I agree HR needs to be involved, but instead of worrying about how remote employees are doing their work, they need to be removing roadblock concepts like “the 40 hour work week” and the impractical accumulation of vacation time.

It should be more about, what have they accomplished at the end of the day, week, or the month.

If a manager knows what an employee’s productivity accomplishments are while in the office are, then it should be easy to compare that to how they perform from afar… It’s not just about what you see…. it’s about what you get.

I think there’s the potential for a lot of management headaches with virtual workers.. potentially. But there certainly doesn’t have to be! It’s true that some companies aren’t quite up to speed yet in dealing with this, but if willing, there are solutions that can really remedy the problems of staying connected, measuring productivity, and easing communication and feedback between managers and their teams. Sound like a pipe dream? I know. HA!

One company that started this movement is WorkSimple – http://www.getworksimple.com. I describe it as Facebook for work, but it’s so much more than status updates.