Building -- And Managing -- A Remote Workforce
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In a recent on-demand webinar from Comcast Business, a panel of expert entrepreneurs explored the ways you can source qualified remote employees; how you can create an inclusive, rewarding culture for all employees; and the range of technology tools you can use to foster collaboration, creativity, and productivity across the operation.
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Building -- And Managing -- A Remote Workforce
- 1. @comcastbusiness BUILDING—AND MANAGING—A REMOTE WORKFORCE
- 2. @comcastbusiness BUILDING—AND MANAGING—A REMOTE WORKFORCE
- 3. ModeratorPanelists Remote Workforce Panelists Gene Marks Owner Marks Group (@genemarks) Jon Feld Chief Content Officer OnCore Media (@jonfeld) Ramon Ray Publisher Smart Hustle (@ramonray) @comcastbusiness
- 4. • Defining the Remote Workforce • Benchmarking Needs • Attracting Talent • Managing Teams • Metrics for Success Today’s Agenda @comcastbusiness
- 5. Anyone not in an office A changing concept The remote workforce is: What Is a Remote Team? @comcastbusiness
- 6. The Benefits of a Remote Workforce Key advantages include: A welcoming place for millennials Decreased overhead @comcastbusiness It’s where the talent is heading
- 7. Personnel and Tax Implications of Remote Workers @comcastbusiness You have to account for: Remote-specific policies Employee classification Contractor regulations
- 8. Project need Specialist capability Ability to manage remotely Where Remote Workers Fit @comcastbusiness Best use is determined by:
- 9. Questions and discussionWhat Shouldn’t Be Remote Extreme levels of interaction C-level oversight Company-specific oversight @comcastbusiness Some jobs shouldn’t be outsourced, including those requiring:
- 10. What to Look for in Remote Employees Independence, responsibility, maturity Availability Proven ability to work remotely @comcastbusiness
- 11. Questions and discussionMaking Your Company Attractive to Remote Employees Having specific remote worker policies Clarify it on your site and in your marketing Use it in your recruiting Show you’re “remote-worker” friendly by: @comcastbusiness
- 12. Questions and discussionResources to Use in Benchmarking and Recruiting Benchmarking positions and salaries: Glassdoor, PayScale, SimplyHired, UpWork Recruiting: Freelancer.com, indeed.com, Monster, FlexJobs, LinkedIn, Remote.com, Remotive, VirtualVocations, Jobspresso @comcastbusiness A range of resources exist, many specific to remote workers:
- 13. Questions and discussionKeeping Remote Teams Engaged Its’s a two-way street Value the work, and the worker Set realistic expectations @comcastbusiness Include and recognize remote workers.
- 14. Questions and discussionRecognizing Team Members Shared dashboards Reaching out “old school” Bonus: Let them recognize each other @comcastbusiness
- 15. Questions and discussionTechnologies That Support Remote Offices and Teams Keep it simple Data access (even without workers) is critical The process matters as much as the tools @comcastbusiness
- 16. Metrics for Success Don’t “go crazy” with numbers Start with quarterly goals Use tracking tools to ensure deadlines/goals @comcastbusiness
- 17. “One Thing to Know” Remote workers are human Culture comes first @comcastbusiness
- 18. Questions Let’s Bring You into the Conversation @comcastbusiness
- 19. Find ideas, solutions, and perspectives from experts and real business owners at the Comcast Business Community, Want More Information? ComcastBusiness.com/Community
Hinweis der Redaktion
- Webinar Broadcast Begins
- Webinar Broadcast Begins
- JON greets the audience and… Let me introduce our panelists: Gene Marks owns and operates the Marks Group, a highly successful small business that provides technology and consulting services to small and midsize businesses. Nationally, Marks is frequently brought in as an expert on small business on Fox News, MSNBC, and CNBC, discussing matters affecting the business community. Ramon Ray, publisher of Smart Hustle magazine, is a four-time entrepreneur, best-selling author, global speaker, and producer. His third book is the Amazon.com best seller Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing. FOR BACKGROUND ON THEIR COMPANIES UP FRONT—NOT JUST WHO THEY ARE BUT WHY THEY’RE ALSO CREDIBLE AS ENTRPRENEURS: Jon Feld: Give me a quick thumbnail description of your business. Gene Marks: So I have ten employees and about ten contractors. We used to have offices in Philadelphia, outside of Philadelphia, and I shut them down, God, over ten years ago so actually, all of my employees are working remotely from home, we are a virtual company but you know most of the time we’re all out at clients, if we’re not working from home, and we implement CRM systems so we are Salesforce partners, Microsoft Dynamic, Zoho, HubSpot, and GoldMine are the five products that we sell and then we implement them, and we have about 600 clients mostly in the mid-Atlantic area. Ramon Ray: And for myself, Jon, I have no employees, thought about it, but I have about five team members. I have my designer who’s in Seattle. I have my content…my editor who’s in North Carolina, so our team is spread out. That’s in a nutshell of what I do, and then of course, if it’s relevant to mention, I’ve also worked in remote scenarios with large, large companies where I live in New Jersey and their headquarters are somewhere else, so not only do I have remote employees but I’ve worked as an employee, as a remote employee for a very long time, two, three years so if that’s helpful. Jon Feld: Gene you have ten employees, ten contractors, no in-office employees, totally virtual and same with you Ramon. You’ve got five team members but totally virtual. I think that answers the question. Thanks everyone for joining us today. Now, let’s talk about today’s agenda
