The TeleWorkers Digest


Why Italians Telework”


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"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not;
nothing is more common than unsuccessful men of talent. Genius will
not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the
world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone
are omnipotent."
- Calvin Coolidge


The
TeleWorkers
Digest
(65000 subscribers can’t be wrong)



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From The Editor -
Contents –
A quick story this month:
Best Practices for Managing and Working
Remotely
A very good friend of mine has been trying to be an infopreneur for the last few years. She’s dabbled

in various markets where she has tried to sell very good info products to those that need them,
Is Your Website Springing A Leak
really, really good products – she has a passion for it.
Feels Like (Virtual) Team Spirit
With the low sales she thought it was the amount of traffic she was getting, or the quality of her
Homework Smart!
website, so she invested in herself, took a few courses and she made a few more sales... but not
enough.
Bridges Of Influence
She was telling me her problems a few weeks back and I suggested she read the Internet Business
Google Services – What Every User Should Know
Manifesto which helped me a great deal when I first started online.
Proximity Of A Kitchen
Just because you sit alone at your computer all day does not mean you have to do everything by
yourself, to the contrary, you have a planet’s worth of contacts and partners to cultivate and help
5 Sure Fire Ways
you and your business move forward. Remember – you wanted freedom through teleworking.
From Email Bankruptcy To Business Productivity
If you were given this eZine by a friend you can get your own subscription here.
7 Tips on How to Survive the 1st Year of Managing
Your Own Business
As ever please send us your feedback and enjoy the freebies.
The 5 W’s of World Class Customer Service
Kindest Regards
Training
Patrick Henns
8 Teleworking Tips For Peak Performance
Editor

This Month’s Survey
Your Career (and Michael Collins)
This Month’s Freebies
Interview Portfoilio
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Best Practices for Managing and Working Remotely
Regardless of how or why organizations develop formal distributed work
– by Jim Ware @thefutureofwork
programs, those that do it successfully invariably follow five basic
principles.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of articles, books, blogs, and
Websites filled with advice about how to succeed as a teleworker, and
They do it strategically.
how to manage remote workers.
Simply put, programs that are developed for clear business reasons, with
executive-level sponsorship, are far more likely to succeed than hit-or-
However, most of that advice amounts to broad generalizations or
miss, it-seems-like-a-good-thing-to-do efforts. When there is an explicit
“bumper-sticker”-like slogans that are well-meant but rather shallow:
business case that is supported by management and communicated
“Act every day like you’re in the office.” “Don’t use your kitchen or spare
widely across the organization it’s much easier to overcome the many
bedroom as your home office.” “Establish a regular routine.”
natural objections to change that inevitably crop up.
And for managers of teleworkers: “Pay attention to your staff’s personal
More significantly, strategic programs receive much-needed time and
life,” “Measure what they produce, not how much time they spend,”
attention from both executive sponsors and the middle-management
“Hold regular conference calls,”
designers and implementers who make them work.
While those slogans do point in the right direction, they are usually stated
as universal truths even though the real world is filled with complexity
They learn to work differently over time.
Allowing employees to telework isn’t just a matter of tossing people out
and variety.
of their assigned workspaces and having them do the same work from
Therefore, with support from Citrix Online, we set out to produce a
somewhere else. When face-to-face interaction is restricted, not only do
different kind of understanding about how to make telecommuting work
personal relationships undergo dramatic change, but core business
effectively.
processes themselves must be redesigned to reflect the new work
environment.
We interviewed half a dozen “experts” (authors, academics, consultants,
and leading practitioners) and spoke with many more line managers and
As Glenn Dirks of Teletrips, Inc., describes it:
change agents who have designed and implemented telecommuting
programs. This analysis of best practices is their story.
When everyone’s in the same place, it’s easy to make up for
process deficiencies or errors; people can walk across the hall, or
Core Best Practises
convene an emergency meeting on a moment’s notice. Obviously,
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that just can’t happen when the workforce is dispersed all over the place.

