In this installment we are going to review the reasons why you should have a virtual or remote operational plan as part of a business . . . → Read More: Virtual Employment – Part 2]]> In the first installment of the Virtual Edge I opened the discussion of reviewing sick time/absenteeism as a first option to having employees work remotely or from home.  

In this installment we are going to review the reasons why you should have a virtual or remote operational plan as part of a business continuity and recovery plan.  Not only are these extremely important for the long-term welfare of an organization but another way to test the traditional thought, and policies, of where work is performed.

Ask yourself:

• What if your organization was in New Orleans when Katrina hit or located in the twin towers hit during 9/11 or in Haiti during the earthquake?  What if you had employees there?
• What if one/all of your facilities were damaged by fire or some other catastrophic event?
• What if you were unable to access your facilities for a short or long-term period for any reason?
• Can you afford to close your doors or idle your workforce?

Business continuity and recovery plans are a key component to any organization, of any size, to execute tasks and keep essential operations running. They are ideal to insure the safety of your workforce, your data and your revenue. They do notneed to be extensive efforts but must be exhaustive in planning and practice.

Why a BCRP?

• It highlights vulnerabilities for the operations safety and that of your workforce
• It delineates essential staff for continued operational effectiveness and success
• It requires you to set up temporary or off-site operations as a contingency plan – if only for your data, as well as a plan to instruct employees where, if at all, to report with other pertinent information

During the first few days of recovery after Hurricane Katrina, in the midst of the mayhem, there were shining examples of effort by individuals, organizations and companies that demonstrated resilience and creativity.  Even companies with a BCRP found that it was never meant to cover such a catastrophe or was never practiced to insure its implementation would be effective.  A key message that came from Frank Glaviano, VP for Shell (one of New Orleans largest employers) stated that in its commitment to remain in New Orleans and regain operations – “You can’t fix the business until you fix the people”.

A BCRP is more than rally points for evacuation of the premises, or where to call when weather (flooding etc) or damage (fire etc) happens – it is a blueprint to insure the health and welfare of your workforce and your organization.

During our year-long study of post-Katrina New Orleans, in conjunction with the Human Resource Management Association (local SHRM chapter) and dozens of individual businesses large and small, we found many ideas and lessons learned.

Key Takeaways of Sumner Grace Study:

• Vary your communication channels and provide redundancy
  • You have to have more than a call-in line or website update; mass outages with power and over utilized phone systems you need to add items:
  • Text Messaging – Cell, Pin/SMS; this technology needs only micro-seconds to send and are effective with cell towers are overloaded
  • Do you have this information to contact your workforce?
  • Call Trees – have key personnel responsible for a portion of your workforce to consolidate lines of communication and coordinate “who has seen who and where” as part of the process
  • An additional emergency contact OUTSIDE the metro/local geography of the facility.  Update this additional contact at annual review! When an event is so widespread even local emergency contacts are affected. 

• Have staff or vendors for immediate response as part of your plan
  • Insure that you understand essential personnel for your plan’s execution and follow-up
  • Create contingencies for minimal equipment, space and vital services that you will need and have your vendors integrated into that plan

• Update the plan regularly and store in multiple locations as well as off-site

• It is highly ineffective to complete your plan and place it on a shelf; worse would be to have it in electronic format  stored on the computer system within your facility only – as we have learned from these events you will not be able to access those systems
  • Have off-site storage or system backups that are accessible to a number of essential personnel
  • Have multiple hard-copies available to key leads within the plan as well as at other facilities if you have them

• Practice the plan – this is the most important task after developing the plan.  Practice allows you to:
  • Insure that current and new employees assimilate to the plan
  • Stress tests the plan to find gaps and take corrective measures
  • Creates a higher level of acceptance
  • Increases the level of execution and potential for success

Now that you have created and practiced your plan it is important to extend the thought of essential personnel and extent to pilot/short-term operations to keep customers happy and revenue coming in.  Therefore, where and how do your employees work?  This will create categories of those requiring direct contact with customers (hence some type of interim facility) versus those that can operate remotely.  You will find, when forced, that many of the typical obstacles of allowing virtual or remote employment become less of a factual issue and more of an excuse.

In our study, post-Katrina companies were effective in retaining most of their workforce and resuming operations through these methods:

• 78% of organizations had to offer flex schedules
• 14% added commuter reimbursement accounts
• 14% opened a branch or satellite office
• 8% offered company transportation
• 8% began virtual options
• 6% sponsored an employee ride share program

In addition to adoption of the above options companies had to understand how to retain and regain its workforce once facilities or virtual operations were available.  We found that:

• 94% of firms kept payroll and benefits in force for an average of 8 weeks
• Only 65% of firms had this as a standard policy (Katrina rewrote or wrote a new one with an additional 33%)

• As a result:
  • Recall rate: 80% of firms had 60+% return
  • Retention rate: 70% of firms had retained 60%+ of pre-Katrina staff

Now – how does this gain a virtual edge?

