Virtual-finance

Trina Hoefling is the founder of Consult One Group, Denver, Colorado, and a professional whose years experience in virtual working included developing one of the first remote training programs. Hoefling draws upon her considerable experience and expertise in Working Virtually: Managing People For Successful Virtual Teams And Organizations to presents examples, definitions, anecdotes, advice, and seasoned wisdom for making the most of telecommunication, teleconferencing, and enabling the team bonding process despite the separation of distance in the modern-day workplace. An excellent, clearly written and positive instructional guide to both personal and technological concerns, Working Virtually is especially commended reading for virtual team leaders, Human Resource managers, CEO's, and corporate trainers.

Do you work naked? If you're one of the millions of people who work away from the corporate office much of the time you might. Or you might follow a strict routine of showering and dressing first thing. As Cynthia Froggatt argues in detail, non-traditional working practices vary tremendously - but eight principles can help employees and managers alike shape those practices for improved satisfaction *and* effectiveness. Making the change from traditional, regimented working practices to "virtual workplace" practices can be difficult but the rewards can be great. Froggatt's principles cover the issues thoroughly.

To ensure that working away from the office (whether at home, a coffee shop or library, a client's office, or elsewhere) increases productivity without causing anxiety on either side, this book recommends these guidelines:
Initiative: Overcoming the fear of change and becoming change agents - Froggatt provides a checklist for uncovering obstacles to peak performance in the virtual workplace.
Trust: Achieving confidence in the management-employee relationship - this requires doing away with the layers of outdated performance measures. A real concern is the "input bias" according to which managers evaluate workers more highly based on what they see rather than on what is actually produced.
Joy: Creating a work environment that is enjoyable in atmosphere and attitude. Even if your company is not considering allowing or encouraging virtual work, the points discussed under this principle could help improve your workforce's motivation and commitment.
Individuality - Creating a culture of autonomy creativity versus conformity. Froggatt outlines three types of solo workstyle, effectively demolishing the idea that virtual work equals working in a home office.
Equality - Flattening the hierarchy so cooperation and teamwork can flourish. Perhaps the principle least specifically tied to virtual work, this one promotes the removal of all forms of hierarchy which, ironically, may be less influential for those who aren't often in the office to experience them.
Dialogue - Providing an honest communication forum to inspire and inform. Even more than for regular workplaces, virtual work relies on open, honest communication.
Connectivity - Optimize technological advantages, including employee locale. This principle is all about equipping your virtual workforce to enable people to take full, productive advantage of increased flexibility.

Workplace Options - Provide comfort /creative setting for all work locations. Here, Froggatt goes some way to redressing the emphasis on virtual work by stating that both the physical infrastructure of workplaces and the technological infrastructure of online work are crucial to the emerging environment of virtual work. Workplaces of the future are being shaped by six trends, argues Froggatt: Access will become more important than ownership; People will commute less but travel more; Individual choice takes precedence over management control; No more captive audience at "the office"; More attention to workplaces in the home; Blurring of leisure and work.

Drawing on companies such as Cisco Systems, Autodesk, Verifone, The Promar Group, and SAS Institute, Froggatt paints a diverse picture of the ways that companies can help balance work and personal life while enabling knowledge workers with differing work styles to become more productive. The illustrations of each principle help to make clear how you might go about implementing the abstractions. The downside - for some readers - is an absence of real theoretical underpinnings and little attention to the validity of studies cited to support the author's contentions.

For example, on p.40, a Nortel employee survey is used to show higher employee satisfaction of teleworkers as compared to the overall Nortel population. We are given no reason to believe that this is a fair or useful comparison. Perhaps the types of workers made virtual were more satisfied to begin with - a before and after survey would be more revealing. Readers may also find that in the author's eagerness to establish the viability and attractiveness of virtual work, the real challenges of virtual work may sometimes have been assumed away too quickly. On the whole, however, Work Naked provides plenty of ideas for those interested in exploring new working styles for 21st century knowledge workers.

The virtual office/organizations have been a concept that has received a lot of attention in the last decade but has had a hard time surfacing as a viable option. According to the author, the reason for this being businesses and management insist on using the same management principles in a changing environment. This leads to frustration and failure of an idea that can be fruitful to so many.

Work Naked simply implies that as individuals, your employees have different personalities and different work methods and to be a successful manager you must take the differences and make them work for you. This can include allowing your employees to work different hours, flexible shifts and from home or a combination of all of these options. To achieve success Froggatt proposes eight principles that must be addressed.

1.Initiative-Overcoming the fear of change and becoming change agents.
2.Trust-Achieving confidence in the management-employee relationship.
3.Joy-Creating a work environment that is enjoyable in atmosphere and attitude.
4.Individuality-Creating a culture of autonomy creativity versus conformity.
5.Equality-Flattening the hierarchy so cooperation and teamwork can flourish.
6.Dialogue-Providing an honest communication forum to inspire and inform.
7.Connectivity-Optimize technological advantages, including employee locale.
8.Workplace Options-Provide comfort /creative setting for all work locations.

