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

located at different company sites or branches, the best practices in selecting employees, developing policies and procedures, monitoring progress, and — most importantly — communicating effectively, are remarkably consistent. As we proceed through the rest of this book, the focus will primarily be on managing off-site staff in any of these situations. The term “telecommuting” will be used only to specifically address formal telecommuting programs as outlined in this chapter. Chapter 5 will also focus specifically on telecommuting and address hiring staff specifically for telecommuting positions.

       Table 1 — Percentage of Organizations Offering Various Flexible Working Benefits

       Table 2 — Flexible Work Benefits by Year

       Table 3 — Flexible Work Benefits by Organization Size

      8. Case Study

      Amanda Vega of Amanda Vega Consulting (www.amandavega.com), with headquarters in Arizona, manages on-site and off-site staff. Her company has offered public relations and social media services to clients nationally and globally for many years. “We deal with multiple languages and different countries and take into consideration the different cultures we work with,” says Vega.

      The first office was established in New York City and currently employs eight full-time employees who spend about 50 percent of their time on-site, says Vega. “Most of these were high-paid advertising executives at big firms that we were able to hire at a lower salary because of the flexibility we offer,” she says.

      Vega says it was natural for her to set up her company as a virtual organization to a large degree because she had worked virtually with AOL for a number of years. But, having enjoyed the virtual work experience, Vega found it hard to adjust when she was asked to transition to AOL’s home office in Silicon Valley. “That was very weird for me,” she says.

      She prefers a virtual work existence and established her company to allow flexibility for her and her staff. But flexibility doesn’t mean lack of accountability.

      Vega monitors performance and holds staff accountable through specific expectations, frequent communication and tools that allow her to manage projects and remain continually up-to-date on progress. “We have one standard Excel file that has all clients listed, who the account manager is and what the deliverables are,” she says. Monday morning conference calls provide an opportunity for formal updates on progress. Ongoing communication occurs through phone, email, and social media tools like Twitter.

      Vega notes that she can demand high performance and accountability from her staff because of the value they place on the ability to have flexible work arrangements — and because there are so many others out there who would love to take their place! “People love to work from home,” she says.

      “I’m not sure that businesses have really thought about this, but you’re giving employees an incredible luxury by allowing this flexibility,” says Vega. The ability to work off-site, she says, is a benefit that employees highly appreciate but which doesn’t cost an employer much to provide. A win-win for both sides.