Telework Week 2012 Recap & Winners of The Art of Virtual Leadership

Aaaaaaand it’s a wrap! I would count last week as a successful Telework Week 2012. More than 69,000 pledged to telework.  Collectively, these pledges saved $5.5 million and removed 3,358 tons of pollutants from the air during Telework Week.  If all pledges teleworked for a year, they would collectively save $275 million.

Here is a snapshot of the final stats:

Pretty impressive! Currently, Telework Exchange and Cisco are compiling a report on the success of Telework Week 2012.   They will release the report at the upcoming Spring Town Hall Meeting on May 2.  To register for the event, click here.  To sign up to receive the latest information on the report, please contact info@teleworkexchange.com.

It’s been proven time and again that telework or remote work can save money, be good for the environment, help improve employee recruiting and retention, and lead to increased productivity.

I challenge you to take this opportunity to go beyond “telework week” and really think about what providing a more flexible workplace can mean to you, your employees, and your business. Then stop thinking and START DOING!

Here are some resources we’ve put together to help you learn more about telework and jump start your efforts:

• WORK UNCHAINED: Workshifting and the Competitive Edge of The Anywhere Office® A Special Report
• Telecommuting in the 21st Century – 13 Part Audio Series on How to Implement or Improve Virtual Teams and Flexible Work in Your Organization
• The Art of Virtual Leadership Webinar – On demand video webinar on managing remote teams

Announcing the Winners of our Virtual Team Management Webinar

Speaking of The Art of Virtual Leadership we had a fun contest encouraging you all to tweet about telework week and the resources we shared to help spread the word.  We are giving away 2 FREE enrollments to The Art of Virtual Leadership webinar (registration is currently $157).

The lucky winners are (drum roll please . . . . . . .) Read more

10 Tips for Running Online Meetings

The Globe and Mail delivers again with this helpful article of real-world tips for improving your online and virtual meetings. I think #10 might be the best and most overlooked, it can be so difficult to force yourself to do nothing, it is like some kind of Zen koan.

10 tips for running online meetings – The Globe and Mail.

Leave a comment with any tips you have found for facilitating online meetings.

5 Situations Where Remote Workers are at a Disadvantage

Melanie Slaugh, a reader of our blog and host of MyISPFinder, recently published a great article examining some of the real challenges of telecommuting or working remotely from the office.
Being aware that issues like this exist allows you to plan for how to address them. It is also important that remote workers and their managers and principles are able to have open communication about how and where they are struggling so that the distributed work or virtual team process can be improved and refined over time.

5 Situations Where Remote Workers are at a Disadvantage.

Are there other universal disadvantages any one else has experienced while working remotely? Leave your comments below.

Why You Should Pay Attention to the Growth of Online Education

If you’re like me, then the idea of online education occupies a precarious position in your mind. While you fully support and believe in the prospects of an online education, you have reservations as to how many people actually get one. Sure, you figure that some people need online education because of the same stock reasons: they can’t afford the average college tuition; they’re tied down by a rigorous day job; or they want to pursue an education in a vocational field. Basically you feel like online education is a good idea, but something that’s not meant for everyone, right?

Not so fast. As a recent study from College Board and the Babson Survey Research Group shows, online education is growing at a fast clip, with more students enrolled in online courses now than ever before. The online college student has essentially become a key demographic in higher education. So what does that mean for web-based entrepreneurs?

More people are taking online courses

Firstly, the rate of growth in the online student demographic points to the growing trend of online education. As I said before, people had previously thought of online education with skepticism, assuming that it only fit certain lifestyles. But the College Board study suggested that as many as 6.1 million people enrolled in online classes in the fall semester of 2010 alone—that’s no small figure. What’s happening is that more and more people (students, teachers, and administrators alike) are realizing first-hand that online education has potential for all students, not just people forced into a distance education experience. The College Board also stated that 65% of higher education schools implement online education into their degree programs. Online education has merits for everyone, and more teachers are designing their courses to accommodate the online model for their students.

A new kind of workforce

Imagine how a legion of online college graduates will impact the workforce. Online college students could completely change the landscape of their professions, boasting an entirely different set of skills they learned through their schooling. Not only will they know the fundamentals in their profession, these prospective employees will also bring an impressive array of web experience and computer savvy.

Think about it: many of these students spent the majority of their education doing readings, projects, tests, correspondence and more over the web, relying entirely on their computers to help them learn and absorb lesson materials. Graduates from online college programs would be a great addition to any web-centered enterprise because they’ve spent their undergraduate career using the web as a learning tool. They’ve relied on the web as their number one resource.

Moreover, graduates of an online education understand the power of the internet, that the web is something more than a series of YouTube videos and tweets. More than anyone else, a person with an online degree could grasp the potential behind a new online business venture because they’ve already experienced firsthand the revolutionary effects of the web. To put it another way: if a person put their trust in the web for higher education, you can bet that they would do the same for a professional career.

Author Bio: This guest post is contributed by Lauren Bailey, who regularly writes for Accredited Online Colleges (http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/). She welcomes your comments at her email Id: blauren99 @gmail.com.

Fundamentals for Effective Management of Virtual Teams

I came across this article recently talking about some of the fundamentals of being the leader of a successful and productive virtual team: Effective management of virtual teams.

What I really liked about this is how it talks about the shift from the departmental mindset that most companies used to have to the ability to collaborate and work with global virtual teams. The post states:

When organisations got out of the department mindset, it became possible to work with the best of global talent.

This ability to work with the best people regardless of location is one of the key strategic benefits of The Anywhere Office. One that I feel many businesses overlook when considering how virtual to be.

There is no doubt there can be challenges with how to instill a sense of belonging and trust among virtual team members. It’s just these challenges we show you how to overcome in our on-demand workshop – The Art of Virtual Leadership.

Working on dispersed teams across time and distance is not some vision of the future – it has become commonplace.  Almost all of us collaborate with others virtually almost every day – the question is are you managing it properly?

Share your thoughts about leading virtual teams and managing remotely in the comments below:

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