Page 200 - Managing the Mobile Workforce

hiring and preparing great mobile talent � 179

frastructure projects. He discussed with us how his mobile
workforce makes efficient use of their driving time:

Our salespeople are very mobile. When they go out in the field, they
are driving for hours through rural America meeting one customer,
then the next, through the day. So there’s a whole lot of “windshield
time.” We’re trying to find more ways to deliver training for them,
to take advantage of that time. The first thing we’ve done is sign up
with an organization that offers the biggest management and lead-
ership in sales titles on audio CD. It works a lot like Netflix, where
[customers] can put . . . [audio materials] into a queue that they are
sent one at a time. It has been a really good way for them to get
some training. So, one of the challenges is . . . to be able to deliver
more of our training in that audio format so that [workers] can [take]
advantage of that time. We’re still working on how to do that.

` teChnology And support to ConneCt And engAge

Here is some good news. All of the required technology to build the
supporting infrastructure needed to sustain a mobile workforce is al-
ready here today. It will advance profoundly tomorrow. And it will
keep advancing daily to protect systems, secure content, and allow
for seamless uninterrupted global connections to content and people.
Sure, connectivity isn’t perfect today: we operate knowing that we
might get cut off on the subway or in a hallway, or will have to sur-
vive without Internet access on the plane. But our current technology
has enough reliability, capacity, and capability to provide the mobile
worker with powerful options for conducting business. The learning
initiatives and the value of learning within the enterprise today have
many different and unique possibilities.