Virtual Office - A report

Recent research recently conducted by Doug Washburn. With the help of Christine Perkett, President and founder of PerkettPR — an organisation of all virtual employees — they studied the IT infrastructure, productivity, and green benefits of a company for the last ten years. The organisation is reliant on workers and employees geographically scattered and heavily reliable on remote access to systems and information.

The virtual focus was the main theme of the research, the initial conception began with a virtual exchange. Doug and Christine were initially intrigued by Twitter an a tweet that Christine submitted to her huge following on Twitter.

Surprisingly some of the findings in the document center on what seem to be "common sense", but are not always obvious to workers or to organisations:

• Creating a standard for computing and mobile device configuration is critical, especially when, as with users, all IT support is remote.
• Centralized administrative functions are also key; despite the lack of a physical office, an operations staff can help with streamlining processes as simple as ordering office supplies, which can stymie a virtual workforce and sap valuable time.

For all of the standardisation, Perkett is not just a virtual organisation, but one which is profitable and productive. Part of the research found:

• Virtual workers are more productive; time savings from not commuting — coupled with flexible working hours — leads staff to be 50% - 75% more productive based on analysis compared to traditional, commuting office workers.
• Virtual workers are greener; the company has calculated its CO2 savings at 4.4 tons of Carbon Dioxide per year, the equivalent of running 33 laptops 24×7x365!

The best practice document, published this week on the Forrester website includes a series of checklists and workbooks outlining critical elements for green companies, virtual organisation, and remote workers.