I found this book to be a very pokerfaced voice for change. Each principal demands respect from all levels of management and staff.

The eight principles taught in the book can be useful to any work environment, even if virtual workplaces are not incorporated. The most important theme in the book is flexibility. The principles are based in a human resources frame as the goal is employee empowerment. However, with this empowerment or lack thereof can bring success or failure to the businesses.

Most organizations have traditionally been based in a brick and mortar setting where the organization as a structure is valued above all. I see the organizations of tomorrow to be more information centric or knowledge based. Before reading this book, I had not given careful consideration to the implications of this statement. Now I can see that if we wanted to, most service related organization could venture into the virtual workplace if proper facilities like phone, Internet and computers available.

After reading this book I actually made a few informal interviews with colleagues and asked them if they honesty needed to be at work for forty or more hours a week. Most said they spent their time working on proposals and documents on their computers, answering e-mail reference questions and other work that did not require being physically present. I then took it a step farther and asked if they would be open to a FLEXIBLE schedule in which they worked 8 hours shifts on the desk but only worked 2 OR 3 days physically at office with the rest being at home. After a few strange looks and careful consideration most staff said that it would help them be with their kids more, schedule doctor appointments and avoid the commute.

As Work Naked shows, you can accomplish wonders if you provide the initiative, the training and the supports to your staff. Work Naked is not steeped in theory. It is not a book that scholars will debate for years to come, but it will provide interesting conversation. For each principle listed there are case studies of real company situations to show an example of why the principle is important. At the end of the book there are resources listed to help companies get more information on making the switch. Cynthia Foggart believes in taking the bull by the horns and getting the job done. The only fault I have with this is a fairly negative attitude to the workplace environment as a whole. There are some bonuses to corporate culture and there are some individuals that are at their best in that environment. Their needs should not be shunned. Also, the book does not delve into any of the new issues that might come up in a virtual work environment. Managers need to find another book to help them resolve those issues. In a nutshell the book is good read but a lot of cons of a virtual organization could have been presented...

Let go. That's the message to corporate leaders who have decades of reinforcement that their job is to control the people who work for them. There's a new game in town-a new way of operating that releases creativity, boosts productivity, and drives more profit to the bottom line.

This new approach involves stripping away the old ways of thinking about managing. It means removing policies that inhibit employees in their self-driven initiatives to do truly amazing things. The new approach suggests that people can work from anywhere without the traditional trappings to achieve results far beyond current reality. In a phrase, the new approach allows people to work naked, without constraints. Froggatt, a consultant specializing in aligning workplace strategies with business plans, describes the process as "shedding the layers" of control, overwork, conformity, hierarchy, poor communication, geography, and unproductive work environments to release the bonds.

While explaining the problems, Froggatt presents the principles that can empower a leadership team to change the way their company does business. Eight simple principles: initiative, trust, joy, individuality, equality, dialogue, connectivity, and workplace options. Some leaders will read this book and stick it on a shelf to gather dust. Others will really "get" the message and will transform their organizations. With the content of this book, and the way it is presented, transformation will not be that difficult . . . for the enlightened leaders. Unfortunately, we have far too few leaders who fit into that category. Hopefully this book will win a few more converts.

Do not expect policies, contracts, procedures, systems, and all that sort of garbage in these pages. No, this book is about people and principles. The pages are rich with concrete examples that will be an inspiration to readers who are inclined to adhere to the concept of working naked. Checklists, bullet-point lists, charts, diagrams, and plenty of chapter subheads make this book superbly readable. Adding to the value of "Work Naked" is an astonishingly detailed 13-page index and a index-like list of the companies profiled in the book. Over ten pages of chapter notes await you at the end of the book and a concise summary awaits you at the end of each chapter.

I read this book with a high degree of interest, from my perspective as co-author of "Impending Crisis: Too Many Jobs, Too Few People." Our book talks about the coming severe labor shortage and how many companies are headed for extinction. "Work Naked" supplies the treasure map for employers who want to avoid extinction and thrive instead.
Highly recommended!

Work and Rewards is chock full of useful information. Crandall and Wallace write mainly for organizations that resemble their clients -- corporations that manufacture goods for profit. But I think this book is even of value for non-profits. While obviously helpful for human resource people, this book would be beneficial reading for CEOs, top organizational leaders, and even frontline supervisors.

"The job is dead," the authors declare. "Job" is part of the "old deal" marked by cradle-to-grave security. "The New Deal will require us to act as adults, not children." Employees will be increasingly responsible for acquiring the skills needed by their employers. Narrow job descriptions are already giving way to broader, more flexible skill sets. The authors claim this shift will help organizations run more effectively and will increase worker satisfaction.

