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Managing Today's Mobile Professionals

By Dennis McCafferty on 2011-01-25


They may be your hospital workers tending to patients from room to room. Or, your sales executives meeting clients in multiple time zones throughout the week. Or, your modern IT employees, taking red-eye flights for organizations that are constantly expanding to new, global markets. These are just some of the professionals who make up the modern, mobile workforce. And CIOs and other senior executives must seek to embrace and accommodate their unique needs, according to the book "Managing the Mobile Workforce: Leading, Building, and Sustaining Virtual Teams" (McGraw-Hill Professional/Available now). In the book, authors David Clemons and Michael Kroth tap upon interviews conducted with top managers from companies such as Deloitte LLP, HP, Citrix and Samsung to come up with best practices for the oversight of these employees. It reveals how significantly the “rules have changed” in the 21st century, and why trust is the glue that binds managers and workers together – regardless of geographical distance. Clemons is CEO of Achieve Labs Inc. Kroth is an assistant professor at the University of Idaho in adult/organizational learning and leadership. Here are selected highlights:

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1 billion


1 billion is the estimated number of mobile workers in the world for the year 2011.

Mobility


Mobility has helped redefined the concept of “work”: It's not a place where you go. It's what you produce.

Greater mobility = good business.


CIOs/managers aren’t limited to “local” talent – they can recruit from all regions of the world.

A “mobile culture” also attracts the very best, most accountable employees – and they often tend to be the most tech-savvy.

In the mobile culture, that work takes place when it is assigned and done, not within a 9 to 5 timetable.

Five ways to manage mobile professionals.


1. Integrate mobile strategies into existing practices/tech instead of launching a “revolution.”

Five ways to manage mobile professionals.


2. Define expectations. Mobile workers must be held accountable to measurable goals and performance descriptions.

Five ways to manage mobile professionals.
3. Make sure mobile workers believe you're as “with them” as you are your “in office” employees. Breaking trust can immobilize a mobile workforce more quickly than bad tech.

Five ways to manage mobile professionals.


4. Collaborate. The best way to understand if mobile tech is working is to evaluate the users' experience via feedback and suggestions.

Five ways to manage mobile professionals.


5. Promote a “mobile culture.” Send the message that being a mobile worker enhances one's career – by making workers agile and connected – as opposed to damaging it.

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