Seven Solid Reasons To Invest In A Virtual Workplace

You’ve pondered the concept of the "virtual workplace" for a while. Perhaps yours is a global corporation whose myriad of managers need to coordinate their efforts . . . or a company trying to evolve from a "silo" structure to a "cross-functional" one . . . or a business with a lot of telecommuters in different locations . . . or a consulting firm dependant on a loosely-organized network of independent partners. Point is, you know your employees and/or affiliates need an "online workplace" of some sort; you just aren’t sure how to go about it.

Besides, your track record in this sort of thing isn’t so hot. When you think of all the software you’ve tried that is now gathering dust on a shelf—and the change initiatives you’ve tried to implement that have gone nowhere—it fills you with a sense of dread. But with air travel looking less appealing every day, you’re feeling the pressure to do something. Fast.

Indeed, now is the time to establish your online workplace. In the 21^st century work world, many organizations need an ‘online office’ in which meetings of the mind can take place. Those minds may be managers of the same company in different geographic locations or telecommuters or freelancers or even members of different corporations collaborating on projects. Fact is, the world is changing, and so is the way we think about work. And although most people realize this in a vague way, they may not understand the real benefits of the virtual workplace—and they certainly don’t know to go about building one.

So why should your company establish and use a virtual workplace? Here are seven solid reasons to invest in one:

You’ve heard about the shrinking global economy, the paradoxes that come with it and the increasingly distributed workforce for years. Surprise . . . it’s all here! Now you are faced with the realities of managers managing from a distance, projects becoming dauntingly complex, and decisions that demand ever-more-rapid answers from ever-larger numbers of people. No question, it’s time for team members to put their collective heads together in a big way. An online office lets you do just that.

How often have you sat in a long, boring meeting in which very little got accomplished, and within two days you’d forgotten what was decided? Probably more times than you care to count! The same tends to be true in terms of voice conferences and web-based meetings. That’s why online environments—which allow you to collaborate over long periods of time, keep central repositories of documents and even review prior "discussions" word for word—tend to be far more productive and successful.

You write an e-mail. You send it to 10 people. You get eight different responses. Now what do you do? Do you send eight different replies? Do you copy each reply to all 10 people? And if someone replies to your reply, should they copy it to everyone on the list? Auggghhh! It’s enough to give anyone a raging headache. A well-designed virtual office eliminates the frustrating e-mail trail by giving everyone a single location to make comments and respond to them. It’s a nearly foolproof way to ensure that no one gets left "out of the loop." Also, it documents every word that’s exchanged. When you need to look back and confirm something, you’ll find the entire "conversation" recorded in one place, rather than having to open six months’ worth of e-mails.

Memos, progress reports, schedules, budgets, press releases . . . all documents pertinent to your project can be archived in your online environment. Obviously, every team member benefits from having access to such materials. If someone misses an important meeting, he or she can go to the archive and review the notes. Successive drafts of documents can be posted so that the "history" of the project may be easily reconstructed. Decisions are recorded for posterity.

5. Asynchronous work environments give everyone an equal voice.

Synchronous describes a one-hour meeting. Asynchronous refers to what happens between that meeting and next meeting. Let’s say a company holds a brainstorming meeting. We all know the ideas that are put on the table come from those people that are the quickest and the loudest. But suppose the company recorded these ideas in an asynchronous online environment and told everyone they had a week to review them and add others? Quieter folks, or those that prefer to mull things over, or those that just had a bad breakfast that morning would be much more inclined to post their ideas. In this way, a virtual workplace is a great equalizer.

Yes, an online work environment will require an initial outlay of cash to get up and running. But think of it as an investment that will pay off "big-time". In the long run, this type of cohesive, ongoing, goal-directed interaction is simply a more efficient and effective way of working. It saves time, it eliminates redundancies, it builds strong alliances, and it fosters teamwork. Ultimately, all of this means it can save your company money—in fact, it could be just the competitive advantage you need right now!

I don’t mean to imply that this is a major reason to establish a virtual workplace, but it is uppermost in many people’s minds. Executives are more reluctant to fly and many companies are cutting back on their travel, but the fact remains that work still has to get done! There must be a viable alternative to face-to-face meetings—and a cohesive, company-specific online workspace designed to facilitate the right type of interaction is a great one.

Perhaps the biggest and most compelling reason to establish an online work environment is simply this: it’s nothing less than an inevitability for corporations destined to survive and thrive in the Information Age.

Today’s business leaders have a simple choice: they can quickly learn how to use online collaboration technology or they can bury their heads in the sand. Those who choose to learn their chances of staying competitive. For those who don’t, it’s just a matter of time before they are out of the game altogether. And in today’s world we are talking about months, not years, to experience competitive degeneration.

The electronic workplace is the workplace of the future. Fifty years from now we’ll be holding long-distance meetings in front of life-size video screens just as a matter of course. But it has to begin somewhere, and that somewhere is finding better, more efficient ways to share information. The corporation that learns how to compete globally—and manage the attendant wealth of information effectively—will ultimately come out on top.

copyright © 2002 Collaboration Artchitects, LLC (http://www.collaborationarchitects.com)
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