What's a virtual office? In the case of PCG it means, among other things, no corporate headquarters, no corporate brochure, and (drum roll please)... no daily commute to and from the office. To work for PCG you have to be able to literally "phone it in." A computer, an Internet connection, a telephone headset and I'm ready to do a day's work, even if I start around 10:00 PM and work through the small hours of the morning. I'm a virtual employee.
You may want to become virtual yourself. The benefits are legion. I work out of my house. I see my kids grow up a little every day. I don't spend 15 to 20 hours per week driving through traffic to and from a cubical in an office building somewhere. It's nice. As many of you are aware, I recently pulled up stakes and moved my family to a small town in central California. Small town, great schools, incredible housing values, and I just ordered a DSL line that will be installed later this month (an experience I'm sure will become another article in TNPC). Being virtual is what made this possible.
So how does the work keep flowing through a virtual corporation? At PCG we have regular phone conferences where we discuss assignments and due dates. I have a number of people I manage on certain projects and in turn I'm managed as a resource on projects assigned to others within the firm. Many people I've spoken with can't see how you can remotely manage people on a given project when they're scattered all over the country. Once you get used to the virtual idea it actually works quite well.
Consider that when I worked in public accounting I managed audits and spent most of my time at my desk reviewing work papers, making comments and requests, and routing same through inter-company mail to the members of my team. While I could walk down the hall and physically meet with them I usually didn't. Now I use email instead of inter-company mail and it goes across the country instead of down the hall. Instead of calling everyone into my office to communicate in real time now I just pick up the phone. Conversations are followed up with email and Outlook Meeting Requests so everyone is on the same page in regards to assignments and to-do items. It's really quite efficient and the long, boring, meetings I used to try to sleep through are virtually eliminated.
Are you virtual? I'd like to hear from you if you are, or if you're trying to go virtual, or have questions about same. Let me know how you are using technology to take control of your workplace.
