Problems from Multiple Perspectives

• The homesourced worker often feels isolated from his or her natural work environment, hindering normal interaction with managers and coworkers. Additionally, this isolation prevents access to valuable sources of information, in the form of casual and serious conversation with managers and coworkers. Homesourced workers do not only face the external problems of insufficient communication and socialization (Kraut 729-735).



• Employees also struggle with internal problems of self-management, frequently having to overcome the competing temptations of working too much or too little. Home life encourages a great deal of worker productivity, but, at the same time, it can often be an impediment to focused and efficient work. It is quite difficult for an employee to find the necessary discipline to recreate the structure lacking in this nebulous work environment (Nevius A34).



• The main challenge facing the manager of a homesourced workforce is summed up in the following quote of Cary Cooper, a professor of organizational psychology at Lancaster University. “Most managers do not know how to deal with a remote workforce, as their career history is often rooted in the meeting room (Keating D1).” With the homesourced workforce just now becoming a feature of the business world, there is a critical deficiency of management training available to prepare a manager for the difficult task of managing a disparate workforce.



• Staying in contact with employees to provide objectives, information, and motivation can be quite difficult for any manager, but perhaps the greatest problem of all, is how does a manager monitor a workforce that is spread out over hundred of miles to ensure that employees are not shirking on the job (Kraut 722-738).

Engaging a Blue Worker

• JetBlue is acutely aware of the isolation that homesourced workers face and has developed several measures to combat it. All homesourced reservation agents must come into the JetBlue regional office in Salt Lake City for a minimum of four hours each month. This provides an opportunity for employees to interact with fellow employees and management. Workers are also kept up to date with the most recent events inside JetBlue, to ensure that employees are informed and engaged in the workings of their employer (Friedman 37-38).



• Finally, to provide employees with the information that they lack from informal communication with coworkers, JetBlue hosts seminars and workshops that allow workers to share their experiences and insights with one another. Through several innovative programs, JetBlue has effectively minimized the difficulties that arise from employing a disparate workforce, ensuring that they can utilize the increased productivity of their employees and maintain their competitive advantage (Friedman 37).

Managing a Blue Worker

The very technology that has allowed homesourcing to occur is also allowing managers to overcome the difficulties that they face. Brendan Read, author of Home Workplace, is one avid supporter of homesourcing who dismisses concerns that remote workers cannot be managed effectively. According to him:

The technology and functionality of call centers differ little between traditional and virtual. Email and phone are the main tools, so it doesn’t really matter if an employee is two feet or 200 miles away (Keating D1).

To Shirk or not to Shirk?

Shirking, the act of avoiding work while on the job, is a difficult problem when a manager and an employee are in the same office, but the problem is significantly more difficult for the manager of a homesourced workforce. JetBlue has turned to Microeconomic theory to find its solution.

• Shirking Model: Principle that workers still have an incentive to shirk if a firm pays them a market-clearing wage, because fired workers can be hired somewhere else for the same wage (Pindyck 636).



• Solution: If a firm pays a wage greater than the market clearing wage, a worker fired for shirking will face a lower wage at a new place of employment (since the new firm pays the market clearing wage) and thus find it unprofitable to shirk (Pindyck 636-637).