A Virtual Experiment. Plus: Is your company ready to "go virtual?"

What happens when a large company "goes virtual"? That is, what happens when a high-profile organization ditches the office, maintaining only its mailing address and receptionist? This is just the question business publication Inc. sought to answer this month. The editorial team (temporarily) shed their beautiful New York offices, instead experimenting in working remotely from home.

Writing from his armchair with "a cat in my lap", contributor Max Chafkin outlines the lessons, benefits, and drawbacks of such a move:

1. Cost. The first and most obvious advantage to becoming a "virtual company" is the bottom line. On Inc.'s part (taking into consideration that, in reality, the company was still paying rent on their office and that their administrative staff was still coming to work), the company could save somewhere in the ballpark of $500,000 a year on rent alone if just the editorial staff gave up their offices. Add increased productivity because workers would be cutting their commute, and you have some potent cost-saving indeed.

2. Get the tech. Technology is an especially tricky challenge for any company. Business technology, including phone systems, networks, etc. can be difficult to set up and maintain and can cost a pretty penny. When working from home, employees can utilize their own internet connections and take advantage of services such as Gmail and Skype. Skype is a particularly fascinating technology that few companies give attention to. Giving users the ability to make long distance conference calls and even video chats for little or no charge, it has big advantages over other more expensive services. Because employees are working from home, much of the usual business technology becomes unnecessary.

3. The Challenges of working from Home. Here we find our first great challenge. While working from home can be appealing, many Inc. employees found it difficult to strike a balance between their work and home lives when working from their home offices. Distractions such as children and pets can certainly damage focus. In addition, it may be difficult to concentrate at home because we usually see our homes as a place of relaxation rather than a place to do work.

One way to mitigate these challenges is to set up a dedicated space for doing work, separate from other areas of the house where we normally spend our leisure time. This area should be isolated enough to keep distractions to a minimum, and be set up to maximize productivity.

Many companies who provide virtual services (Davinci included) also provide spaces to work free of charge. These can be a great alternative to the home office.

4. How are your Decisions made? One thing to consider when thinking about going virtual is how decisions are made in your organization. If yours is a company where decisions are often "made in the hallway", as Inc. is, you may need to think hard about whether going virtual is the right move. If this cathartic environment, where coworkers poke their heads in, brainstorm, etc. is important to your company, it may help to set your employees up with some sort of "virtual water cooler". Skype and instant messaging do this quite well, allowing users to communicate easily in real time.

5. Explain yourself. Another challenge for a company going virtual are the assumptions that come along with a company whose employees work from home. A simple change in attitude and language may be the best solution here. Never say that you are a "virtual company". Instead, tell people that you work from your "home office" but your headquarters are in "x". It is important to maintain your image, something that we at Davinci take very seriously. If using a virtual office company, make sure they will not advertise your virtual status to clients, instead treating you as if they were your personal staff.

6. Consider your culture. The last thing to evaluate is whether your culture will suffer if your company goes virtual. This is a matter of preference and will effect each company differently. If constant face to face communication is important to your employees and you would like to go virtual, do your best to find times to gather and share ideas, results, projects, etc. Davinci and many other executive suite and virtual office companies provide excellent spaces, both public and private, for these types of exchanges.

You can read the full article here: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100401/the-case-and-the-plan-for-the-virtual-company.html

Also, take this quiz, "Is your company ready to go virtual?": http://www.inc.com/magazine/2010/04/work-from-home-quiz.html