Remote Control: Managing a Mobile Workforce

Employee mobility lowers overhead, increases productivity and, best of all, makes employees happier and more engaged.

Or does it?

Years into the mobility revolution, remote staffing structures are no longer novel. And as the dust settles, the risks lurking in a remote workforce become clearer.

It’s not as simple as the fact that employees working from home might be in their slippers all day. It’s about leadership: How do you lead and manage people you rarely see? Might they be veering away from pre-established business rules and agency cultural values? Have they become lone rangers rather than team players, focused on their own needs and not the greater good of the agency? And how can agency principals and managers determine future leaders if they are not around to assess?

The benefits of using a mobile workforce are clear—it’s helped many agencies achieve greater productivity and bottom line benefits. But agencies must weigh these wins against the potential losses.

The Pros and Cons

Academics and consultants focused on human capital management, as well as some agencies that have pursued remote staffing structures, agree: It’s not all upside. “With everything in business, there are advantages and disadvantages,” says Robert Ployhart, Bank of America professor of business administration at the University of South Carolina.

On the plus side of a remote work structure, Ployhart cites greater employee satisfaction and engagement. “As mobility allows [agents] to spend more time away from the office—perhaps even to the point where they rarely, if ever, come in to the agency—they can spend more time drumming up business and assisting client needs and less time stuck in agency meetings and driving to and from the agency. That makes for a happier employee—and a more productive one.”

The downside is losing face time with fellow employees, which may fracture a team-based workforce. “I would question the commitment and loyalty of employees that are largely disconnected from the enterprise and enjoy no camaraderie,” Ployhart says. “This was a key consideration at Yahoo, when [CEO Marissa] Mayer brought the formerly distributed workforce back inside, wanting them to run into each other at copy machines and water fountains to build solidarity.”

Worse than lack of collaboration, some employees actually flounder when removed from an office environment. “Not everyone likes to work at home or on the road,” says Josh Bersin, founder and principal, Bersin by Deloitte, at Deloitte Consulting LLP. “I’ve run across this many times running my own firms, where people frankly did not want to work remotely. They needed the comfort of the presence of others. They simply thrived better in a collaborative, team-based environment.”

The solution is to effectively manage the challenges created by mobile arrangements, which requires striking the right balance between remote work and office work. “You want to permit freedom and independence by not requiring everyone to come into the agency from 9 to 5, yet at the same time, not lose the personal connections that occur in the office environment,” says John Berry, principal, John Berry Consulting. “There is great value in face-to-face encounters that you simply can’t get in a text.”

Perfecting the Formula

Some agencies have been able to preserve a remote workforce arrangement without jeopardizing the loyalty and commitment of employees—but only after some trial and error. When the Houston-based Insurance and Financial Services launched in 2000, owners decided almost the entire staff of 17 employees would work from their homes or on the road five days a week—producers, CSRs, account managers and claims people. Employees visited the office once a month.

Only two staff members worked onsite in the agency: the agency’s owner and Mickie Comiskey, chief operating officer. “We perceived the arrangement as a win for both the agency and the staff,” she says. Employees no longer had to endure the long commute to the agency in Houston’s 85-mile expanse. For the agency, the arrangement offered the opportunity to maintain a small office with less equipment, which cut overhead.

But after a couple years, the disadvantages of the agency’s remote working arrangement became clear. “People were completely disconnected from each other—from the camaraderie of working together in an office, and from the empathy one tends to feel for coworkers and their problems and triumphs,” Comiskey explains.

The agency tinkered with the arrangement, requiring employees to come in to the office one day a week, but that failed to boost morale. Through more trial and error, the agency eventually discovered the right formula: three days remote, two days at the office.

All employees work in the agency on Wednesday, a day the agency uses for staff meetings, carrier visits and major client presentations. Employees choose the other day they will spend in the office each week.

The agency also requires each employee to “buddy up” with another employee. “This way, when one employee is on vacation and can’t do his or her job, the buddy does it,” Comiskey says. “If one is at lunch, the other is working.”

The new workforce arrangement is “working beautifully,” she adds. “We recently tweaked it again so when an employee is put on probation for whatever reason, the first thing they lose is their work-at-home privilege. And we now require employees to not take off a Monday and a Friday—just one or the other, because the beginning and end of the week are the most important days, business-wise.”

Brady, Chapman, Holland & Associates Inc., also based in Houston, introduced a flexible work structure 10 years ago with similar results. The agency required customer service personnel to work only nine hours a week at the office; the rest of the time, they would work remotely. They also received every other Friday off.

Agency leadership considered the arrangement a key employee benefit that would attract and retain top talent. “We figured that employees would get more work done at home, where there would be fewer interruptions,” explains Cheryl Sanders, the agency’s director of client services and carrier relations.

But the agency encountered the same problems as Insurance and Financial Services. “We realized we were losing the ability for everyone to collaborate, and made some changes,” Sanders explains. “We had gone too far and needed to rein them back in.”

The agency now designates specific times when everyone must be at the office, and requires that the entire staff be there on Mondays. “This way, we can rest assured that our staff meetings are fully attended—which makes everyone feel a part of the agency,” Sanders says.

A Unified Whole

This balance is instructive, demonstrating the importance of the human connection. Interestingly, the word “company” derives from the Latin word for “companion”—a level of intimacy difficult to achieve through an email or on FaceTime. As Ployhart says, “Many companies with far-flung workforces rely on video conferencing as a means of getting everyone on the same page, but it is a fairly poor substitute for face-to-face engagements.”

To replace the companionship lost when people are not at the office, Berry recommends agency principals host monthly dinners and celebrations. “Getting together doesn’t always have to occur for a strict business purpose,” he says. “You need to find a way to replace the lost hallway conversations that occur among employees, where they chitchat about their families and activities. From such interactions, friendships emerge that lead to the innovations sparking great business solutions.”

Another idea is to inspire employees to engage in community outreach activities. “A great way to build a team-based ethos is to get everyone together to work in a soup kitchen or paint someone’s home—something that is meaningful and spreads goodwill,” he says.

When face-to-face meetings are elusive, Berry advises principals and managers to simply pick up the phone and say, “Hi, how’re things going in your neck of the woods?”

“The goal is to provide the advantages of working remotely, without losing the feeling of being a part of something bigger,” Bersin says.

Russ Banham is an IA contributor.