfully will feed into other aspects of work and life.
Will your company be a trailblazer, and reap the benefits of competitive advantage? The Oakland A's only had a short advantage from rethinking baseball. After everyone else adopted their methods, the advantage was gone. The same will be true in business.
Do you want an edge over your competition? Consider the benefits above. Are you up to the challenge?
Do you want an edge over your competition? Consider the benefits above. Are you up to the challenge?
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