13 Best Books on Working Time Arrangements

Leadership First, Locations Second. As more organizations adopt a remote workforce, the challenges of leading at a distance become more urgent than ever. The cofounders of the Remote Leadership Institute, Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel, show leaders how to guide their teams by recalling the foundational principles of leadership whether their teams are scattered globally or just working from home a few days a week.

The authors’ “Three-O” Model refocuses leaders to think about outcomes, others, and ourselves–elements of leadership that remain unchanged, whether employees are down the hall or halfway around the world. By pairing it with the Remote Leadership Model, which emphasizes using technology as a tool and not a distraction, leaders can navigate the terrain of managing teams wherever they are. Filled with exercises that ensure projects stay on track, keep productivity and morale high, and build lasting relationships, this bookis the go-to guide for leading effectively, no matter where people work.

The step-by-step guide every entrepreneur needs to build his or her business with the asset of working with virtual employees.

Entrepreneurs often suffer from “superhero syndrome”―the misconception that to be successful, they must do everything themselves. Not only are they the boss, but also the salesperson, HR manager, copywriter, operations manager, online marketing guru, and so much more. It’s no wonder why so many people give up the dream of starting a business―it’s just too much for one person to handle.

But outsourcing expert and “Virtual CEO,” Chris Ducker knows how you can get the help you need with resources you can afford. Small business owners, consultants, and online entrepreneurs don’t have to go it alone when they discover the power of building teams of virtual employees to help run, support, and grow their businesses.

Focusing on business growth, Ducker explains every detail you need to grasp, from figuring out which jobs you should outsource to finding, hiring, training, motivating, and managing virtual assistants. With additional tactics and online resources, Virtual Freedom is the ultimate resource of the knowledge and tools necessary for building your dream business with the help of virtual staff.

In Mothers Unite!, a bold and hopeful new rallying cry for changing the relationship between home and the workplace, Jocelyn Elise Crowley envisions a genuine, universal world of workplace flexibility that helps mothers who stay at home, those who work part time, and those who work full time balance their commitments to their jobs and their families. Achieving this goal, she argues, will require a broad-based movement that harnesses the energy of existing organizations of mothers that already support workplace flexibility in their own ways.

Crowley examines the efforts of five diverse national mothers’ organizations: Mocha Moms, which aims to assist mothers of color; Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS), which stresses the promotion of Christian values; Mothers & More, which emphasizes support for those moving in and out of the paid workforce; MomsRising, which focuses on online political advocacy; and the National Association of Mothers’ Centers (NAMC), which highlights community-based networking. After providing an engaging and detailed account of the history, membership profiles, strategies, and successes of each of these organizations, Crowley suggests actions that will allow greater workplace flexibility to become a viable reality and points to many opportunities to promote intergroup mobilization and unite mothers once and for all.

According to getabstract, “Cynthia C. Froggatt tackles the pros and cons (mostly pros) of having your employees work at a location away from the office, particularly in their homes. She includes plenty of successful examples, an eight-step blueprint for making it work, and addresses the usual corporate reservations about the whole topic. You’ll find a refreshing dash of wit on every page, which one would expect from an author whose book title is, Work Naked.”

The mere suggestion of employees working from home is enough to make many managers sweat. Faced with the prospect of managing an employee they can’t even see, many discover that their managerial style just doesn’t work anymore. As an increasing number of jobs can be executed from home, managers must learn how to adapt their leadership style to cater to remote employees.

Based on years of research, The Virtual Manager provides any manager with the tools he or she needs to successfully work with virtual employees. Trust us: it’s not like managing office-bound employees! This book is a tell-all user manual for a new generation of managers.

To stay competitive in a global marketplace, it is essential to incorporate virtual employees into talent management strategy. The Virtual Manager arms managers with the knowledge they need to be become effective virtual leaders, including actionable advice on how to:

• Leverage the top engagement drivers for virtual employees
• Develop or alter policies and procedures to fit virtual employees’ needs
• Impact business outcomes through a flexible work strategy

A bigger and bigger part of the workforce is telecommuting. And managers need new skills to get the most out of this increasingly far-flung staff. This indispensable guide includes case studies, checklists, and sample forms and charts. It shows managers how to use teleconferencing technology to communicate with distanced workers, make the best use of scheduling software to monitor productivity, and even end the arrangement if it’s not working.

One of the best ways for companies to save money in lean times is to send their employees home to work. But that requires a different kind of workforce and a different kind of management. This book shows how to make the long-distance relationship work for everyone!

According to getabstract, “Kimball Fisher and Mareen Duncan Fisher document the special skills needed for the new but increasingly common task of managing far-flung work groups. The approaches that they examine are becoming increasingly essential for all managers. Although they explore relevant technologies carefully, their human relations advice is probably more important. The Fishers emphasize the interpersonal and leadership skills that a manager needs to head a virtual team. If you rea this book cover to cover, it can seem repetitive, since many of the rules and tips offered in one area overlap with those in other areas. However, the book is designed to allow you to review specific management challenges and technologies, and to ignore areas that are irrelevant to your situation.”

Teams are the key to smart, flexible, and cost-effective organizations for the 21st century. However, advances in communication technologies have dramatically changed the nature of teamwork. Traditional, collocated teams are now giving way to distributed cross-boundary virtual groups linked through relationships and technology, reaching across space, time, and organizational boundaries. In their fifth book, Virtual Teams, Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps, leading experts in networked organizations, take you beyond teams into the new world of work-at-a-distance, showing you how to effectively start, implement, and maintain virtual teams in your own organization.

Today, virtual teams are an established feature of multisite and global companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Bank of Boston, and Steelcase. Made possible by technologies like the Internet, intranets, and groupware, these teams are invaluable tools for organizations that need to bring together specialized groups of people to work on projects or comprise a spread-out business unit. The principles outlined in Virtual Teams provide an antidote to the high failure rate of teams. At the same time, as the authors warn, “It is harder for virtual teams to be successful than for traditional face-to-face teams. Misunderstandings are more likely to arise and more things are likely to go wrong.”

In this straightforward guide, Lipnack and Stamps provide a comprehensive framework that makes virtual teams accessible and practical. Beginning with a brief overview of exactly what virtual teams are and how they work, the authors show how they can be integrated into your business structure. Featuring insightful case studies from Eastman Chemical Company, NCR, Tetra Pak, and Sun Microsystems, this stimulating and hands-on reference offers essential information on:

• The basic virtual team principles: people, purpose, links
• The skills and technologies necessary for creating a successful virtual team
• Supporting the dynamics of the cross-boundary team and enhancing personal communications electronically
• Virtual team applications of the Internet’s newest offspring, intranets

Providing an in-depth look at an increasingly important teamwork tool, Virtual Teams gives you the materials you need to create and build a winning virtual team for your own organization.

Working time is a crucial issue for both research and public policy. This book presents the first comprehensive analysis of both paid and unpaid work time, integrating a unique discussion of overwork, underwork, shortening of the working week, and flexible work practices.
Time at work is affected by a complex web of evolving culture and social relations, as well as market, technological, and macroeconomic forces, and institutions such as collective bargaining and government policy. Using a variety of new data sources, the authors review the latest trends on working time in numerous countries.

Flexible work policies benefit both employer and employee. Learn the benefits and pitfalls of setting up and implementing a successful telecommuting program.