During their time away on The Ultimate Escape the five participants identified that there were different kinds of Remote Workers. There are probably more than we have listed here (feel free to comment) but here is a starter list - see if you can spot yourself, or see if you can spot how you would like to work.
- The Mobile Worker; the mobile worker is someone who is constantly moving from location to location and carries their office in their laptop bag. This person might be a sales person or someone else whose job requires them to meet face to face with clients. It is too hard for the road warrior to go back to the office to physically connect with corporate systems so they carry the devices required to connect over the Internet.
- The Home Worker; typically a home worker is someone who has started their own business and is working from home to reduce costs, but it might also be someone who needs to be at home for some personal reason such as children or a sick family member. They would have broadband access at home which allows them to connect to chosen freeware sources online, to hosted exchange solutions or to connect into the corporate systems over a VPN connection.
- The Enabled Worker; the enabled worker is someone who has some flexibility around where they work. They either work for themselves or their employer has provided them the tools they need to work remotely and they take advantage of it by working from locations that make them happy.
The reality is that once you take the step to being a remote worker you will seldom want to go back the other way but you may switch between these modes of operation as your work demands. The technology exists today to enable people to do this - all that is required is the desire to make it work for you.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Peter // Apr 3, 2008 at 4:37 pm
I think those 3 generalisations are fairly accurate but would suggest a different term for each one as they all require ‘mobility’ in their execution.
My suggestions would be -
1. Mobile Warrior
2. Mobile at Home
3. Mobile Freedom
I certainly fit into the second category and would love to move into the 3rd but that could take time and convincing my managers that I’m still ‘working’.
2 David M. Williams // Apr 3, 2008 at 9:15 pm
I think those broad categories are quite accurate, although like Peter I would be inclined to rename them somewhat.
Firstly, the third one is also a mobile worker whereas the second is tethered, just outside the fixed office location. In fact, their scenario can also describe a small remote office as well as a home office.
To my mind, and with no disrespect, the wording of the third one doesn’t quite carry force. It sounds a bit like they’re being mobile just because they can - and I suppose that’s an option but I’d tend to think that the bulk of IT types might fit in there. Unlike category 1, they’re not necessarily visiting clients (unless you consider the internal staff to be your “clients”), and they’re not necessarily on the road and away from the office - but they may be in one office one day, another office the next, and all over the place. These guys - like myself - are mobile workers because we have things set up to get our e-mail anywhere we are, to manage servers from anywhere.
Heck, the third guy may not even necessarily be working remotely because they have freedom where they work per se but because they are workaholic tech addicts who are working in the middle of the night
Perhaps you might like to use titles which emphasise just why the people are mobile workers, namely
1. The on-the-road mobile worker
2. The office-away-from-the-office worker
3. The work-anywhere-anytime mobile worker
As you might have gathered, I think I’m the third guy
3 MitchDenny // Apr 4, 2008 at 11:14 am
Hi David,
I think you are right. There are lots of titles we can give these people. What we really boil down to is a big check list of “stuff you can do”. Everyone is going to work remotely in some unique way. This is actually why we are coining the term “versatile worker” to cover the whole set.
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