- Jon Feld: So let’s talk first about how you define the remote workforce especially as it relates to small business. Gene Marks: It’s anybody not working in the office for any given period of time, so that could be somebody who might be working from home one day a week or somebody that’s completely, five days a week working in a remote location, anybody in a home office. Ramon Ray: The world of what means remote is also changing as well, so I think that’s another thing to keep in mind meaning there could be someday where we say oh, you’re an office worker. You know maybe that’ll happen in 20 years what it would be like oh, you work in the office, interesting, you know so like that, so I think it’s definitely…but it’s out of the office but I think what defines work.
- Jon Feld: In your opinion, what are some of the key benefits of having employees work remotely? Gene Marks: Well, first of all, it responds to a need particularly at the millennial generation. You know we’ve got more than 50 percent of the workforce today is 18 to 34 years old and they’re demanding flexibility and independence and mobility, so you know a big benefit by offering remote connectivity and that type of a culture is that you can attract people from that generation because it’s a big thing that they like to do. It’s an overhead decreasing thing, so you know the less people in your office, the less office you need and the less cost, anywhere from utilities to coffee that you’re incurring to have a remote worker around and finally, also it helps out other people, not necessarily millennials, adjust their work schedules and the demands of their lives to getting work done by making a little bit more flexible for them, so those are the three big benefits. Ramon Ray: You’re losing out on getting the talent that Gene has just talked about if you’re not thinking of remote employees and again, the word hopefully will be normalized in the coming years but I think you’re hurting yourself by thinking if you’re not in the corporate office, we can’t use you, you’re not contributing fully, or you’re weird or you’re pay structure’s different. I know companies that are existing like that and only in this conversation, Infusionsoft was like that and I won’t mention them on the webinar but it had been company, oh, if you’re not in the four walls, you’re not participating the same. They’re quickly changing that because they’re realizing they just can’t have their company like that.
- Jon Feld: How about the tax implications of remote workers? Gene Marks: I have some issues that we have to have policies about. For example, I reimburse my employees when they travel to clients, for whatever their out-of-pocket expenses are, so I like to use the IRS rules for doing that and the IRS rules are you can get reimbursed at a per-mile rate for anything over your commute to your office but we don’t have an office, so what do you use? For example, we have a post office address in Bala CynWyd, which outside of Philadelphia. So our policy is anything outside of your commute to the post office address is reimbursable. If you have workarounds like that, they have to be consistent. Where it gets gray or challenging is business expenses from home. They’ve got home office expenses, so does your company have a policy to reimburse them for that, or better yet, can you advise them on how to form, you know you can file a form 2106? You can get reimbursement. You can claim a deduction for that on your own 1040 if you so want to do that. If your employing like Ramon does or like I do, independent contractors, 1099 people, there are rules that you need to comply with to not only make sure they’re getting the 1099s and you’re giving them the information they need to report but also, being careful how much your using them so that they can’t be construed to be an employee of yours, which opens up a whole can of worms. Ramon Ray: We also work through other companies such as Upwork. That helps take care of any tax and related issues because they deal with that. They deal with sending all the documentation needed. I don’t have to worry about because it’s built into their costs so they’re going to invoice me some exorbitant rate anyhow for whatever they’re going through. Once in a while, people say well, can you reimburse me for this but most of us, again, me even in those situations, I just add it into it whatever the final invoice I give them is.
