Some smart ass said that “Work is something you do, and not something you have to travel to”. Possibly correct in the spirit that many people drive to work, and the moment they reach the office, they grab a coffee and read the paper for fifteen minutes. This renowned word “work” has become linked with a place we go to, rather than an act we have to carry out. “Honey I’m off to work.” or “That’s the work calling” are phrases which have permeated our subconscious over the years. Anyway the tables are turning as more and more office workers in Online Jobs are being asked to Work From Home.

With this exodus from the office, managers are now faced with no physical workers in the building and therefore no quick way of knowing what their staff are working on(or not working on) as is the case. Internet Business has always been like this, so maybe other market sectors need to analyse how these web based companies handle their staff. Chances are that they have implemented “Management by Objectives” to set goals and appraise their staff by. It makes sense, as managers cannot monitor what their staff are doing if they now Work From Home some thirty odd miles away.

This change to remote working is a enormous adjustment for managers as well as staff. The opinion that lots of managers will have, is that their staff will be less hard working if they have no physical supervision. Clearly that may be the case, but in a normal office it is reckoned that over an hour a day is squandered by staff chatting at the photocopier or with smoking breaks etc. It is actually up to the manager and the worker to sit down before they leave the office and set out some procedures, some targets and some set times to appraise progress. Whether you fall in with Management by Objectives or not, it does look like a way of ensuring both factions know what must be done and by when. How it is accomplished is another matter, and I think some latitude needs to be given to staff who Work From Home. It is a big transformation for them, especially if their previous Online Jobs were in a large office with lots going on and lots of social relations.

There is no doubt that without some form of suitable appraisal scheme, staff that work in some form of the Internet Business, may be discounted for promotion, because they are no longer spotted back at HQ. That is where decent MBO’s can be employed to compare staff doing similar work, regardless whether their Online Jobs are in the main city office or far away in a suburban semi-detached house. It is a new way of working so there will be slip ups, but with any luck lessons will be learnt. After the initial bedding in period, managers could find that remote employees are in fact more productive. One such analysis from CompTIA found that two thirds of ventures indicated that productivity had increased.

So although not conclusive, it does seem that productivity may not be as big an issue as managers assumed. One thing is for sure managers in any kind of Internet Business will have to trust their staff to do what is needed and it’s up to them to manage them accordingly through “Management by Objectives”.