Virtual Office Management Means Effective Communication

The virtual leader needs to have the utmost trust in new hires. The leader will not physically see or interact with employees as easily as in a traditional company. Therefore, business owners in these settings must have an extremely high level of confidence in their employees.

Employees need to be exceedingly self-reliant and committed to the task and the organization; self-motivated to work independently and without much supervision; and dedicated to the success of their work. Productivity, self-efficiency and autonomy are essential.

Even though virtual employees need to be self-reliant and self-directed, the effective virtual entrepreneur needs to set realistic benchmarks and check-in times. To be able to manage someone from a remote location you must have some type of criteria to measure progress and success; e.g., total contacts made or total widgets produced. Some leaders reserve a particular time of the day or week for call-ins or staff meetings, using GoToMeeting or video-conferencing products.

Communication needs to be sufficient, frequent and intense enough to satisfy both the employer and the employee. Many set interim deadlines for projects so there are no surprises or gaps. Some, like Boston Software Systems, Inc., organize regional or national retreats once or twice a year.

The purpose of these get-togethers is varied: opportunities for social interaction with employees who may never have met or who need to get to know each other; management and productivity purposes to discuss and improve processes, policies and procedures; information sharing; and creating a sense of unity, team building and esprit de corps.

A virtual office in this era of cost-cutting can save you a great deal of money. However, the prospective virtual entrepreneur needs to enter into this state-of-the-art management concept with goals of hiring the most appropriate employees and creating a fail-safe process.