The broadest dimension of the multi-local workforce is whether work is performed on-premise (or onsite) versus off-premise (or offsite). Traditionally, work was performed on-premise, within the four walls of the organization and under the direct supervision of a watchful manager. With the growth of the Internet and the advent of the modern, digital age, it is now possible for people and teams to work effectively off-premise, and hence the amount of offsite work has been increasing steadily year after year.

From offsite processing and offshore service centers to application service provider (ASP) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) business models, work and location are becoming increasingly disassociated. It is now commonplace for managers to be located in different offices–even different continents–from their teams, and for team members to be dispersed across distant geographies and multiple time zones.

The figure below depicts the cross-section of two continua: one continuum of Location from on-premise to off-premise and the second continuum of Collaboration from tangible to intangible. Tangible is defined as “discernible by the touch; real or concrete; possible to understand or realize.”Intangible is something that is “incapable of being perceived by the senses, of being realized or defined; incorporeal.”  In the modern Internet age, intangible work comprises the increasing number of activities that are done online, real-time, dispersed, and disconnected across space and time.

In the lower left quadrant, there are Corporate and Regional Headquarters, where people work in groups and teams, physically onsite and generally through face-to-face collaboration. Moving toward the off-premise dimension are the company’s Satellite offices and Offshore Centers, including third-party outsourcers. Finally, the most remote and most detached workers in the organization are the Road Warriors, those individuals who constantly shuffle from site to site. They can be the glue that ties diverse groups across the organization together or they can be isolated, disconnected from the main happenings in the company.

Corporate Headquarters–Individuals located at Corporate Headquarters work in tightly knit groups, generally co-located in the same building (and hence the same time zone), using the same support infrastructure and tools (e.g., telephone systems, desktop computers, LAN/intranet) and sharing a common company culture (e.g., team outings, lunch presentations, company picnics).

Regional Headquarters–Depending on the size of the organization, individuals at Regional Offices work much like those at Corporate Headquarters, co-located in the same building, using the same infrastructure and tools. Effective collaboration between Corporate and the Regions is influenced by the geographical distances and cultural differences and by the standards and commonality (or lack thereof) in the products, processes, methods, infrastructure, and tools.

Satellite Offices–Often located in remote locations and generally separated from Corporate and Regional Headquarters by multiple time zones, large geographical distances, and differing tools and infrastructure, collaboration between individuals located in Satellite Offices and those in other parts of the organization can be challenging. Beyond technological and infrastructure issues, company (and/or national) culture and organizational barriers influence effective collaboration across such vast location differences.

Offshore Centers–Offshore operations and third-party outsourcers present yet another step along the on-premise/off-premise locality continuum, putting even greater demands on intangible collaboration. In additional to geographical and time zone differences, different organizational models, culture, missions, goals, and success metrics can be a challenge to effective cross-organizational collaboration between such disparate entities.

Road Warriors–Individuals working from airports and hotel rooms and other remote workers operating from home or single offices represent the most distant group of off-premise workers. Road Warriors deal in the most intangible of all environments, working most of their time in the virtual world, needing to assimilate quickly to the culture and collaboration methods of the different sites they visit. Because they work primarily as individual contributors or as “visitors” within an existing team, this group presents its own unique set of challenges for uniting the workforce and building connectedness, cohesiveness, communication, and collaboration.