A Guide to Effectively Managing the Mobile Workforce

While mobility is today at the core of organizational IT across the board, we continue to field questions from clients regarding operating strategy. Specifically, given that mobile IT enables location-independent access to computing and information resources, what management policies and procedures are most important in optimizing a mobile workforce?

As it turns out, there are two key components involved in answering this question. The first of these is a mobility strategy. The key considerations and objectives here relate to how a given organization benefits from mobile IT in the first place, along with the costs and ROI expected. Among the most important elements for analysis are:

Of equal--and, perhaps, even greater--importance is the second component in determining how to optimize a mobile workforce: a management strategy for optimizing the return on investment in mobility and for managing a mobile workforce. Many managers--and, really, many organizations--have a problem with human assets that are out of view much, or even all, of the time. This is despite the fact that many jobs--like sales, field service and consulting--are often, if not usually, conducted outside of the traditional office, and that any personnel-management activity must be based fundamentally upon mutual trust if not commitment. With increasing numbers of staff members working in the field, from home and otherwise out of sight, an appropriate management attitude and corresponding style are essential.

The approach that we usually suggest here is known as management by commitment (MBC), and consists of task-specific agreements between management, who allocate resources seeking optimal returns, and staff, who create the goods and services that the organization provides. This agreement specifies timeframes, expected results, schedules and milestone review points, as well as budgets and resources, with staff then having significant leeway as to the location and day-to-day scheduling of the required effort. Milestone reviews enable quick visibility into problems and enable rapid corrective action as may be indicated. But note that this methodology also works quite well in traditional office settings, meaning that mobility itself becomes transparent when the proper management techniques are applied.

A few more elements, however, must come into play in order to make all of this work, as follows:

Attitude: Perhaps most important of all, trust and respect go a long way toward effective mobile IT. Many managers assume staff that are out of a traditional office environment simply aren’t getting their jobs done, and, yes, this can indeed be the case. But MBC--coupled with a positive attitude, listening, support and reinforcement as required--helps address any issues quickly. Remember: Management exists to make users productive, and not the other way around.

The bottom line in managing a mobile workforce, then, is for management to see itself as a resource allocator, coordinator and enabler, and not as what we might think of as the traditional “boss”--telling people what to do and how to do it. To be sure, management sets goals, defines strategies and monitors progress, but it also and even more importantly must carry water for those getting the job done. As we noted above, it’s all about trust--in both directions.