Telecommuting in the 21st Century: How to Implement or Improve Virtual Teams and Flexible Work in Your Organization (Part 2: What Jobs are right for Telework or Remote Work?)

Welcome to Part 2 of our 13 part audio series on Flexible Work and Telecommuting –  Telecommuting in the 21st Century: How to Implement or Improve Virtual Teams and Flexible Work in Your Organization“.

So if you are launching a telework program should everyone be able to work outside the office? Think about your job and office.  If you’re like many people your work increasingly deals more with information and ideas. Although you interact with others, much of the time it is over the phone or through memos and e-mails. You probably use a desktop computer for access to information, generating reports and documents, and communicating with others. As a general guideline, all jobs that do not involve physical production, expensive specialized equipment, or extensive face-to-face customer contact can be teleworking positions. Even if your job involves a considerable amount of face-to-face meetings, you can plan your office visits around those meetings and still enjoy the benefits of a more flexible work schedule. With proper planning you’ll find that almost every job can be made more “portable” so that much of it can be done from outside the office.

Obviously not every person or job is a good fit for telecommuting. Two main things need to be considered when finding appropriate teleworkers:

1. How to select the right jobs: Are the tasks of the person’s job appropriate for telecommuting? How much of their job is, or can be, location independent.
2. How to select the right people. This is true for both managers and teleworkers. Like almost everything there are certain types of people that tend to make better remote workers than others.

In part 2 of our podcast, our panel discusses how to identify the job types that are suiteable for telework or remote work byexamining a number of different factors.

So listen in to Part 2: What Jobs are right for Telework or Remote Work?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:39 — 5.2MB)

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Telecommuting in the 21st Century: How to Implement or Improve Virtual Teams and Flexible Work in Your Organization (Part 1: Intro/Why Telework?)

I was happy to hear that Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine declared today (Monday, August 3rd) as Telework Day for the State of Virginia. Although this started as a statewide effort to “green” Virginia and reduce energy consumption and efficiency – many are adopting this as a national initiative and encouraging organizations and individuals to telework from home or a remote location.

We thought this was a perfect opportunity for us to launch our 13 part audio series on Flexible Work and Telecommuting –  “Telecommuting in the 21st Century: How to Implement or Improve Virtual Teams and Flexible Work in Your Organization“.  It’s no surprise that given the hassles of air travel, rising fuel prices, and today’s economy that telecommuting is becoming even more attractive as a win/win situation for many organizations. While in no way a new practice – many companies are looking for tips and best practices for how to implement or improve telecommuting in their organization. So we are here to help!

Starting today and for the next 13 weeks we will be providing a series of audio posts from a recent teleseminar featuring a panel of experts answering some of the most pressing questions regarding implementing or improving a telework program.

The 13 weeks will cover the following topics:

• Part 1: Why Telework? A look at the reasons a company should consider offering telecommuting as an option and an overview of some of the benefits
• Part 2: What Jobs are right for Telework or Remote Work? Identify job types that are suitable for remote work.
• Part 3: What to Look for in a Telework Candidate? How to evaluate candidates for telecommuting consideration based on a number of factors.
• Part 4: What Makes a Good Telework Manager? A look at what qualities and best practices are needed for managing remote employees. Read more

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:16 — 8.5MB)

Easy Audio Blogging on the iPhone with AudioBoo

Listen above as my 2 year old son Spencer and I take AudioBoo for a spin on my Ipod Touch.

Posting audio to the web just got a whole lot easier thanks to a great service and iPhone app called AudioBoo.  AudioBoo allows iPhone and iPod Touch users to record and playback digital recordings up to 5 minutes long which can then be posted on the AudioBoo website where users have their own pages or channels similar to Twitter or YouTube.

I love to test out new technology (in fact I’m kind of addicted to it) so when I heard about AudioBoo I just had to give it a spin.  I have an iPod Touch – not an iPhone and despite it not having a built in mic I have an external add-on mic (more about that below) so I am able to use any of the recording apps for the iPhone.

I figured to make the test a bit more fun I would ask my 2 year old son Spencer to test it with me. He was having a ball with this and occasionally put the mic too close to his mouth so you will have to forgive some of the audio spikes.

He definitely follows in his Dads footsteps and seems to love technology as much as I do (he’s a born button pusher . . .). In fact he quickly mastered my iPod Touch almost instantly when I got it last Christmas.  He knows how to turn it on – swipe through the pages to find the games and programs he likes and play them all without any help from me.  And if you think that is crazy – you should see him wield a mouse on the Noggin website – lookout!

The iPod Touch is an amazing device and I will be writing (and shooting a lot of video) about it in the near future to let you know how it has replaced my laptop for many of my mobile work tasks – but back to AudioBoo.

Portable Audio Blogging Made Easy
It couldn’t be easier.  I setup a free account on their website and then downloaded the program (also free) to my iPod Touch.  One quick touch of the account button to plug in my account info and we were ready to record.  We plugged in the Phillips Mic – tapped the START button on the record screen and after a 3 second countdown we were recording.  When you are all done you hit the pause button and then the publish button.  It allows you to type in a short message, add a photo, and even post the location you are publishing from. Within minutes it uploaded our audio over our wifi connection and we were able to listen to it. Read more

TAO Podcast (Mobile Work Tip) – Using Threaded Discussion Boards

Email has become a primary form of business communication. I believe one of the reasons it is so popular is that it is the most accepted and widespread method of asynchronous communication. But email is so pervasive and convenient that it can be easy to overlook other options and spiral into email overload.

When we talk about asynchronous communication we mean that all parties involved do not need to be present and available at the same time. Examples include e-mail, discussion boards, and text messaging over cell phones. Direct communication, where all parties involved in the communication are present at the same time, is what we refer to as synchronous communication. Examples include a telephone conversation, a company board meeting, chat rooms, and instant messaging.

In this Mobile Work Audio Tip Phil talks about some benefits of asynchronous communication and the use of discussion boards and threaded discussions.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:04 — 1.9MB)

TAO Podcast (Mobile Work Tip) – Movement and Stretching

Phil discusses the need to be mindful about remembering to move yourself around when working out of the office, and gives a great website with some yoga stretches (mydailyyoga.com) you can do right at your desk.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:56 — 1.8MB)

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