Satellite Hell – Distributed Workforce Challenges in Community Association Management

[©Copyright 2010 by Jim Comin, posted in 2021 after Covid expands the need of the distributed workforce]

It’s hard enough however you slice it.  Our industry is not for the faint of heart, the sleight of spirit, nor the thin of skin.  Rather, hearty hearts, spirited spirits and thick skin are near prerequisites for us to persevere, to sustain the bombardment on self-esteem that occurs as in our industry as surely and faithfully as the most faithful of geysers.  But frankly, it takes more.  As they say, “It takes a village”.  It takes a team.  Our self-esteem is sustained through a common commitment and a knowing encouragement from others who are “in it” with us.  We prop each other up when we are about to fall and we pull each other up if we have already fallen.  The isolated workplace can be difficult enough in any industry, but few industries can be quite as hard on any staff member who is isolated from his or her support group.    

The isolation challenge is certainly not getting any less widespread in our industry.  It is, in fact, being expanded and magnified as our industry follows the lead of others with larger national companies usurping the smaller local operators.  This evolution is also being driven by the development of larger communities, those worthy of their own satellite teams, which are developing to fund the infrastructures that municipalities want to avoid.  Then there are all of the other isolated employment opportunities being made available due to changing technology, such as working from the home office.   Largely gone, for so many reasons, are the family operations of yesteryear; mom, dad, and little Johnny constructing mailings on the kitchen table.  Largely gone is the next generation business model; eight employees efficiently clumped together in the 3^rd Avenue office.  Today we have satellite offices, on-site staffs, multi-state operations. Further, our community association board members manage their communities and interact with us from afar from our “real job” offices.  The next wave of association management requires evolution in order to meet this challenge.  This will require a whole new set of management tools. 

For those of you who are in a system where there is a center of your corporate universe in one location and a distribution of work force outside of that central location, try this exercise.  Determine the percentage of staff that works in contiguous fashion in the corporate headquarters compared to those who are distributed.  Then think back on the dramatic interpersonal workplace issues that have occurred over the past recent period of time, pick any one, a year,  two years.  Is the ratio of such issues commensurate with the ratio of employees in the two categories?  For most it is not.  And, though hard to measure, can you sense the synergy in the contiguous workplace and see better productivity, better efficiencies?

There are many essentials which are necessary to create success when the workforce is geographically dispersed.  Some areas of heightened challenge include; collaboration and cohesiveness, motivation and esprit d’ corps, productivity (both measurement of and maintenance of), service quality (both measurement of and maintenance of) and leadership, both modeling and mentoring    

The good news is that these specific challenges are quite intertwined and share common solutions or mitigations. Implementation of certain practices can help with most or all of these issues.   Because of this interrelation, the solutions to the challenges will not be laid out in tidy order according to the aforementioned litany, but will each be addressed, sometimes directly and sometimes peripherally, within the concepts to follow. There have been some great studies done in the field of sociological sciences which can help to glean solutions to these challenges. So bear with me now as I wax sociological in the process of finding such solutions or mitigations to these issues.  

Probably the most basic component of business management is communication.  As cliché and as tiring as the subject has become, it is clearly the most pervasive process that is key to operational business success.  And, not surprisingly, communication is at the root or at least strongly rooted in all of these distributed work force challenges.

With geographic separation comes, necessarily, a change in the primary forms of communication between individuals and groups.   A study conducted by Likoebe Maruping and Ritu Agurwal (Maruping & Agurwal, 2004) examined the importance of communication types and their effectiveness relative to the information and communication processes in the workplace.  The study identified the characteristics that contribute to richness in communication and assigned different quality (richness) levels to various communication types for each such characteristic.  They found five such characteristics and compared the availability of each within six different methods of communications.  The five characteristics include; 1) immediacy of feedback, 2) symbol variety (the ability to add to the verbiage through voice inflection and body language), 3) parallelism (the ability to engage the participation of multiple simultaneous parties), 4) rehearsability (the degree to which the communication can be preplanned and prepared in advance), and 5) reprocessability (ability to be stored for future recall for reuse or documentation). The six communication methods studied were: 1) face-to-face, 2) telephonic, 3) videoconference, 4) net meeting, 5) instant message, and 6) email. The study posited that there is a best fit of information and communication types for certain types of virtual workgroups.  Though the study focused on virtual workgroups, the findings can logically be seen as applicable to any non-contiguous work force.