We also discovered that most companies go through a rather typical learning curve, usually beginning to see productivity improvements only 15-18 months
after they launch a new telework program.
They make training a central part of the program
A formal training program is by far the most effective way to raise awareness of the new work environment and its implications—to say nothing of
equipping participants with the knowledge and capabilities they will need to be successful in the future.
Kate North, Vice President of Global Business Development for e-work.com said it best:
They [the managers] just don’t know how to manage remote employees. And usually they don’t even recognize that new skills are needed, let alone
what those new skills are.
We insist that every participant in a new telecommuting program go through at least a two-day “Telecommuting 101” program.
They establish results-based performance measurement systems
The most common objection we hear from managers who resist telework programs is “How do I know they’re working if I can’t see them?”
The only way to get past that concern is to develop formal, explicit agreements about each teleworker’s performance goals—how he or she will be
measured and evaluated.
One executive of a Fortune 100 corporation put it this way:
Managing a distributed workforce absolutely requires a results-oriented management approach. Whether an employee is working from his or her
home office, from a client location across town, or from a company facility in another state, managers today need to establish new ways of
supervising that transcend place and focus on performance.”
They plan carefully and implement aggressively
Unfortunately, we have seen case after case where it’s been “Give them laptops, send them home, and we’ll figure out the other stuff later.” Our research
interviewees consistently told us that that kind of approach is a recipe for disaster. Every good pilot will tell you, “Plan the flight, then fly the plane.”
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Conclusion
In these difficult economic times most senior business leaders are focusing on being “lean and
mean.” Yet for most of them, unfortunately, that really means doing the same things, in the same
way, with less. We call that working harder, not smarter, and it’s just not the way to get to the
future.
Take these lessons from the leaders to heart; insist that your organization treat telecommuting as a
way to improve your bottom line dramatically—because that’s exactly what it is.


Jim Ware co-founded, with Charlie Grantham, The Work Design
Collaborative, LLC (WDC), a research and advisory firm with a single
mission: helping create the future of work. Our focus is on the
changing nature of work, the workforce, the workplace, technology,
and management practice.
WDC has built a global network of resources – practitioners, thought
leaders, researchers, and senior consultants – who are committed to
building and implementing physical, social, and technology-based


work environments that are cost-effective, socially and
environmentally responsible, and personally satisfying.


Which Is Right For You?
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Is Your Website Springing A Leak – by Philippa Gamse
should answer the classic question: "Why should we do business with you
instead of your competition?"
Imagine that you own a beautifully designed yacht. It looks great on the

surface of the water, with superb lines, gleaming decks, a well-appointed
How to check for this leak: Even if they don't enter your site at the home
galley . . . but you're having real trouble getting out of the harbor and
page, most visitors who don't know you will go there as the second page
you can't figure out why!
they look at to find out more about you and your business.


You investigate, and you find that beneath the surface your beautiful
If visitors are taking a quick look at your home page and then immediately
boat has a number of slow, silent, leaks. None of them are big enough to
leaving, something is wrong. Your copy is failing to pique their curiosity or
sink you on their own, so there's no obvious immediate crisis - just a
to answer their questions: "Can this company meet my
constant drain on your efficiency and your speed.
needs?" and "Should I explore further?"

I've been reviewing Web traffic reports for over 15 years, and I believe
You have a leak!
that this analogy applies to almost all business websites. Very few sites
have something so wrong with them that they're clearly a disaster.
2. Leaks in Visitor Engagement
Yet just about every site has some area where it's quietly losing traffic,
potential business or the opportunity to create relationships - or failing
One major area to watch for leaks in visitor engagement is in
to attract visitors in the first place.
your "landing pages". These are inside pages of your Website which are

actually the first page that a visitor sees, usually because you have some
In this article, I'll show you a few of the most common areas where you
well-indexed content that they've found in a search engine.
can look for - and fix - those silent leaks.

Here it's absolutely critical to understand the visitor's mindset. Each
1. Leaks in your Brand & Positioning
visitor is at your site looking for something specific, they may well have
found you by accident, so they may have no idea who you are - and
Clearly articulated and differentiating value propositions have a critical
worse, no interest in you.
effect on Website conversion rates.


Your landing page must engage them immediately in accordance
Your value proposition should be front and center on your home page. It
with their needs, and it must have enough context to draw them into
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other areas, and to want to find out more about you. It's not enough to
And by the way, "Back to top" is not a call to action!
give great information on this page - they'll soak that up, and then leave.


