The Boundless (and Borderless) Talent Found in the Global Teleworker

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.

  Talent Management  

IT professionals are just that—professionals. Working in teams and alone, they are dedicated members of a workforce that are often isolated by the intellectual nature of their work, but likewise require the influence of others to review, verify, test and collaborate when coming up with solutions.

Their work is easily quantifiable as well. If something doesn’t work, it can often be tracked down to specific individuals. If a contributor wants recognition, they can demonstrate their skills in many settings. The very nature of information technology is based in performance and efficiency—while there are situations when components may be poorly constructed or have flaws, these issues can be identified and the next associate can then step up to improve upon the design.

Because they are professionals and many of their IT-based work functions can be performed from various locations, the use of a remote workforce has accelerated to keep pace with industry demands for talent and productivity. Given the option to work from a non-office location, many employees find that they can escape some of the issues surrounding a building-centric business operation. Time and energies that spent on idle chit-chat, office politics, commuting and similar logistical issues become less impactful.

Treating a remote staff as responsible adults also implies an organization’s …

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