The Challenges of 'Leading Digitally'
The digital workforce is not new. For years, digital workers, including so called digital nomads, have been around working collaboratively and remotely. This mode of work is a standard for such a class of workers. Indeed, online work is something digital, or knowledge, workers have known, probably exclusively for years. For over a year now, however, COVID-19 has made digital work a reality. This new reality comes, understandably, with several challenges. The most common one, at least as debated in the media, is about integrating on-site and remote workers.
The collaboration and communication, now disrupted, is a challenge managers, particularly ones operating at a global scale need to handle. Then again, not all remote workers are equal. For if some departments or employees are used to working remotely, new remote employees are not. To complicate matters, such new remote employees are not only used to 24/7 remote work but, critically enough, lack essential skills to do so. This is a workplace leadership issue par excellence. Take meetings, for example. As routine and basic are, meetings are now increasingly done over VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) platforms (most popularly during COVID-19, via Zoom). This “new” form of communication requires, essentially, different management and leadership skills.
Specifically, as more and more employees, remote and on-site communicate, managers/leaders need to establish a communication protocol according to which different classes of workers smooth out “rough ends” in communication now done digitally. For instance, workers, particularly ones not used to remote work, should receive a sort of a “communication onboarding” orientation to figure out different tools, apps, features and functionalities typically used in remote work. This should be a very basic – and first – level of remote work.
The dynamics of online communication, and for that matter remote work in general, is a whole different matter. Given current situation, where COVID-19 is not likely to go away any time soon, corporate leaders should have in place contingency communication plans for remote work. Granted some efforts are now invested in relocating workers, physically and psychologically, much still need to be done in order to ensure communication networks on- and off-site run smoothly and effectively. This is not going to be a straightforward process. Indeed, experimentation is expected to be a norm as employees adjust to a whole different mode of work – away from “familiar workplaces” and perhaps away from every work tool and practice has been in use for years. Then again, corporate managers or leaders should not succumb, as is often seen in current experimentations, to nitty-gritty details of, say, how to hook up a jack to boost internet connection. (That happened, if you’re smiling, and is probably going to happen again for some time.)
The most important issue at stake here is how to lead, not to micromanage. That is why a “communication protocol” (a better term for “communication strategy”) is indispensable to make remoteness work properly and effectively. The layers second to communication onboarding orientation are up to corporate leaders to decide. No size fits all. Indeed, as shown in past experiences, and as will always be shown, not a single strategy, in or beyond communication, can work for all, all the time and everywhere. Offline, examples after examples have shown spectacular strategies leading to stellar performance for some only have simply busted others. So, as a starter for what appears to be a revolution in work nature a careful and well-managed digital, communication protocol to lead remote employees is apt to streamline workforce communication, performance and ultimately productivity.