Virtual Employees
Why limit your choice of employees to those in your local community when you can have a whole world of talent at your disposal? No, that doesn’t mean you have to pay their moving costs. It means hiring virtual employees.
Using virtual employees (also known as remote or off-site employees) not only expands your options for talented workers, it usually means a huge savings in payroll and operations costs. Since you don’t need to provide an actual work space or equipment for virtual employees, you can hire them all as independent contractors, which saves you money on taxes and benefits.
On the downside, managing remote workers takes a well-organized system of communication. You can’t walk down the hall and check on your employees’ progress on certain projects. Outline from the start what you expect in terms of response times, deadlines and working hours. If you’re working in different time zones, communication may be more difficult. Try scheduling weekly conference calls so everyone is on the same page.
If you want to present visuals during your calls, use services such as GoToMeeting.com to share slide shows and PowerPoint demonstrations. Require face-to-face time once in awhile? If distance isn’t an issue, try setting up meetings in your home office, business office, or restaurant. Even meeting for coffee to review a few items keeps virtual employees engaged and in the loop with the business.
Technologically speaking, even though you may not be supplying computers, you may need to make sure your remote workers’ systems are compatible and comparable with your business’s systems. If you use any specialty software you’ll need to supply that also. Will the person need scanning or faxing capabilities? Is e-mail too slow? You might need to get your remote workers to utlize instant messaging (IM) for quick communication. Look into AOL’s AIM, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo! Messenger. If you don’t want customers to know you’re using remote employees, set up one phone number to reach anyone at the company.
You might need a way to share and store files among virtual employees. Check out services such as Carbonite, Basecamp, Box.net, Google Apps and Zoho that let you access your company’s files from any location. (This is also helpful when you’re traveling.)
If you’re not ready to go all-out virtual, consider offering on-site employees some work-from-home days. Most people can easily be set up to work efficiently from home, and it’s a nice perk to attract and keep employees.
David Gass
Founder, Business Credit Services, Inc. &
Earn.com Expert Advisor
Tags: employees, human resources, managing employees, virtual employees
March 11th, 2010 at 11:13 am
Your recent post on virtual employees caught my attention while reading one of your emails I receive on a regular basis. I would like to receive additional information on related topics as well.
March 11th, 2010 at 11:26 am
What is the best way to recruit off-site or virtual employees? Would you suggest a personal face to face interview if possible before hiring?
Thank you,
Nancy Ewing
March 12th, 2010 at 8:14 am
Thanks David,
I’ve been looking into hiring a virtual assistant, I appreciate the info on this topic.
Take care,
Darren
March 15th, 2010 at 7:20 am
Nancy –
In response to your question. No I wouldn’t recommend an in person interview. In most cases you won’t have that ability since most of the people you would hire are not close by. However, you could do a web cam interview. But again, most people don’t do this. They simply talk to the people on the phone and in some cases just by email. After all most of the coorespondence you will have with the person once they are hired will be the same way, so it’s good to see if you can work together in that format upfront.