- Jon Feld: In what roles do you typically use long-term contractors? Gene Marks: It’s all project-related for me. So when we’re implementing systems, there are certain things we can do in-house and certain things we do have to subcontract out like you know developing work. If a client needs software development, you know more advanced integration or data migration. When I need a specialist that I can’t keep busy 40 hours a week but I can use them ten hours here and 20 hours there and 50 hours there. I generally lean more towards those people that are more specialists in what they do. Ramon Ray: In my case, if it’s helpful for some, my project manager who’s also my administrative assistant, she’s been with me for several years. I have a content management team and a person who heads my content relationships. Again, that person has been with me for about five years, so in my case…then my designer’s been with me for two years, so I have design teams, I have content management teams, and I have people who help me manage the different projects I’m working, so that’s how I’m structured. Small team but I’ve been with many of them for years, but again, it is project-based. If nothing’s happening, they don’t get paid. One or two are on retainers but still it’s leaning towards, you know I’m not just paying out $50,000 a year for them doing nothing.
- Jon Feld: What about the positions or types of positions that shouldn’t be remote? Gene Marks: The type of job that shouldn’t be remote are the jobs where you need a lot of interaction with that person needs to be part of your management team and is involved in a lot of the day-to-day decisions that are being made. I would say that would be the person least likely to have as a remote person, and I’m violating that rule because I have one guy who works for me, Corey, who’s been an employee of mine for 10 years and he’s my VP of Operations and he’s remote, and you know but we would work so much better together if we were in an office together. Some financial positions, like controller, almost need to be in-house. There are simply too many things happening that relate to that position. Ramon Ray: And that’s a great point, Jon. What I would say I think most things can be outsourced but I think it depends on the company. If you’re in a company where you need that receptionist to welcome people, I think having a flat panel is not the way to go. You can’t outsource that. If you’re in a company that has to really have several meetings a week, go over things, whiteboard things, if that’s how you’re structured, you really kind of probably have that in-house.
- Jon Feld: What do you look for in a remote employee? Gene Marks: I’m just looking for somebody that’s independent and responsible. Somebody I can trust to work from home and it would be just as much that person is there in the office. That’s what I’m looking for and unfortunately, being a terrible judge of people, I never really know that until they’re actually working from home. That’s why I’ve always started things on a temporary basis just to see how things are working out before we finalize any kind of work from home arrangement. But it’s generally somebody that is smart enough and reactive enough to make sure they’re available and that can work independently, and a lot of people can’t. It sounds simple, but we actively look for people who have already worked at home. Ramon Ray: Beyond technical competence, which should be a given, are they virtuous, are they good people? I think they have to be a self-starter. That is a must, end of story. I hired one young lady to work with me, and she called me almost in tears saying “Ramon, I can’t take the loneliness. I feel bored” because she needed the office cooler, and I understand it. If that interaction really matters, you can’t change that, but you need to ensure that up front. And, because I’m remote, my employees need to understand that. I don’t want to be called with simple questions like “How do I log on?” Like Gene, I want a seasoned remote worker—some things have to be learned, some come with maturity. I need to hire the person that can just get to work.
- Jon Feld: How do you position your company as potentially attractive to remote workers? Gene Marks: People have to know you’re “remote-worker” friendly. Have remote working policies in place that you can use in recruiting. Make other remote employees available to talk to those prospective employees and let them know about how great your policy is. Ramon Ray: Having people perceive you as a remote employer is key. Let them know on your website and on recruiting you do. Have pre-employment documents available on your site, create language in your recruiting and job descriptions that show you are mobile-oriented and embrace remote workers. In fact, if you don’t relate that you’re after experienced mobile workers, you’ll likely be viewed as behind the times. Gene Marks: To Ramon’s point, there are some companies that have a remote working policy as an afterthought and some of them that really make it a thing and so if you’re trying to attract people, you know particularly in 2018 and the generation that we were talking about, I think the companies are going to have the most options for good employees is to make their remote working policy a big part of who they are.