How to check for this leak: If your traffic reports show this information,
How to check for this leak: Hopefully your traffic reports are
look at the paths that visitors take through your site - where do visitors go
sophisticated enough to show you which keywords bring visitors to each
next from each page? If many of them are exiting the site and / or they
specific page of your site. This shows you each visitor's "mindset".
fan out across many pages with no clear pattern or direction, you have a

possible leak.
If visitors are leaving a page very quickly, then it probably isn't satisfying
Philippa Gamse, CMC is a web and social media
their informational needs, so you should review the content.
strategy consultant and professional speaker.


If visitors are reading the page (your traffic reports should show the time
She was selected as the sole expert for the cover
spent at each page) and then leaving, you've given them what they
story on “Ways to Make your Website Sizzle” for UPS’
wanted but failed to draw them into the rest of your site. This can be
“Compass” magazine, distributed to over 1million
fixed with more compelling navigation and calls to action.
businesses.

Either way, you have a leak!
Philippa can be reached via http://www.websitesthatwin.com
3. Leaks in Directions & Outcomes

I'm constantly amazed by the number of Web pages that give great
information and content - and then just end abruptly - perhaps with some
navigation tabs if you're lucky!

Paid Advertisement


Every page of your site needs strong calls to action that stand out visually
and click directly to where the visitor can fulfill the outcome that you

want (e.g. "buy now!", "sign up for our newsletter / RSS feed".) Pages can
have more than one call to action, and there's nothing wrong with

repeating them on longer pages so that they're always within eyeshot.
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Feels Like (Virtual) Team Spirit - by Frances Cole Jones
advance, you can even gain efficiency by working out the ideal schedule

for “handover” of work.
With more and more companies using the latest technology to find

efficiencies in the recession, far-flung, “virtual” teams are becoming a
4. Establish your “note-passing” policy
part of many people’s work day., Therefore, I thought it was important
The same way it is distracting to a teacher and fellow students to have
to put together a top ten list of the most effective strategies for building,
two people passing notes in class, it is distracting for two people to be
and maintaining, virtual team spirit—the spirit that builds trust, and
IM’ing or emailing during a call. (And please don’t think others don’t
encourages concrete results.
notice. They do.) My recommendation is that the only use of IM or email

during a call would be to alert others to a technical breakdown.
1. Gather ‘round and go around

We all know a picture is worth a thousand words so sharing pictures of
5. Version 2.WHAT?
team members is critical. Still more valuable is posting them on a
Few things are more maddening than scrolling through six versions of a
one-sheet that’s a diagram of a clock face so members can say, “This is
document—each with a very slightly different draft name-- trying to
Ellen at 9 o’clock” thereby saving team members from having to scroll
figure out who touched it last. My suggestion is begin with V.01, for
frantically through members’ pictures to remind themselves who’s
version 1, and move on from there. This will, at least, take you through
speaking. This method counteracts disembodied voices on conference
V.99 before you need to recalibrate. A great add-on is to adopt the
calls, and helps prevent “hiding” by participants.
protocol that “whole numbered versions” (e.g. V2.0) are “client-ready”,

whereas fractional numbers (e.g. V0.23) are still works in progress.
2. One may be lonely, but it’s also the most effective number

On conference calls, if even one member of the team is in an office by his
6. Show Your Work
or herself, the remainder of the team needs to be separated from one
Should you make any change in a document that has the potential to be
another—even if they are in the same offices. This can seem like a pain to
misconstrued (i.e. anything beyond fixing typos/grammar/clarity) include
arrange, but anything else leaves the person working solo feeling still
a note explaining the rationale behind the change. This will either mollify
more isolated.
team members or give you a jumping off place for discussion—rather

than dissension-- at your next meeting.
3. Sort through the holidays and ho-downs

If your team is international, building trust is about more than the time
7. Standardize Your Team Turnaround Time or State Your “By When”
zone in which they’re located. Many countries celebrate different
People wait far more patiently if they know by when something is going
holidays, start work later, stay longer, etc. Additionally, some Asian
to happen—this is the reason most mass transit has begun incorporating
countries have a policy of working on Saturdays that needs to be
acknowledged and factored in at the outset. If you work this out in
announcements regarding where the next bus/train is, and when it can
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