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Talent Management Perspectives

Published August 2008

Tool Allows Employers to Keep Tabs on Remote Workers

  Agatha Gilmore

They're common complaints these days: rising gas prices, a crumbling economy, a shrinking talent pool. As a result, more and more companies are looking for ways to outsource effectively, and many are struggling to find a viable solution.

Enter oDesk, an online tool that allows companies to hire, manage and pay remote workers as if they were in the office. The company, started in 2004, was initially created to respond to developing economic and workplace trends, said CEO Gary Swart.

"Companies were looking for ways to do more with less, specifically small to medium businesses, [which] have challenges with access to talent, utilization and margin improvement," he said. "We [also] saw that companies were open to having remote talent. And then we saw the Internet was right in the middle of these two trends. We saw an opportunity to connect all those pieces."

oDesk hooks up freelancers with companies looking for project-based work, then enables the employer to manage that freelancer's work via the Internet. For example, once the worker logs on to the oDesk network, the company takes screen shots of his or her computer six times an hour at random intervals. Each time a screen image is captured, a pop-up appears, and the worker than can decide whether he wants to upload that screenshot. If it's uploaded, it's stored and ultimately sent to the employer; if it's not uploaded, the worker can't bill the company for that time.

"In other words, let's just say I'm checking my e-mail or having a personal chat with my wife, or I'm watching a YouTube video that someone sent me, and I say, 'You know what, I don't want to upload that screen shot,'" Swart said. "We allow you to delete a screen capture at the time of upload. Or at any time during the day, I can say, 'Let me go look at all of my screen captures, and I can delete any time that I don't want to bill you for.' The control is completely up to the user."

Swart said oDesk has been successful because freelancers are guaranteed payment for services provided, while companies have proof of when and how the work was done.

"We believe that visibility breeds accountability," he said.

However, to some, the concept of oDesk might sound like micromanagement at its worst. After all, employees might be asking themselves, "Doesn't the company trust me?" or "Why should I feel guilty about billing the time during which I'm checking my e-mail when office-based employees do that all the time?"

Freelancers already on the site have independently chosen the service, so they're probably not going to take issue with the "Big Brother" aspects. The main concern is for companies considering allowing employees to work remotely through a service such as oDesk.

The key to positioning the program is to explain that it is entirely voluntary, Swart said.

"First of all, providers opt in," he said. "I can envision a large company saying, 'We're not sure if we want to move to this remote thing.' But if they went to their employees and said, 'Hey, if you're willing to work through oDesk, we're willing to let you work remotely,' a lot of employees would sign up for it. [They'd say], 'You're going to enable me to not have to commute and spend money on gas.' This is the flexibility of time-based work. And even though I opt in, I still have the control to delete screen shots as they're uploaded, deduct any time and get off-line time, as well."

The industries that seem to use oDesk most are independent software vendors, small marketing consultancies and system integrators. There currently are more than 90,000 providers offering freelance services on oDesk.     

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