Growing The Virtual Workplace

Foreword by Scott McNealy The authors have produced an extraordinarily useful book on the numerous facets of the complex teleworking phenomenon. Although their pro-telework position is clear (and persuasively justified), their discussion of each element is thoughtful, balanced, and carefully referenced. Their conceptual paradigm offers a very helpful way to organize and synthesize the vast and growing literature on teleworking, and they have employed it to masterful effect. They have succeeded in producing a work that is equally valuable and relevant to organizations, individual employees, public planners, and academic scholars no small feat. Patricia L. Mokhtarian, University of California, Davis, US At TELUS, teleworking has become an important part of our operating framework. Thousands of our team members telework on a part-time basis and hundreds of our team members telework on a full-time basis. The individual, environmental, social and financial benefits achieved through telework are compelling and real. This book by the Haskayne School of Business offers comprehensive insights that will help TELUS and hopefully many other enterprises to fully realize the great benefits of telework. Josh Blair, TELUS, Canada The first integrative analysis of the virtual workplace s many contributions to sustainable development: a must read for strategists in firms and governments. Ans Kolk, University of Amsterdam Business School, The Netherlands This book is a great reference for senior executives looking to implement telework to enhance their business. As the leading provider of managed IP communications services in North America, MegaPath supports the telework programs of hundreds of companies with IT remote access VPN services. This book addresses the many challenges these companies have faced and the benefits they have derived from telework programs. Greg Davis, MegaPath, US Employees, organizations and society alike should grow the virtual workplace, as the multiple, tangible benefits of telework for each of these three stakeholders largely outweigh the costs. To help stakeholders benefit from the virtual workplace, the authors analyze four key issues: telework adoption, implementation, tracking and impacts. They develop the comprehensive EOS framework to examine both the interaction among employees, organizations and society, and the linkages among telework impacts, tracking, implementation and adoption. Unique features of the book include an integrative framework for increasing telework adoption; practical tips specific to each stakeholder on how best to implement and measure telework; and an analysis of original survey data exploring the virtual workplace adoption decision. Readership for this book includes academic experts on telecommuting, policymakers involved in transportation, human resource or environmental policies, and managers and employees considering telework.

The Virtual Workplace explores the forces that are driving the virtual workplace and the consequential issues and problems that will influence it: social issues, legal concerns and performance compensations.

An instant #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller and USA Today bestseller! The remote work revolution has been rapidly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations as big as Twitter have learned their employees didn't need an office to get great results, and employees are using the flexibility of remote work to live where they want, ditch their commutes and live a work-life integration that works for them. Remote work is here to stay, and the companies that do it well will have a clear competitive advantage in the future. As founder and CEO of Acceleration Partners, a 100 percent remote organization with 170 employees who work from home, Robert Glazer has discovered that with the right principles, tactics and tools for managing remote employees, many businesses can excel in a virtual world. In this highly actionable book, Glazer shares how he and his team built a remote organization that has been recognized with dozens of awards for its industry performance and company culture. "A timely, practical, and highly informative guide to effective techniques for remote work; of benefit to practitioners or students of business. Highly recommended."—Library Journal, STARRED review How to Thrive in the Virtual Workplace shares insights from the remote employee, manager and leader perspectives, offering a blueprint any person can use to make remote work successful, productive and fulfilling. Learn how to leverage the flexibility of remote work, be more productive while working at home, avoid burnout, lead a team of virtual employees and build an organization that sets the gold standard for virtual work. The remote work revolution is here—the leaders who will build the future are the ones who can lead top performing virtual teams. Learn how to build a world-class organization—office no longer required.

