Managing Off-Site Staff for Small Business. Lin Grensing-Pophal

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      There’s a wonderful old Dilbert comic strip in which Dilbert is meeting with the owner of a small business with which Dilbert’s firm is forming a strategic alliance. Dilbert comes in with a very thick binder in his hands and tells the other man that the binder contains the procedures his company uses for project management. Dilbert then says, “I guess a small company such as yours is used to flying by the seat of your pants.” The small-business owner replies, “Not exactly,” prompting Dilbert to ask, “You mean you’re flexible?” which draws the reply, “I mean I’m not wearing pants.”

      When it comes to implementing telecommuting, there is quite a collection of policies, guides, training programs, and all other kinds of resources available in books and on the Web — but most of them are directed at the large organizations that are typical of where telecommuting got its start.

      (An aside: It is now time, in my view, to attach an asterisk to the word “telecommuting” or otherwise indicate that we have seen the beginning of the end of “telecommuting” as it was once known. It was a great term when it was coined by Jack Nilles in the mid-1970s but we are, as this book will show you, far beyond the “gee, isn’t it cool to be able to work at home” stage. We have, finally, reached the point that I and many other predicted and hoped for: the day when we begin to simply talk about “work” as an activity without segmenting it according to where it is being done.)

      There’s nothing wrong with those procedures and manuals — in fact, most of the problems I see when companies try to implement telecommuting arise when they ignore the practices and knowledge that have developed and accumulated in the last 35 years.

      The small-to medium-size organization has, unfortunately, been largely ignored in this scenario. As the Dilbert comic suggests, smaller firms aren’t generally as likely to have those six-inch-thick binders and multi-page policies and procedures. But that doesn’t mean the smaller firms don’t have the need for the same kind of guidance as do the big firms that prepare those behemoth policies.

      That’s why this book is such an important resource. It bridges the gap between the unique needs of the smaller-business employer and the knowledge base and resources typically available to much larger firms. Most important, this book will inform your thinking about the many ways in which work gets done (and done well) independent of location and, in some cases, independent of organizational boundaries. There really isn’t a great deal of difference in how telecommuting can be used in smaller firms — the difference comes about because smaller firms just don’t have the internal staff, the time, and the bureaucratic inclinations that make those immense policies work elsewhere. Smaller businesses need the convenience of a field guide. They need this book.

      Having been involved in the field of telecommuting* (there’s that asterisk, signifying that we all need to wean ourselves from using that word as a transitional crutch) since 1982, I have seen it implemented in virtually every kind of organization — large and small, private sector and public sector, information-intensive and production or service-based, in the US and elsewhere. There are remarkably few differences across this range of firms. The underlying telecommuting concept of selectively decentralizing the office — and the business benefits of doing so — are more universal than most people realize.

      This book takes those relatively universal experiences and methods and focuses them exclusively on the needs and characteristics of the smaller (but not necessarily small) organization. Lin Grensing-Pophal has done that exceptionally well — and has also packed the book with a range of checklists, sample forms, dos and don’ts, and other practical, easy-to-use tools that will make your job easier.

      Let’s face it: Organizations that continue to cling to the notion that work can only be done when workers are sitting in the same place at the same time have, or will soon, become antiquated and dysfunctional. We’re not going to see offices and office buildings evaporate; what we will see, though, is phenomenally rapid growth in the number of organizations of all sizes that figure out how to enable and guide people to work together without being together.

      Implementing off-site staffing in your business can provide excellent opportunities for business growth. You’ll find this book to be a well-researched and thorough — yet highly readable and usable — guide to help you decide the best way to implement telecommuting.

      Lin Grensing-Pophal has done the entire community of small- and medium-sized organizations a great service by tailoring what we know to this sector of our economy. Take advantage of her hard work and get going!

      — Gil Gordon

      Introduction