Collaboration Loop — Integrating Virtual Employees into the Fold: Defining the Problem

Melanie Turek — 6 February 2007

As someone who recently joined a very large, global organization, I know first hand how difficult it can be to integrate into a new corporate environment. Of the dozen or so people I work with on a regular basis, no one is in the same location as anyone else—and about half aren’t in the U.S. (I work out of a home office in Colorado; almost everyone else is also in a home office, but a few are at corporate sites 50%-80% of the time.)

What’s more, those 12 people may be the ones I need to work with most often, but they’re by no means the only people I need to work with. Understanding who else I must know in a company of 1300-plus employees is no small feat, and it’s made much more difficult by the virtual workplace. Certainly, my co-workers can and do steer me in the right direction when I need help (Joe Smith handles this, Sarah Jones, handles that), but it’s a reactive model.

This is the first of two articles so far from someone new to an organization (Frost & Sullivan, in this case). Her second article is here.

Anyone who has changed job naturally notices the differences and oddities of their new berth. When that person is, like Ms Turek, a trained and alert observer of corporate life, the observations will be that much more resonant. She is right on target with her remarks about the voluntary nature of the informal organization and how poorly served it can be. Despite the evidence of their ears and eyes, many managers and HR functionaries are unwilling to admit that it even exists, let alone try to help it to work better. Ms Turek’s second article, on training, reinforces the point.

Entrenched and outdated attitudes to collaboration — online or face to face — are another enemy of the unofficial organization. Many years ago, while working in a large American multinational, I tried to set up a virtual work group for secretaries and word processor operators within the different divisions (how aptly labelled). Its purpose was to let members exchange ideas and information on how they carried out and managed their work.

At first, the idea found favour but then the voices of reaction began to intrude. “Why should these women have something senior people don’t have?” was a choice example. The death knell sounded when another manager pointed out that the group’s members might be able to compare pay and conditions. (Revealing one’s salary to colleagues was forbidden, believe it or not.)

The final nail went into the notion’s coffin when one junior person — himself not noticeably taciturn — said, “It would just be a talking shop, anyway”. Quite so; that was its purpose!

Readers of a certain age will recognise those attitudes to rank and gender. They haven’t gone entirely away.

If you are too young to remember that far back, watching the BBC’s Life on Mars drama series will give you a (not entirely serious) clue to how it was.