Page 101 - Managing the Mobile Workforce

80 � mAnAgIng the moBIle workForCe

` CommunICAtIon

Managers who want to develop trust with mobile employees do ev-
erything in their power to communicate regularly and effectively. For
Melaleuca, a company that has grown globally by leaps and bounds,
trust is critical, according to company president McKay Christensen,
and communication essential to build and maintain it. He told us:
8

It is almost everything. It is so easy to lose trust when you’re not making
connections. We have one employee who is based out of Kentucky, but he
manages several employees who live here in Idaho Falls. . . . What you
see tends to happen is that the employees here in Idaho Falls—because
they are at a distance—they tend to latch on to another manager here or
another group here. It is easy to let discord and out-of-presence conversa-
tions erode the trust between one person and another. If communication
slips at all, you start to guess, you start to assume—those things start
to erode trust. It is a very difficult relationship to manage. The most
important thing is that there still has to be face-to-face connection and
communication. It costs money, and you just have to spend the money to
make it happen. It is well worth it at the end of the day.

Regular, focused communication is essential. Don’t assume your
employees halfway around the world will call you when a problem is
brewing. You have to take the initiative and facilitate the discussion.
It is a continuous responsibility that you must not overlook.

` trust-BuIldIng prInCIples

We have found by interviewing leaders of multinational, highly suc-
cessful, mobile workforces of all sizes that the principles for building
and maintaining trust are no different for employees working at a
distance than they are for those who work in one location. What is