Once upon a time, just about everyone who worked for a company stayed within the walls of its corporate headquarters. Salesmen or agents were pounding the pavement, to be sure, but they still came home to roost at the end of the day.
Today, thats by far the exception. Most companies, especially in the insurance space, work with employees in multiple offices scattered by the four winds to every corner of the city, country, and even the world. Mergers and acquisitions only add to the geographic diversity, as companies are hesitant to give up their acquired brain trust just to have everyone in the same ZIP code.
While many workers outside the home office have static addresses (postal or IP), many others are on the moveagents, brokers, and claims reps, to name a few, who rarely come in to headquarters. Their offices are their homes, cars, or even pockets.
Add to the mix the workers who are employed by other companiespartners, providers, vendors, and the like. They, too, have become part of your corporate infrastructure. In other words, theyre your problem.
The diaspora of the modern worker creates a whole new set of challenges. Many stem from the fact that while the human beings (the wetware, if you will) are roaming the earth, the corporate data is not: Its in one or a few places, unmoving, sitting on servers that hold more data than could be carried by any remote worker. But those data need to get to workers who dont remain in one place for long.
In a sense, getting data to someone isnt an issue. You can mail a CD or DVD, transfer files via the Internet, or have them dial in to the home office. But the trick is managing those workers and those data. Who can have access to what? How can you get it to them? How do you make sure its safe? How can you make it simple enough so people hundreds of miles away will be able to understand the process without coming in for a week of training?
Those are the higher-end issues. The nitty-gritty problems that crop up involve the hardware and softwareprotocols to be chosen, synchronization schemes to be implemented, and so on.
No one said it would be easy.
But it doesnt have to be all that hard. Allstates senior director of communications, Darren Robbins, cuts through the clutter, gets down to business, and shows you some ways you can rein in your far-flung workers without cutting down their productivity.
Would you like to know more?
Managing Remote WorkersAcross Town, Around the World, and On the Move
Saturday, September 14
Go to www.tech-dec.com for information and registration.
TechDEC Fact
Out of 19 speakers at the show, more than half are at the vice president level or higherincluding five CIOs and two CEOs of insurance carriers. The others have titles like director of corporate strategy and senior director of communications.
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