Maruping and Agurwal’s work suggested that the “best fit” in the communication type may change over time based on the evolution of the team and of the team’s work.  It found that there are certain qualities in communication that should be present in the early part of the group interaction in order to promote trust throughout the work group’s life.  For instance, there is a need for a high level of immediacy of feedback and symbol variety during earlier stages, which is more available in face-to-face or to a lesser degree telephonic communication than it is in high tech types of communication.  This is logical, since the more we know someone, the better we understand their communication style and personality and the better we can anticipate what “non-verbals” should be applied to the words that may be communicated through a less-rich method of communication. Maruping & Agarwal went on to look at the effects of these communication methods’ attributes on three specific business functions; brainstorming, problem solving and conflict management.  The method of communication was found to be of profound importance on two of these three business functions.  For processes of problem solving and conflict management, communications methods of higher richness were vital, while for brainstorming (and probably other creative workplace sessions) it was less so.         

So, with regard to these particular three business functions, the findings of the Maruping & Agarwal study would indicate that within a distributed work force there is a severe handicap to effective problem solving and conflict management but not so much regarding brainstorming (and probably other creative types of activities).

To further drill down on Maruping & Agarwal’s findings, we can turn to a study done which identified several good approaches to conflict management (Lee, 1993), and included, in pertinent part the following approaches; 1) model the attitudes and behaviors you want your employees to emulate, 2) identify the source of conflict – structural or interpersonal, 3) focus on task, not on personalities, and 4) address conflict in a timely way.  Each of these approaches to conflict management is clearly more difficult in the world of distributed work forces.  It is difficult to model behaviors over the telephone or via email, at least as opposed to doing so in a direct work environment.  It is harder for a remote manager to determine the source of a conflict when he cannot analyze its genesis and evolution from daily observation from an immediate proximity.  It is more difficult to focus on the task rather than personalities when a distant manager may be attempting to intervene because he is not likely to be as familiar with the task, at least not in our industry as we have not gotten to the point of scalability and commoditization of say a coffee or hamburger chain such as Starbucks or McDonalds.  And an added challenge here is that the smaller the office the greater the tendency is for those within the office to have a higher focus on personality issues because they have more repetitive interaction with each other due to the smaller numbers generally in close proximity to them.  And of course, timeliness is addressing a conflict is a taller order when the frequency of a manager’s focus is intermittent rather than constant.  So conflicts may be more frequent in distributed work forces and solutions may be more elusive. Though the Lee study focused specifically on conflict resolution, one could presume that the principles would be similar in other problem solving endeavors.                                                                 

Relative to both the problem solving and conflict resolution issues is another process that functions differently and less effectively in a work group that is separated from the primary operation in the interconnection point to the other parts of the operation.  Obviously, in a complex business organization there are many connection points whether they are person to person, team to team or department to department.  However, these points of connections have different dynamics for groups or individuals working in a different location.  One point of complication is with regard to the external leader of a satellite sub group (external to the satellite group itself).  Generally these sub groups, in production or service operations, would operate with certain routines which occur without need for intervention of any external leadership.  The group has a process or series of processes for handling the routine events and initiates them without circumstance most of the time.   However, the external leadership is relied upon in dealing with non-routine, novel and disruptive workplace events (Morgeson, 2005). This is the primary purpose of the external leadership for a subgroup whether contiguous with the primary operations of the business organization or separated from it.  However, here again the dynamics are different between the two situations.   There is evidence that external leadership intervention is generally better received when the intervention is in the form of supportive coaching rather than more active coaching, (i.e. assisting the internal leader in helping him to address the problem as opposed to coming in and taking charge during the non-routine event) (Morgeson, 2005).  For a remote leader of a group, the opportunity for supportive coaching (which is more interactive) is less available than for active coaching.   