The purpose of this book project is to analyze why the workplace is changing so rapidly, identify the enabling factors and understand what we can do to best prepare for the future. The analysis led to four significant factors which are all fundamental to the formation of the future world of work. They are the incredible enabling technologies, changing attitudes, workforce demographics and globalization. The rapid and irreversible coalescing of these factors is creating what is referred to in the book as, "The Virtual World of Work or VWOW." The book covers the changing workplace from the 1960s through to the present, and then looks to see what is emerging next and provides predictions for the future workplace. To assist the readers in tracking their progress, the book provides a segmentation of this time frame into four distinct stages. Each stage is identified by the capabilities specific to the majority of the worker force in each stage. As the work force transitions from one stage to the next, the accumulated enhancements or changes to who, how, where and when tasks are completed is explored. The book project introduces some original thinking and combines this with the knowledge and expertise from the leaders in this new field. The book is organized around five basic questions concerning the virtual world of work. The questions are: ² What is the Virtual World of Work? ² What Factors have Enabled the Virtual World of Work? ² Will the Virtual World of Work Continue? ² How will the Virtual World Work? ² How to Architect the Virtual World of Work? The book covers why the change is happening and how we can better plan for the future virtual world of work. Over 25 million workers in the U.S. work from home at least a few days per month. More and more workers are joining these virtual workers daily and the amount of time worked out of the traditional office is growing even more rapidly. There are literally millions of people who need the information in this book.

The days of going to work and seeing everyone you work with are gone forever! The ways we "see" each other, communicate, build teams, establish trust, collaborate, and achieve results have all changed. What was once a non-traditional way of working is now commonplace and an increasing reality for leaders across a broad spectrum of organizations and industries. A growing number of leaders manage and lead each day from a distance -- through technology tools that connect them to remote teams, virtual workers, telecommuters, and distance employees. And they do this with the need to control costs, retain talent, ensure clear communication, manage productivity, maintain motivation, and achieve results. It's a challenging task... and an increasing reality for every leader. If you're one of the growing legions of virtual leaders, this book is for you!

This revised second edition presents 15 years of data on Virtual Distance metrics and their predictive impact on organizational success factors shedding new light on how to correct for communication challenges that often show up as a foggy set of digital disconnects where the vitality of the virtual workforce often gets lost in transmission. This still-evolving Digital Age conundrum continues to present new complications. The rise of remote work which rests on an increasing reliance on electronic communication and the overall growth of virtual interactions has led to the escalation of a phenomenon called Virtual Distance. Virtual Distance, which influences our behavior through three components Physical Distance, Operational Distance, and Affinity Distance affects not only how we relate to others thousands of miles away but even to co-workers sitting right next to each other! Perhaps even more problematic, Virtual Distance causes measureable malfunctions in teamwork, innovation, leader effectiveness and overall performance. But it doesn’t have to be this way. The Power of Virtual Distance offers specific, proven and predictable solutions that can reverse these trends and turn Virtual Distance into a unification strategy to capture untapped competitive advantage. Surprised? The Power of Virtual Distance, 2nd Edition is a must-read for leadership who want to understand the true and quantifiable costs of the virtual workplace. For the first time ever, readers can take the guesswork out of managing the virtual workforce by applying a mathematical approach derived from the extensive Virtual Distance data set: The Virtual Distance Ratio. The Virtual Distance Ratio can precisely pinpoint the particular impacts of Virtual Distance on the organization’s critical success factors. Beyond business metrics, Virtual Distance solutions also detail ways to restore meaningfulness and well-being into people’s experience of work, enhancing life lived in the Digital Age. The Power of Virtual Distance reveals an updated set of data, including the first award-winning analysis, collected from an extended range of executives to individual contributors, that represent situations and solutions in more than 36 industries in 55 countries across the globe. Readers will get a “first look” at the data and its revelations on how to be less isolated and more integrated. Helping managers globally, this book: Offers new, real-world case studies and a chance for readers to participate in thought experiments to help with personal performance, group synergy and by extension, relationship dynamics of all kinds Demonstrates (with statistically significant trend analyses) that Virtual Distance is growing at exponential rates in every corner of communities worldwide Offers expert advice on how to manage the “unintended human consequences” of today’s digital technologies Companies that successfully harness the power of Virtual Distance demonstrate better performance. The second edition of The Power of Virtual Distance is a valuable, one-of-a-kind resource for everyone – from the C-suite to human resource professionals; from divisional leaders to project managers. Everyone in the organization can benefit by discovering how to improve financials, innovation, trust, employee engagement, satisfaction, organizational citizenship and other key performance indicators. And perhaps best of all, by following the prescriptions on how to reduce Virtual Distance, the entire workforce will have the tools they need to bring about a revival of meaning, purpose and an enlivened sense of “humanhood” back into everyday work and everyday life.

"This book compiles authoritative research from scholars worldwide, covering the issues surrounding the influx of information technology to the office environment, from choice and effective use of technologies to necessary participants in the virtual workplace"--Provided by publisher.