Keeping Virtual Workers Engaged

Mike Donoghue is a member of a multinational information technology corporation where he collaborates on the communications guidelines and customer relationship strategies affecting the interactions with internal and external clients. He has analyzed, defined, designed and overseen processes for various engagements including product usability and customer satisfaction, best practice enterprise standardization, relationship/branding structures, and distribution effectiveness and direction. He has also established corporate library solutions to provide frameworks for sales, marketing, training, and support divisions.

  Communications Management   Talent Management   Teams  

The need and support for teleworkers is growing. As information technology project teams and their employers increasingly realize that their need for knowledgeable personnel cannot be met by local talent pools, they more energetically seek staff that are many towns, regions or even nations away.

The support brought to the table by improvements to smart devices, cloud services and Wi-Fi connectivity have also provided the means where traditional office-based jobs can be performed in a greater number of locations. Companies that recognize the possibilities even exercise remote work options for those staff members that have health conditions and home situations that make it difficult for them to go to corporate settings.

To keep an “out of office” workforce engaged and productive requires a special company culture mindset. Whereas an in-house staff may have the advantages of face time with managers and other employees, teleworkers miss out on the business dynamics and environment that play a hidden role in an organization’s activities and efforts. Certainly, there are opportunities through email, instant messaging, video chats and the like to create stronger relationships, but having a physical connection has been found to build a greater sense of “belonging” and collaboration to a corporate climate. The challenge then for an organization is to …

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