Only partially addressed in the study was the issue of what triggers intervention in these situations.  Some of the triggers mentioned include a request for help from within the group, and via signs of problems as perceived by the external leader, i.e. reactive or proactive intervention.  This has significance in the distributed work place because the access to triggers for intervention is dramatically different for dispersed workforces than it is for contiguous work groups.  In a shoulder-to-shoulder work environment, the signs which may trigger intervention are much more perceptible than in dispersed work group environments.

Much of this discussion is fairly intuitive, and management in our industry would typically understand that it is more important to utilize a communication method of higher richness when speaking to any team member when discussing something of high sensitivity and importance over simple dissemination of matter-of-course information.  But in the harried business of association management, do we always recall the importance and the magnitude of the downside of not utilizing the “best fit” communication method?  Do we make the added effort to “fit” the communication method to the message being delivered, or do we often succumb to the most convenient method?  Do we use the same logic in timing our visitations with our dispersed human assets (when there is turmoil in the satellite office for instance) in the same manner that we strategically plan our visits to our clients’ physical plant assets (when the landscapers are doing an installation for instance)?

Now let’s discuss “corporate moods”.  This is different than corporate culture in that the culture is the general attitude and atmosphere of a company and its work place(s) as per design, and over the long haul.  But corporate moods may be short term attitudes based on recent performance of the company, outside influences on the company, particular short term goals, or even simply what is going on at home for the CEO.  An important potential challenge for the distributed work force is that of employee mood maintenance which is arguably the primary role of leadership.  (Sy, Côté and Saavedra, 2005) report on their study in which groups were tasked with a project to complete after their leaders had their moods clinically altered, some positively and some negatively.  Their work concluded that those groups with a leader in a negative mood exhibited less coordination in their work, but the teams whose leaders were in more negative moods were found to exhibit higher effort, presumably because the mood of the leader cued the group to the fact that the project progress was inadequate.   The results show that indeed the mood of the manager affects the mood of the team. Of course one might conclude then that the mood in effect at a satellite location would be set by the leader of the sub group.   But at the least, the mood of the dispersed group will not generally be consistent with that of the corporation as a whole.  The overall mood of the company will likely be more diverse and variable when an environment is not geographically and temporally aligned because moods do not transmit well across space and time.  More importantly though, the mood will not be as manageable through the corporate hierarchy.  Rather than one large river flowing in unison and creating one global mood with its upward and downward swings, perhaps intentionally manipulated based on management goals, the composition of the dispersed business organization is one of multiple tributaries each following the variations and idiosyncrasies of the sub group’s mood.   

Moving to the question of productivity, measuring productivity is difficult enough in a contiguous work force, but when the leadership team only comes into contact with a remote operation on an occasional basis, it becomes near impossible for a service industry.  In developing an operational plan, one must simply consider the fact that productivity will be more difficult to measure and likely to be lower for any satellite group.  Some ways to mitigate this are to 1) hire “self-actualization” motivated team members for these assignments (or move those who have demonstrated the ability to be self-motivated to these satellite opportunities).  2) develop tangible goal/reward programs.  This is not as easy as it sounds since these remote operations are not factories in which we can quantify productivity by volume of widgets processed.  3) try to create enough face-to-face time at the satellite location to be able get a feel for the pace and methods of operations.   

