I love this cartoon:
What makes the Dilbert series work so well is that Dilbert’s boss (who has no name, so let’s call him Dick) has a weird, boss-strain of Tourette’s syndrome. Instead of shouting obscenities, Dick says what every PMS (Pale, Male and Stale) boss feels in their guts. Dick gives us an insider’s view of what our boss really thinks.
Teresa Hopke, award winning Work-Life Strategist at RSM McGladrey, told me recently that telecommuting and flexible work doesn’t cause problems at work. Rather, flexible work arrangements amplify problems managers already have. Have a manager who’s a poor communicator? Working from home will increase their miscommunication. Work for someone who doesn’t delegate well? You’ll have to learn to read their mind once you’re working 6 AM - 2 PM and seeing them less.
The key - from my perch - to offering employees robust flexibility and a high-performing team atmosphere is trust. I say this as a person leading a company with nine employees, two of whom are out of the office - and the state - full time, and one of whom works an erratic work schedule. How do you build trust when you work with people you rarely - or never - see?
- Employees who work outside the office have to be available and accessible during normal, agreed-upon work hours. In other words, they have to be at work when they say they will be. Peg (in Denver) and Molly (in Rock Island, IL) keep normal office hours from 9 AM to 4 PM Central Standard Time, and let us know when they’re going to be away. Our interns also schedule office hours. They’re used to it; it’s what their professors do.
- Everyone needs to (learn and) use technology to shorten the distance between us. In our case, everyone on our team gets a MacBook, and is trained to use iChat. We log into iChat when we start the day, we change our iChat status based on what we’re doing, e.g. “In a meeting,” “Eating,” “Focusing - leave me alone.” Most importantly, iChat allows us to videoconference with each other for free anytime, anywhere we have an internet connection. iChat shortens the distance between the home office, Peg, and Molly, and helps them feel like they’re in the office with us. Here’s a snapshot from our iChat with Molly this week. (What a Rock Island ambassador!)
3: Plan meetings to bring everyone together. In our case, we have two all-staff meetings each year. Molly drives up, Peg flies in, and we all spend 3-4 days working together in our home office in Madison. While everyone’s here, we make a party of it. We eat meals together, I host a barbecue, and of course, we have at least one ‘beer-thirty.’ (There is really nothing that brings a team together like quality beverages.)
Here’s the bottom line: we want to hire the very best people we can. And we don’t care where they live - or where they work. This gives us a strategic advantage over bosses like Dick, who think they can’t manage employees who aren’t sitting next to them. For the next generation - the first that understands that Apples have memory - it’s the only thing that makes sense.
Remember, work that can be done over a wire can be done anywhere. Use this to your advantage.