- Jon Feld: What online resources help you recruit for and benchmark definitions/salaries for remote positions (e.g., Recruiting: Freelancer.com, indeed.com, Monster, FlexJobs, Remote.com, Remotive, VirtualVocations, Jobspresso; Benchmarking: glassdoor, PayScale, SimplyHired, etc.)? Ramon Ray: Upwork is one of many great tools out there are, but any tool that can help aggregate information that’s the kind of tool you want. How much does it cost to hire an event planner? A programmer? Gene Marks: Upwork is absolutely a good place to find contractors. You know there are sites that I go to when I’m looking for employees. Indeed is an excellent recruiting source are glassdoor and LinkedIn. They offer great salary comparisons and articles about what you should pay and what you should say when recruiting people. MORE TBD FROM RAMON AND GENE
- Jon Feld: Once you bring someone in, it’s critical to have them engaged. How important is it to create an inclusive culture for in-house or remote teams and how do you do that? What are some of the barriers you found? Ramon Ray: Let’s remember that this is a two-way street. Assuming you need this remote employer, contractor, however you want to skin it, they can leave just as quickly as you hired them, so I think that’s one thing to keep in mind. Do you value the work they’re doing or as Gene said, is it an afterthought? People can smell that. Are you giving them the tools to succeed and communicate not only with the manager but with their peers, or do they feel left out? I’ve been in those kinds of situations. “Oh, that’s right. We forgot Ramon’s in New Jersey. Sorry you missed the call buddy.” It goes back to policies and culture, and to ensuring that everybody feels they’re a stakeholder. People have to feel that they’re needed for what you need them to do, and that comes across, again, on the telephone, you make in the meetings, you make in the things that are non-project. Do you remember their birthday, do you send them thank you cards, do you cheer them remotely on the phone in front of others? These kinds of things matter. Gene Marks: When I’m recruiting either contractors or employees to bring along, I actually try to set their expectation on what reality is like and let them know that of all the great things that Ramon just mentioned. You know people are out there. They’re off on their own. Everybody’s busy. When you need help pick up the phone. There’s not a lot of coddling. I might go for, you know, days or even a week or so without even talking to you. That’s just me being selfish. This is all what you should accept if you’re going to work here and you know what’s funny about that is that for a lot of people that culture is fine. You also don’t want to over-communicate. Some remote workers want to be left alone. They want work independently and work from home, and they’re good. They don’t want to have anybody breathing down their necks and then of course there are other that want a lot more engagement, so because we don’t offer all those kinds of things, I like to try and make sure that prospective people know what they’re getting into before they make any kind of a decision.
- Jon Feld: How do recognize people for their accomplishments and the contributions they make? Ramon Ray: I’m old school and use intranet-type dashboards. I think Jive software was one. I know Microsoft has their SharePoint and many others, that all employees and workers, whether they’re, you know in-office or not, can access. I find that they can be amazing. For Gene Marks to login in the morning and see he has three gold stickers, you know hoorah for customer service call. That is an emotional boost, so I think that’s one, just companywide intranet that everybody is on is one way to do that. I think two, as you’re having your team meetings, call out people on a phone call. It sounds simple but it means a lot. So you’re having your ten people in your corporate office in Nebraska and the guy in Alaska dial in via video monitor and acknowledge them there. I’ve done this remotely in front of hundreds of employees. So those are a few things I would say. I want to celebrate success. Now, how do I do it, and this is old school again, but gift cards and things like that. Those mean a lot. Chachkies, you know, do you send a surprise t-shirt in the mail to all your employees or staff. Gene Marks: I mean those are all really good. We did two things. We use a little application called Bonusly. It’s sort of like the Harry Potter of gaming applications but everybody at the beginning of each month…we’ve done it monthly. We’ve done it quarterly. They get a certain number of points and they’re all required to give their points away to anybody within the company--contractors and employees. So everybody’s giving it back and forth to each other based on jobs well done or milestones reached, or project completed and then at the end of the month, whoever has the most points, wins. And to Ramon’s point, we give away gift cards to the winner so it’s kind of like, you know, great job on that. You know ten points for Gryffindor and we just award them, and they get it. It’s a cool little application, and then, I have a timeshare, which I’ve had for years, and like I pay the maintenance on it, it’s in Hawaii. I’ve never been there but every year, at the end of the year, I give it away. I’ve given it to customers and I’ve given it to employees depending on my frame of mind and mood, the year and all of that, so that’s also another thing to add to all the great suggestions that Ramon had.
