Distance Learning

Distance Learning
How companies are rethinking their strategies of work and place.

Avon Products
Avon could not account for all of its New York workers on Sept. 11. It is now pushing ahead with new IT-driven HR reforms, which put human resources on the strategy table and will improve what Avon already knows about worker skills, knowledge, lifestyles and attitudes.

Federal Express
On Sept. 11 and the days afterwards, the company's planes were grounded. FedEx has since beefed up its ground-travel network—along with its HR intranet, to improve the timeliness and relevance of data that can be found there, including worker stats and security information.

Procter & Gamble
P&G plans to continue using some post-Sept. 11 alternative workplace arrangements, for savings of $300 million annually in reduced real estate costs and overhead. It is expanding pilot projects in Cincinnati, Brussels and Singapore that promote desk-sharing by people not always in the office.

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter
After the Sept. 11 attacks, it scotched plans to move its trading operation and other activities to a nearby building, opting instead to disperse its workers so they don't all share the same transportation, telecommunications and power grids.