(This column originally appeared in Entrepreneur)
My 10-person technology consulting company was virtual before anything was virtual. We were remote when the phrase “remote working” hadn’t even been invented. We were working from home for 15 years before anyone ever heard the word “Covid.”
Back in 2005, my father — who was also my business partner — unexpectedly passed away. At the time, we worked out of a small office outside of Philadelphia. After he passed, I continued to come to that office. Alone. We had five people working for us at the time. But none of them came. They were at clients. Or they worked at home — over a dial-up connection — which was still more productive than commuting. Meanwhile, I was paying rent and utilities.
So I made the big decision. It was time to shut the doors, move out of the office and go completely virtual. Why not, right?
At the time, the decision made perfect financial sense. And in many ways, it still does today. I pay no rent. I pay no utilities. I threw out my phone system and subscribed to a monthly cloud-based telephony system, even in the days before the cloud (fun fact: we still use the same cloud-based system today). For a while, I kept a server in the basement of my house, and everyone remote-connected in (remember “GoToMyPC?”). But times changed, and over the years, we adopted more cloud-based applications. Instead of furniture, a break room and a reception area, I now have a post office box in a strip mall mail center. My overhead is low, which helps my margins and allows me to be more competitive in pricing. You would think, being an accountant, that I would be patting myself on the back for having the foresight to do this.
ut I’m not. I regret it. Why? Because I’m pretty sure I run the most dysfunctional company in the country. I see my employees only on Zoom (before that, it was just conference calls) unless we run into each other by happenstance at a client, which is rare. My employees and contractors don’t know each other. They don’t really know me. We’re strangers.
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Sure, I’ve tried company events, holiday parties and other social get-togethers. They all fail. When people do show up, they don’t even recognize each other. They know each other by name and the odd conference call, but mostly, they’re all working independently on their client projects. The funny thing is that my turnover is pretty low. People have worked at my company for many years. They love being on their own. They’re reluctant to socialize. They just want to be left alone. We’re all misfits.
Running a virtual company means never quite knowing what’s going on. You can’t manage a team very well when everyone’s virtual. Because everyone’s on their own, you have to take a leap of faith that they’re as busy as they say they are and that even though they’re delivering as promised, you tend to wonder if they can’t be delivering more. You just don’t know that unless you’re working with them face to face to really see what they’re doing.
We don’t really care about each other. That’s not surprising. You can’t really connect to a person if you don’t know at least a little about their lives, their kids, their vacations and their favorite TV shows. Some of this stuff gets talked about online, but it’s not a lot and tends to be awkward. We’re just disconnected faces on a monitor. And that’s assuming that we have our cameras on, which, more often than not, we don’t.
I also can’t be me. My people only know me through emails and Zoom. I can’t properly cheer them on, console them, make jokes, tell stories or just hang out because there’s no place to do this. Our meetings are succinct, formal and timed.
Another thing that plagues me as a virtual company is recruiting challenges. With all the buzz around work-from-home and remote working, the fact is that many people you care to realize actually enjoy the camaraderie of their co-workers. They like coming into an office, even for a day or two, just to get out of the house and away from the spouse and kids. More than a few get depressed being at home all day. Companies that have an office can provide a choice for them. I can’t.
We are not an innovative company. That’s because we can’t spontaneously share ideas or brainstorm new projects. Yes, we’re profitable. Our overhead is low. My breakeven is manageable. But I often wonder how much more profitable we would be if we weren’t completely virtual. I believe we’d be developing more ideas for helping (and billing) our clients. Or we’d find ways to solve problems faster with greater in-person collaboration. I think seeing the faces of our colleagues would also give my people a greater sense of purpose, which may result in more productivity and profitability.
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You may say that if I’m so discouraged, then I should just open up an office. And that’s an option. But not at my age. It would be too much of a change. And it would definitely result in many people leaving my company, particularly if — after going to the cost of opening an office — I require them to come into said office. That would just not go over very well. I’ll live with the choices I’ve made. But that doesn’t mean you have to.
Next year, it’ll be 20 years since I made the decision to go virtual. I wouldn’t recommend it.
