Virtual work forces, ranging from call centers to top research, engineering and international banking teams will continue to grow and produce a competitive advantage, because “work at home” employees are more satisfied, productive and find their work more meaningful than ever before..

The cost savings and productivity increase are not due to outsourcing to India or China but the use of all kinds of “virtual workers” within our boarders. Productivity gains coupled with high employee loyalty, low employee turnover and real estate cost savings provide sufficient reductions in cost to make virtual workers competitive with outsourcing to lower labor cost countries.

Virtual workers staffing call center from their U.S. homes, also called “homesourcing,” tend to have a far greater understanding of local cultural and social issues than foreign workers and changing life styles and family values have created a great new opportunity.

JetBlue employees about 1000 people in its home reservation system. The vast majority are Mormon women who live in the Salt Lake City area. Most are in their thirties, have young children and work on average twenty-five hours a week.

Of the Fortune 1000, 95 percent including American Express, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard and IBM allow people to work from home. In addition to call centers and large companies having people work from home the “virtual assistant industry” has come of age. As pointed out in The 2-Second Commute, a virtual assistant can do everything an executive assistant would normally do in an office, but do it electronically from home.

The “virtual movement” started as U.S. companies saw the cost per employee at call centers rising to over $30 an hour. They recognized that by locating call centers in foreign countries such as India, cost could be cut in half. But customers were often unhappy with the quality of service they received from people who didn’t understand their needs and often couldn’t understand what they were saying.

Although the “homesourcing” of virtual workers may cost a little more per hour than off-shoring, it’s significantly less expensive than office workers. When companies factor in the increased productivity per employee and real estate cost savings it can be less expensive than off-shoring.

Virtual workers and “homesourcing” will grow over the next few years due to trends in attitudes, technology and demographics. The semi-retired Baby Boomers who want to work part-time and avoid commutes will be easily accommodated due to increased use of technology. Both Boomers and Millennials highly value the personal control and flexibility provided by virtual work.

A company’s competitive position can be adversely impacted when it is paying a huge premium for high-rise office space in a downtown location and we have seen many large organizations relocate to less expensive areas and watched those real estate costs savings drop to their bottom line. Working virtually presents an opportunity to completely eliminate office expenses for many workers and, as when one competitor does this, the others in its industry will be forced to follow.

In the future, “virtual worlds,” worlds created without ever entering a physical space, will create an even bigger competitive advantage as broadband and video conferencing mature leading to a greater number of virtual environments replacing the traditional offices space we now occupy.

Virtual workers will do research, buy, sell, have meetings, form relationships, perform work, share information and resolve problems without being physically present. Instead, they will be using the secure networks on which the virtual world resides.

One thing in business never changes, to remain competitive you must find new ways to decrease cost and increase productivity. Virtual workforces will continue to grow and produce a competitive advantage, because, as the studies indicate, “virtual workers” are generally less expensive, more satisfied, far more productive and find their work more meaningful than ever before.

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