- Jon Feld: What technologies can help support this effort (e.g., Workplace by Facebook, Skype for Business, WhatsApp, Zoom, WebEx, and GoToMeeting, FreeConferenceCall.com) and how do you use them? Gene Marks: We sell CRM systems and I’m big CRM evangelist as I know Ramon is and I know there are a lot of different collaboration applications out there but I fully believe that for small business, a good CRM system is implemented and customized the right way can really take care of all the collaboration needs that you have. For example, we’ve combined Zoho with Microsoft Office, and that’s what we use for all of our collaborations and all of our conversations, notes about clients and projects into the CRM system. We have all of our projects running out of it. Our emails are all shared in the CRM system. We schedule activities back and forth for each other, and follow-ups and I get alerts and reminders when people are doing stuff, and that’s all in our CRM system as well. For communications, we use Microsoft Office for that. We’ve been digging into Microsoft Teams so we’ve been doing instant messaging using Teams and we do you Skype a lot for calls and messaging, and we’re waiting for better integration with our CRM system so that we can actually bring our data into one place. We use Free Conference Call because it’s just easy, but really, those are the two, you know non-accounting applications that we use to drive our company. The less applications to screw up your business the better and I truly believe that if it’s implemented the right way, a combination of Office and a good CRM system would be all that you need. Ramon Ray: I just want to underline that the tool is secondary to the process. There’s every tool out there can do everything you want it to do for an internal collaboration and I will mention some more, but I just want to emphasize I think on the webinar that the tool is secondary, just get the process done. The desire that you want to communicate, collaborate, even if you have to spit ball and gum it together. Having said that, I like the aspects of Adminimal and using Suite as far as possible, Office connected to this or Google connected to that. Those are the two big platforms out there, Microsoft and Google, or in that case, as Gene mentioned, Zoho. It has pretty much everything you want under the sun so my point being is that the more you’re able to use existing platforms, the easier it will be. Second thing I can say is the integration. Zoom integrates with so many things pretty seamlessly, as does GoToMeeting and others for video communication, so I can probably mention other tools. So do you have the process in place meaning we’re having calls every Friday, what’s the process to make sure this happens for our remote employees and the thing is even stating we are going to have calls on a regular basis. What happens if a remote employee is out sick, can we easily get to their documents, and most people can do that of course if you’re using any type of system as Gene said but you have to have that process built in. You don’t want to tell you client, sorry, we can’t get to your file because Ramon is not here today. That’s a problem.
- Jon Feld: As far as metrics for success for remote workers or teams, do you create you know any sort of quarterly, annual goals that need to be hit, or what are your metrics? Gene Marks: That’s a really good question because we’re a small company so you know I don’t go crazy with numbers that we’re trying to reach. What we do is at the beginning of each year, we should do a better of this. We come up with annual goals and quarterly goals, and each quarter, I ask each of my people to come back, you know, how they’re doing with their quarterly goal, and the goals we try to make them as black and white as possible. Sometimes they’re more gray than black and white, but then they just give me an update every quarter on what it is, so that’s all we do. Ramon Ray: Yeah, for me, goals for me in particular that’s not so relevant to what I’m doing, it’s if you’re not doing it, everybody’s pissed off and you’re fired, but I think in general, I think goals and metrics are important I think for sure. I mean I think measuring it and again, it goes back to the process and having technology available so that the employee or the worker can input what’s happening. I know there’s a lot of tools out that you can say okay, on a scale of one to ten, did you complete the job, was it done on time. That means the manager and the person their managing, both have inputted to this tool. With one click of a button, you can pretty darn well see oh, Ramon, he’s in the green. All of this project’s been done on time, or Ramon, you’re kind of red here, you know we noticed you’re not a team player. So those kinds of things I think can help quite a bit, and accelerate and scale working with remote employees. All of you who are in yellow and red are fired today.
- Jon Feld: If you had one key piece of advice for building and managing remote teams, what would it be? Ramon Ray: Never forget that remote employees are human. No matter what technology you’re using, the operation you’re using, the systems you’re using, all this great stuff we’re going to talk about. At the end of the day, people are human. I’ll never forget--it’s not a remote issue but the same principle--when I was working at the United Nations years ago, the hand of my French boss on my shoulder just saying, good job, Ramon, I’ll never forget that and so I think there’s ways to do that digitally with remote employees. People want to be appreciated. They’re human. Gene Marks: I think my biggest piece of advice to it is to think about whether or not you have the culture for remote employees and then to make sure that culture is communicated. So if you are the type of company that you need people on the floor building stuff, you don’t have the culture as a remote company so you don’t want to try and you know force a square peg into a round hole. Don’t try to be what you’re not.
- Jon: That concludes our question-and-answer session [SLIDE SHIFT] Turnover to Bob for close and SHIFT SLIDE
- Bob: Calls out the Comcast Community, thanks attendees and closes