Page 123 - Managing the Mobile Workforce

102 � mAnAgIng the moBIle workForCe

to know how to apply paradigm shift thinking about the mobile workforce
to your own organization?
Interestingly, mobilizing for mobility—at a strategic level—has
very little to do with what kind of cell phone or laptop your workforce
will have and very much to do with what platform it, and everything
else, sits on. In the paragraphs that follow, we’ll share why an enter-
prise executive really should be a sage from the stage in addition to
becoming the more fashionable guide from the side.
We’ll provide a manager’s checklist of questions that you might
want to consider in building your mobile workforce strategy or to test
your progress if you already have initiated a mobile workforce. We’ll
share the advantages and risks associated in building and keeping
a mobile enterprise team productive. Many companies believe they
could not exist today without their mobile teams. This new business
model is dependent on a dispersed workforce which enters into a win-
win relationship with the company, which provides, in return, an ap-
preciable work-life balance. It’s a new strategy for most and a fresh
way to play the game and win.

the Competitive environment
The following are factors that need to be taken into consideration
when contemplating a switch to a more mobile workforce.

The Economy
Companies are cutting expenses these days, which intensifies the
need for alternative mobile workforce work arrangements, which can
reduce costs. Even the government is capitalizing on savings through
telework. Just ask John Berry, who told us the following:

I just closed 25,000 square feet of office space in Pittsburgh that was a
teleconference center for retirement problems. We closed the lease out, and
I’m going to save a significant chunk of change because all of the workers
in Pittsburgh working with the union agreed they are going to work from