Don't be mistaken; Work and Rewards is not a pie-in-the-sky futurists dream. It is based on the real life experiences the authors have had with dozens of clients, including Sony, Corning, and others. Work and Rewards is packed with practical models, steps, outlines, case studies, plans, and formulas. These tools can help organizations evaluate the cost of going virtual, determine what key drivers the organization wants to reward, and how to manage the transition.

I highly recommend Work and Rewards.

Chapters include:

1. Forging a New Compact Between People and Technology
2. Working in the Virtual Workplace
3. Exploring the Virtual Workplace
4. Work Design
5. Skills and Competencies
6. Rewards in the Virtual Workplace
7. The Blended Workforce
8. The Economics of the Virtual Workplace
9. Getting to the New Deal in the Virtual Workplace

"Economic and technological forces have converged in this last decade of the twentieth century to create an entirely new form of business competition. The New Competition", N. Fredric Crandall and Marc J. Wallace, JR. write, "encompasses a global economy and is driven by information rather than product and by time rather than space, creating a revolution in the way we do business...The New Competition has emerged in three parallel developments: (1). Former competitors forming alliances to command the market, (2). New marriages of technology, markets, and opportunity, and (3). The creation of new business entities that replace traditional ones, defining the entire length of a value chain-a form of organization that has been characterized as the virtual organization...The virtual organization requires a virtual workplace. The virtual workplace is a work environment where goods and services are created and delivered joining employees beyond the traditional bounds of time and place. Technology is a foundation for the virtual workplace, creating the means for innovations in working relationship such as teams of people who work together via teleconferencing or transfer work in progress from one venue to the next across time zones to keep work going on a continuous basis."

In this context, in Chapter Six, they examine how the role of rewards and compensation changes when an organization evolves from a traditional to a virtual workplace. Firstly, they define job in a traditional organization and argue: "The job concept served traditional organizations well. Work has been organized in a command-and-conrol bureaucracy characterized by functional specifications and hierarchy. It is a paradigm shaped by early twentieth-century thinking of Max Weber and Frederick W. Taylor, implemented by Henry Ford, and cast in the legislation of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s. Unfortunatelly the paradigm no longer serves us because the job has died. Globalization of production and technological revolution have forced us into a post-industrial model for producing goods and services. The work designs of the virtual workplace have forced companies to tear down hierarchy do away with functional specialization, and organize all activities according to entire business processes that cut across traditional departments and occupations."

Hence, they compare traditional and virtual base pay models, and argue that in the new workplace people are paid not for the job they hold but for the role they are expected to play.

I. Base Pay Model in the Traditional Workplace:

1. Unit of analysis: Job

2. Basis for determining value: Job evaluation

3. What pay is for: Work performed

4. Base pay progression: (a). Modest movement within grades to mid-point. Pay is controlled to mid-point. (b). Promotion required for significant advancement.

5. Base pay structure: Many narrow grades, hierarchically arranged.

II. Base Pay Model in the Virtual / New Paradigm Workplace:

1. Unit of analysis: Personal role

2. Basis for determining value: Personal evaluation

3. What is pay for: Capacity to perform

4. Base pay progression: Significant movement from entry rate to target rate based on capacity acquisition.

5. Base pay structure: Few, broad bands

Finally, they define this new paradigm as skill-or-competency-based pay, and argue: " the base pay progression policy that best serves the virtual workplace is skill-or competency-based pay.

I highly recommend.

Like the industrial revolution before it, the Information Age is giving rise to new types of organizations, new ways of working, and new approaches to human resource management. This technology-driven economy, with its virtual realities, is profoundly reshaping the nature of relationships between organizations, as well as between the organization and the individual.

On a macro level, the authors aim to show how a new social contract (New Deal) is developing between individuals and organizations, replacing the traditional employer-employee relationship. Through this virtual revolution, the conflict, as many see and experience it today, between people and technology will be overcome. And free market dynamics make it inevitable that virtual organizations will and must continue emerging.

Moving from the macro to the micro, the authors explore some of the pivotal changes taking place today; changes in the nature of the workplace, the design of work, the use of competencies, the characteristics of reward systems, learning, career opportunities, and staffing. Numerous tables and diagrams, as well as illustrations from company experiences, highlight key points and make the distinctions between traditional and virtual workplaces vivid. There is a lot to be gained from each chapter. Guidelines are presented to help practitioners address their needs for taking action. The authors are also helpful in laying bare serious problems that companies have faced in applying such concepts as skill- or competency-based pay and broad bands which I, as a consultant in organization and compensation, welcome seeing in print. Additionally, the authors present a model to demonstrate the economic value of the virtual workplace. This is an excellent book, impressive in scope and rich in substance.