RSM Resources

Wireless mobility is spreading like wildfire across the working world. Once reserved for on-the-go executive and sales types, mobile connectivity is now a prerequisite for workers as diverse as architects, call-center employees, inventory managers and police officers.

The benefits of a wireless workforce can be substantial: improved customer service, increased productivity and better work-life balance, to name a few. While the move to mobility maybe unavoidable, companies should know the options, costs and potential risks before going wireless.

Spotting the trend

In terms of telecommuting alone, the numbers are impressive. A recent study by the Dieringer Research Group for ITAC, The Telework Advisory Group for WorldatWork, shows an estimated 45.1 million Americans worked from home at least occasionally in 2005. And the number of full-time employees working at least one day a month from home increased by 30 percent from 2004, to 9.9 million.

But mobile workers aren’t just working from home. The same study presented workers with a list of13 locations and asked them to check places where they had worked during the past month:

• 24.3 million reported working from a customer or client location.
• 20.6 million reported working in a car.
• 18.5 million had worked from a cafe or restaurant.
• 17.1 million had worked from a hotel or motel.

Work-life balance is a major factor, with more workers choosing new jobs (or staying with employers) based on ability to work a flexible schedule. A study by the Society for Human Resource Management and The Wall Street Journal found that nearly 60 percent of employees rate practices such as flextime, telecommuting and compressed workweeks as very important to job satisfaction.

Increasing fuel prices are driving the trend,too: In a survey from May and June 2006 by Manpower Inc., 76 percent of workers said that spiking gas prices affected their work-life balance,and 31 percent said they were considering looking for a job with a shorter commute.

More money in their pockets and more time at home sounds great for employees, but employers can benefit, too. In fact, a recent study indicated teleworkers handled 26 percent more calls than their office-based colleagues. Teleworkers may spend more time at home, but they often spend more hours working.

The benefits don’t stop with work-life balance and productivity. According to ITAC Director Robert Smith, a mobile workforce can help the continuity of operations, reduce overhead and improve retention.

"In the face of a natural disaster, a distributed workforce is beneficial,because your business doesn’t require people to congregate in a single, central location in order to work," Smith says. "Smart companies also set up mobile working arrangements to cut operating costs by reducing the amount of office space required for employees. And employee satisfaction is very big — not only in terms of work-life balance and fuel costs, but also traffic congestion and environmental concerns."

Defining the technology

Wireless mobility means different things to different people, and not everyone needs a handheld to work effectively. Companies considering a mobile workforce should understand the range of applications and devices available to them.

The most obvious application for mobile access is your company’s e-mail and calendar program. You can facilitate this in one of two main ways: Provide access to the general business applications themselves via a secure virtual private network, using an appropriately configured computer; or via any Web-enabled computer, using a Web-mail portal.

Many workers also benefit from consistent offline access to key business applications such as customer-relationship-management software, field-service applications and remote time-entry programs. You can maintain this level of mobility without constant connectivity — periodic synchronization via docking or connecting to the Internet generally suffices.

Whatever level of mobility you need to achieve, you have multiple devices at your disposal:

• Laptops or personal digital assistants (PDAs), equipped for wireless network access or docked and synchronized.
• Cellular phones, for voice-to-voice contact with the office, e-mail access, Internet access, or all three.
• Other Internet-accessible devices, including home or public desktop computers.

The lines between these devices are rapidly beginning to blur, as people send text messages to each other on their phones and participate in conference calls via their PDAs. Another example of this kind of high-tech crossover is Skype, a Luxembourg-based eBay company that offers free Voice-over-Internet Protocol calling to other Skype users anywhere in the world using a PC or Mac — potentially making costly international long-distance charges a thing of the past.

Obstacles to mobility

While technology enables mobility, it requires support, security and regulation to work well for employers. According to a recent Computerworld survey of 190 information-technology professionals, 59 percent indicated that supporting a mobile workforce is more costly than supporting desk-bound users.

The same holds true for device and data security. Security for wireless devices is improving — with Windows Mobile technology, Microsoft is developing mobile devices that employers can reset or wipe clean remotely.

The reverse of this idea can benefit companies that need to make sure mobile employees have the latest data and software. Direct-push synchronization proactively provides users with the most recent information (including e-mails) without requiring any action from the user. However, this means a continual exchange of information in which data could be intercepted if not transmitted securely. Internet security varies greatly outside your company’s network, and mobile devices are easily misplaced or stolen.

"It’s not just providing security," Smith says. "It’s training. You can provide locks and passwords for laptops and other devices, but you have to show employees how to use them and enforce usage — make it clear who is responsible for keeping information secure."

Performance matters

Setting support and security issues aside, Smith says, the biggest obstacles remain senior management, corporate culture and the nature of the work itself.

"There are still a lot of managers who say, ’I have to see my people to know they’re working,’" he says. "But the real key is the way you evaluate performance. Whether the employee is five feet or five miles away, ask, ’Are they getting the job done’? If you have a performance-management system in place, where your employees work begins to matter less."

In addition to promoting performance management, experts recommend that companies develop a comprehensive set of telework policies addressing the following issues:

• Which employee groups or situations warrant teleworking capabilities.
• Standards for tracking time and expenses for teleworkers.
• Fair treatment of teleworkers and non teleworkers, including sufficient feedback and advancement opportunities for mobile employees; and work-life balance programs for traditional workers who can’t telework(for example, production-line employees).
• Security and support protocols for protecting both devices and data.
• Technology-use practices that clearly delineate who owns the technology and what level of personal use, if any, is appropriate.
• Accounting rules and practices to avoid problems with technology or other off-site equipment the Internal Revenue Service considers compensation.

Even under the best policies, however, individual employees also handle mobility differently — and a worker who does well in-house may not at home.

"This kind of work arrangement really requires highly responsible people," Smith says. "Some employees will always need the support of an office environment.

"The next generation isalready using technology — text and instant messaging and wireless Internet. Whether you’re business or government, sooner or later everyone will have to adapt, because it’s what the best and brightest will be doing."