With regard to motivation, people perform better under some level of scrutiny and observation.  This condition is often either missing or less prevalent in dispersed work groups.  At the least the hierarchical point of scrutiny and observation is generally lower in these types of work environments.  In the Hawthorne studies performed near Chicago in the mid 1920’s, this was inadvertently demonstrated.  The study focused on determining if changes in physical plant conditions such as lighting would change the productivity of a work group.  As they performed their experiments, changing lighting levels up and down in both the test group and the control group, they surprisingly found that the two groups, despite what lighting changes were introduced continued to produce at higher than typical rate.  Years later the phenomenon was explained.  The change that affected the output had simply been the attention that they had been afforded from management which had raised morale and productivity (Perrow, 1986).  It takes more effort to create high level attention for workgroups which are geographically separated from the highest level of the management hierarchy since such level of management generally resides at the corporate headquarters of a complex business organization.  So, for our industry, it is requisite that we make a point of showing greater interest and recognition for those who are out in the field in our satellite offices and the site offices of our communities.       

A recent phenomenon in the business workplace is further evidence to the value of working in a contiguous manner.  In fact it steps beyond the concept of working teams’ effectiveness when working shoulder to shoulder.  It suggests that people work better in that sort of environment even if they are not part of a team. The phenomenon being alluded to is that of “incubator offices”.  These are similar to the old concept of office suites, but today are not designed for the sharing of support services and equipment, but more aimed at creating the social piece that people need, in order to be productive in the workplace.  These entities are designed to help creative juices flow and to keep individuals energized when their work environment is designed to be solo.  Many find that they need to have other people around them to stay industrious, and in some cases they actually gain symbiotic energy from simply being around other people thinking.  Since this whole concept is in early development, the verdict may not yet be in on how well an “artificial workgroup” fills the void for a lonely outlying employee.         

Like all challenges, the easiest part is to identify the problem.   Harder, is to identify effective solutions to the problem.  Harder still, is to implement the solutions.  And hardest of all is to sustain the solutions that you implement over the long haul.  The greatest constraint against implementing and sustaining change is history; the way things have been done in the past and are being done in the present.  The longer the history is with respect to any procedure or habit, the more difficult it is to change.  So, this article only covered the easier parts of this process.  The ideas set forth only identify the problem, and offer clues toward solutions.  The implementation and the sustenance of the solutions are left for you.

Article Sidebar #1:

Hudson Bay Company and the Distribute Work Force

If you are starting to feel distraught thinking about all of the challenges of the modern day distributed work force and are wishing you could go back to the simpler days of centuries gone by.  Well, think again.  The Hudson Bay Company was one of the pioneers in managing the distributed work force.  “In the 17^th century it began sending traders to the New World.  It developed protocols for managing a distributed workforce that are pertinent today. The headquarters staff in London chose independent adventurers capable of self-sufficiency, but they provided mentoring and training.  Importantly, the company stayed in communication – as best they could when annual letters to and from the traders arrived by schooner.” (Novitski, 2008).  So, when we start feeling sorry for ourselves about having to work through the challenges of a work group half way across town, or even across the state, or even in the next state over, think about doing it inter country or going a step further, inter continent!  Then think about doing it without the internet, cell phones, or phones at all for that matter.  Think about doing it without texting and webinars, video conferencing and instant messaging and twittering tweets.  While you are at it, think about doing it without a car, airplanes or your handy GPS.  So, the early pioneers at the Hudson Bay Company forged the trail for us hundreds of years ago, but oh how different the trail is  today. 

Article Sidebar #2:

ABSENSE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER…….OR DOES IT? 

 Well that adage works for love, movies and fairy tales, but it has some holes in the theory when it comes to business.  In business, absence (such as the boss’s absence from a satellite work location) seems to makes the heart grow lonely, suspicious, isolated, forgotten and just plain left out.   How much does it matter?  According to Jim Koesnes and Barry Posner’s book, The Leadership Challenge, one of the most important jobs of good leadership is to simply encourage the hearts of those that work for him.  This challenge becomes greater when those hearts are dispersed about in distributed work forces.