Truly assess what roles are required to be within the four walls of your company (or company’s multiple facilities). It will allow you to:

• Create a decision matrix that aligns talent acquisition and retention with the costs and risks of virtual/remote engagements
• Go beyond planning purposes
• For options of extending your geographic engagement of talent (even your customers)
• Retain talent – that may be moving as a result of the event or as a normal course of potential turn-over
• To create a competitive advantage

We all know that core talent (7 – 15 years experience) is the new sandwich generation.  With homes, kids in school, boards and local activities/interest and planning for their aging parents, there is a lot of valuable talent that will not or cannot relocate.  Add to that current economic issues of upside-down mortgages and you may not get to offer-acceptance unless you can allow for remote or virtual employment. 

Put yourself to the test.  While you have to screen for people that can operate in such an environment (some people do not work well without the interaction of peers and customers directly) you may be able to leverage, in good times and bad, the acquisition and retention of truly great talent.

In our next two installments we will further these ideas to show how virtual and remote engagements lower costs, increase employee satisfaction, create a truly green initiative and expand your reach.  This will culminate into our debate over hurdles to adopt and implement such policies and practices.

Remember, we’d love to hear from you! Debate with us, tell us an interesting story or lesson learned.

In this third installment of The Virtual Edge I’d like to discuss the . . . → Read More: Virtual Employment – Part 3]]> So far we have covered the impact of remote employment engagements as they relate to business continuity and recovery planning (BCRP) and the implications of allowing for flexible working arrangements from home to off-set absenteeism as it relates to sickness/health issues.

In this third installment of The Virtual Edge I’d like to discuss the cost savings opportunities from an infrastructure perspective as well as a true green initiative.

There are as many reasons to review these categories of possible scenarios for virtual/remote work as with the others; yet there is some real tangible impact as we look at cost savings. 

• Virtual allows for reduced square footage, utilities, and infrastructure requirements than an average office setting.  Not only will the employees enjoy the benefits of working from home but, depending on your policies, they will also have more money in their pockets. Employees can:

charge back phone and internet usage to the company which may offset their current monthly plans (these plans as part of a home or consumer package are usually more robust and faster than business accounts at a much lower monthly rate)

write off part of their square footage, utilities and other services as it relates to the pro rata share of the household on their taxes (depending on State and Federal qualifications – they should seek the advice of a qualified tax expert to be sure)

• save on gas or other transportation costs when there is limited need to travel to the office or the clients locations
• save on dry cleaning for those in a business/formal dress setting
• save on meals as they eat at home instead of out regularly
• have more time in the day that was associated with the commute giving them free time for themselves or their families

As a green initiative Company’s will see an absolute savings in:

• Reduced carbon emissions from their workforce traveling in cars and other mass transit vehicles
• Reduced carbon emissions from the square footage it consumes to heat/cool and run a facility or office
• In relocation costs and the waste associated with moving (boxes, packing materials, additional garbage)

There is a wider appeal, based on generational lines that green initiatives also support when attracting and retaining a workforce:

• Increase your brand as a destination employer
• Gen X, boomers and traditionalists see a broad impact on the environment for their children and grandchildren
• Appeal to Gen Y as a green company
  • A 2009 recent study that stated:
    • 81% of gen Y feel it is important to work for a green company; 79% would accept a job offer over other non-green companies 
• What is required to review your ability to offer such employment opportunities? You do need to review part 1 and 2 of this series as well as a review of the final entry in a few weeks to have a full picture; but here are a few things to consider:
• What travel will be required to the company facilities, training and clients? While viewed as a cost it is self-funding with the savings items mentioned above if managed correctly.
• What level of productivity increase will eclipse some reimbursement when “the water cooler” is quiet? Employees working from home tend to engage in far less chat as those in a formal office setting and studies have found them to be more productive
• Is there a pocket of talent somewhere in the world that would be ideal for you? Are they currently in the core workforce (7 -15 years experience) and unable to relocate due to kids in school, aging parents, roots to the community etc? Could the work be serviced by them remotely?
• Can a remote office be opened close to a density of new hires? If not, then home based?
• In our current economic climate professional rental space is at all time lows.  Negotiate a strong lease with renewal options based on your needs.  If this is not available within a major metro-area for your current locations then look outside major cities for reduced rent and infrastructure support.  Many State and Federal programs are available for tax credits and reduced utilities based on where you hire people or situate an office.  These remote offices can self-fund for years to come.
• No need for relocation costs and COLA adjustments as you hire within the communities (or homes) where talent is based.
• Expanding your reach to markets/clients where you previously could not set up an office or where you spend a large amount of travel costs.

There are risks with any proposition such as this and you’ll need to assess your company’s appetite and contingencies, as well as consider its culture, before beginning. Some of these risks are:

• Loss of talent due to lack of connection or inclusion with the wider operations
• Reduced productivity if the employee is not screened well for the ability to work remotely; not everyone can work from home productively
• Expanded help desk requirements
• Asset deployment, maintenance and recovery
• Information systems vulnerability

However all of these are easily over come and are a part of the value add equation to make a decision to offer remote/virtual employment.

One large hurdle that we will explore in depth later in this series, and is now probably a key argument in your mind as you have read these 3 installments is … trust.  Can I trust my employees to be productive and do what they are supposed to be doing? Since they are not outside my door I cannot monitor what is happening.  Again, keep the skepticism alive and tell us your concerns.  We will address them as this series continues.