Work from home and stay in the running for promotions!

There are many reasons that employee's hesitate to work from home. This is often a surprise to companies that initiate a remote workforce project and realize they don't have people lining up down the street to join it.

Now, some of these reasons are completely unfounded, some can be resolved and some can not. Working from home isn't for everyone. I want to concetrate on one perception in particular;

"I won't get promoted if I work from home"

This is a very real concern for many people who are looking at making the jump to working from home in any capacity...even a person who works from home once or twice a week has to consider this.

Now...I don't think there is any reason that anyone should be hindered as far as promotions go just because they work remotely. However...more often than not this can be a legitimate concern.


I've never been a smoker but I vividly recall a situation when I was working a large Call Centre and a decision was made out in the smokers court to send my counterpart to the Philipines for two months rather than myself.

When I saw my boss and my co-worker come back into the office and make the announcement I felt that I had been slighted. I felt that this additional contact between them due to "smoking" enabled him to get this benefit. For a very brief moment I considered starting smoking to help with my career.


I understand that there could have been a variety of reasons to select my co-worker over myself for this but there was a perception, either

warranted or not, that my not being a smoker put me at a disadvantage.

Working from home puts people into a similar mindset and management has to understand this.

Managers need to:

Not take it personally

I've had managers confide in me that they were shocked when a subordinate wanted to work from home. Their first reaction was "what did I do wrong?" or "why

don't they want to be a member of my team?"

People want to work from home for a variety of reasons, very few (none that I am aware of) have cited conflict with management/peer's as one of the reasons.

Not exclude their remote workers

If anything you need to include your remote workers in everyday activities more than your other one's. Especially in the first few months of working from

home people tend to feel really isolated. Make sure your workers know that you are still there for them and they are still part of the office!

Much like how you may stop by the watercooler and chat about someone's weekend make an effort to call them when there isn't an issue and say hello. If you

can't call send e-mails or use instant chat programs.

Discuss career pathing with them often

Make sure they know you are aware of their goals and that you are working together to achieve those goals. Show that other are being promoted. Don't

automatically assume a person wouldn't be willing to come back into the office if it was required for the position.

There is no reason that working from home should hinder someone's change for advancement but there needs to be effort put in by both parties to ensure it!

Helpful Links

I have a lot of useful links and information on my Links page I hope to grow it into a much larger resource centre.

One site in particular I want to draw your attention to is www.callcentrevoice.com. It's one of the most active Call Centre forums on the Internet with a wide range of discussions ranging from very technical to process and business orientated.

It's core user-base is located in Britain which can give you an interesting international perspective. It does have representation from around the world though with users from the Phillipines, throughout Europe and North America.

It's a complete free site to join, if you end up over there make a post introducing yourself and say Hello! I am one of the moderators over there and promise we won't bite!

Environemental Impacts

People are significantly more concerned these days about their own environmental impact. This may include reduced consumption, recycling, driving a hybrid car and being much more aware of your employers impact on the environment.

Whether it's one of your primary reasons or a unexpected side effect there is a tangible environmental benefit to having a remote workforce.

Having a remote workforce can save resources in many different ways :

Reduced Utility Costs at buildings
Reduced support staff costs, security, facilities, etc
Reduced Construction Costs for new buildings, or renovations
Reduced exhaust from vehicular travel


I've had the opportunity to see some reports generated by a great company called teletrips that specializes in really quantifying how much environmental benefit your company can get from a remote workforce. Check out their site!

My #1 Prediction

It's that time of the year were people are making different predictions and resolutions.

I will save you my standard resolutions to lose 10 pounds and put away more money into my RRSP's. I am going to focus here on a single prediction that I think will really hit it's stride this year.

Video conferencing!



Conferences and meetings, love them or hate them, are a daily part of many peoples lifes.

For many years I have been on conference calls and always imagined them as productive good sessions. I've recently had the pleasure of being in an enviornment that truly utilizes video conferencing.

In a global workplace often your co-workers are located thousands of miles away, some of the people I have worked with closely over these years are people I have never met!

Video-conferencing for years has been available but has always been looked at as a novelty used by executives but there are many great benefits to using this. They include;


Bringing teams closer together

It can always be a challenge when dealing with a remote team to build camaraderie. You inevitably will build a stronger relationship with someone in the next office over than someone two thousands kilometers away.

Humans are visual beings and we respond more to stimuli if it's audio and visual. Not many people listen to radio at home if they have the option of watching television.

Costs

Yes, there is a up front cost for the equipment that could run you into the thousands depending on what sort of equipment and network you have.

In this day of higher costs of airfare, efficiency improvements and environmental awareness it can be very difficult to rationalize hopping on a plane to fly to a different part of the country for a single meeting, yet people do that all the time.

In the Edmonton Journal recently they summarized how often local politicians fly back and forth between Edmonton and Calgary, several of them average many flights a week at costs an average cost of $1500 a flight.

I had the extreme pleasure of recently attending a meeting with some Telus representatives here who gave were very excited about some of the new technology they were working on, including "full wall" video.

If video conferencing can bring teams closer together and represent significant costs then it's a an easy sell. It's going to become more and more common in workplaces both in offices and at homes to see this equipment! I use Tandberg equipment myself.

Happy New Years

Hello everyone!

My name is Justin Dechaine and I would like to welcome you to my website.

http://dechaine.com has been through many different iterations but has completely been relaunched as of January 1st, 2008 to reflect a newer, more professional site.

Whether I already know you or you are a stranger I sincerely hope you will find something useful here. Feel free to send me a note at anytime and tell me what you like, don't like or if you just have a question.

I will be updating the blog section ideally every week with an industry related post.