The RatRaceRebellion.com Blog

From the Book Bag -- "Making Telework Work"

If you're proposing a telework arrangement to your boss -- or you're part of a new virtual team and want to make sure it succeeds -- give the decisionmaker a copy of Evan Offstein's and Jason Morwick's Making Telework Work.

As almost everyone knows, one of the biggest obstacles to telework is the manager married to "line of sight" supervision. A close second is the manager who believes that letting employees work from home one day a month is the acme of innovation. Arguably the most threatening of all is a new Virtual Team Leader with little or no experience running distributed groups. When his or her team fails, it can jeopardize telework for everyone in the organization (and hobble the enterprise into the bargain).

If you work for one of these well-meaning people, do everyone (including the environment) a favor and leave a copy of the book on his or her desk. Put a bright Post-It in Chapter 4, "Leading Telework Teams in the Virtual World." This section alone, with actionable advice on managing dispersed team members, may help foster or protect enlightened working arrangements in your organization for years to come.

 

Homeshoring in the UK -- Live-Agent "On Track to Create 2,000 Jobs"

A UK virtual call center, Live-Agent, is reportedly on track to create 2,000 home-based customer service jobs in the next two years.

According to UK call center site CallCentreHelper.com, agents will set up as "Personal Service Companies" rather than be hired as employees -- an arrangement apparently similar to the independent contractor or "B2B" model used by a number of US homeshoring companies as well.

The article also notes that Live-Agent will be using LiveOps' "On-Demand Contact Center Platform." An innovative Silicon Valley call center company, LiveOps has been mentioned frequently in recent months as a candidate for an IPO (which, as we've noted here, would really put telework on the map).

Call center Arise (an advertiser on our site) has also extended the homeshoring model into the UK, and given the many benefits of home-based work -- community rejuvenation, reduced pollution, increased family time, and business for "local" rather than carbon-heavy, long-distance economies -- we wish the UK movement every success.

For more on Live-Agent, click here.

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