Virtual Offices: Is it Time for Your Company to Forego Office Space?

For many of us, our two biggest business expenses are, far and away: (1) our people, and (2) our rent. Would be nice to eliminate one of the two, right?

No, I’m not here to talk a robot takeover (at least not yet); I’m here to talk about this concept of “virtual offices,” otherwise referred to as “not actually having a physical office space and instead working from home or someplace else.”

Beyond the obvious financial benefits of not having to pay rent each month, there are also arguments to be made that allowing your team to work from home will do wonders for overall quality of life, and therefore their morale and productivity.

Have we reached the point where shifting to a virtual office is something the average business owner can seriously consider? Maybe.

Technology as the primary vehicle

The onus has always been on technology here. Are we able to work without being tied to a physical network? Can we perform all of our job duties from the comfort of our homes? Can we do all this while maintaining the necessary level of human interaction – and without breaking the bank?

For those on the manufacturing side of things, sorry – you probably won’t be able to send your production team home.

But for those of us in the service industry, the freedom is there; thanks to developments in virtual desktops and other cloud-based solutions, our employees can absolutely work from anywhere with a decent internet connection (which, thanks to improvements to residential internet speeds, means most of our homes). This technology is well-established, affordable, and is only growing more sophisticated as time passes.

Combine this core platform with VoIP (cloud) phone systems and the right mix of collaboration tools for your team, and you have the makings for an entirely mobile, effective workforce.

The challenges that remain

While technology can bridge a lot of gaps, it can’t do everything.

A move to a virtual office still means that you’re uprooting and dispersing your entire team. Even if your people are “connected” from a technical standpoint, you will necessarily wipe out the regular social interactions that take place in your office. If you’re not careful, this can very easily result in employees that feel isolated, and who can’t quite visualize how they fit into the overall fabric of the organization (i.e. employees who will probably leave).

You’re also in for a very different management dynamic. You’ll be coordinating, coaching, and team-building from afar, which requires a level of deftness that might not come naturally for everyone. It will at minimum require a paradigm shift on the part of your leadership team.

On top of this you have the more abstract absence of those spontaneous, brilliant ideas that flow organically out of a meeting or casual conversation between coworkers. It’s very, very hard to replicate this very trusting, very fluid atmosphere over the notoriously stilted medium that is the conference call.

My recommendation

If you’re seriously considering a switch to a virtual office, make sure you give your company culture as much weight as your operations in the decision-making process.

Which elements of your culture must you be able to simulate by way of technology solutions? Which would be nice to have? Which would be fine falling by the wayside?

Once you’ve figured that out, find the technologies that will allow you to maintain the elements that are important to you. My company, for example, has enlisted the help of a video conferencing package to hold a weekly after-hours call to recap key events and throw some good old-fashioned silliness into the mix.

And keep in mind that the move doesn’t need to be an all-or-nothing scenario; you might find that having some employees remote and a smaller group working from a (smaller) office is the right balance for your business.

All in all, be very intentional with this sort of large-scale change to the way your business lives and breathes; as appealing as it may be to eliminate your rent expenses, a purely “technical” shift might end up costing you far, far more in the long run.

As originally published in the American City Business Journals.

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