Page 163 - Managing the Mobile Workforce

142 � mAnAgIng the moBIle workForCe

keep the worker as close to being in sync as if he or she were physically
colocated.”
Again, the question Tyler challenges his organization to ask is,
“Are our human capital processes robust enough to give the worker
in Ann Arbor or Anchorage or wherever everything she would get if
working out of the main office—from leadership development, feed-
back, and everything that employee deserves?” 4

` the perFormAnCe mAnAgement proCess
For the moBIle workForCe

First let’s examine what performance management is. Performance
management is the process of setting, working toward, and achieving
organizational goals. Performance is evaluated, rewarded, and, in a
continuous improvement culture, adapted. The two key players in-
volved are usually the manager working with an employee, but they
can also be the board of directors with the CEO, a self-managed team
looking at itself, or a parent with a child. When it’s a manager and
his or her mobile worker, the goals are organizational goals, and a key
strategy is to use the process to reduce any perceived or real transac-
tional distance between them.
This process sounds simpler than it actually is, and it is often
made more complicated than it needs to be. We won’t go into detail
about performance management in this book, as it’s been discussed in
much detail elsewhere, but will focus on keys to success for the mobile
workforce.

the Beginning: A Very good place to start
The above reference to lyrics in a song from The Sound of Music rep-
5
resents just the opposite of what great performance management is for
mobile workers. Rather, Dr. Stephen R. Covey’s dictum, “Begin with
the end in mind,” will get you much better results and make life easier
6