Remotely Challenged.

Thanks to advances in technology, today's workplace is a profoundly different place than it was at the start of this century. Explosive Internet growth and advanced mobile telephony has literally moved employees out of the office and into numerous work environments.

According to the Gartner Group, there are over 60 million mobile workers today in the United States. The growing numbers of this remote work force has brought its own unique challenge--motivating and supervising employees that are seldom in the main office. The answer may sound simplistic, but it's time tested and proven effective. According to the experts, the best tool for remote management rests in the hiring process.

"The less contact you have with an individual, the more it's important that he or she have the natural attributes to be successful and require less support," advises Wayne Outlaw, founder of Outlaw Group, a sales staffing consulting agency and author of "Smart Staffing." "You need a better quality person."

Jill Honeycomb, north Connecticut area manager for FleetBoston's discount brokerage arm, Quick & Reilly, concurs that the best step in forming a good mobile team is the recruiting effort. Each one of her 18 financial consultants is assigned four or five retail bank branches in which they develop their market. So she looks for specific character straits when bringing on new sales staff, such as someone who:

* Has a clear understanding of what remote work means.

* Has expressed an interest in working autonomously.

* Is extremely self-motivated:

* Shows evidence of being exceptionally organized (due to the number of reports expected).

She also spends time with her salespeople out in the field two or three times a week. When she can't get out of the office, she uses the phone, relying less on e-mail. Staying in touch by giving that personal message does good things for remote staff psyche, she says.

Good managers set expectations, monitor progress and provide feedback regardless of where they work. They also have the advantage of using the very technology that produced this workplace transformation. There are plenty of tools such as e-mail, pagers and cell phones to help one keep in touch, and today's manager has to learn to utilize them.