Demotivated and controlled
Lisa George (Duclos)
Remote Team Queen and Momentum OT Founder and CEO. Thought Leader in the future of work, empowering leaders to lead their teams wherever they work, enabling teams to work wherever they live.
It’s only natural to expect that transitioning from face-to-face office-based work to remote working will cause some loss of control for you as a leader. No longer are workers visible, which makes productivity and performance difficult to gauge.
The temptation in response to this is to attempt to micro-manage people from a distance.
Micro-management is obvious when it happens in office-based settings, but when it occurs remotely, it’s even more obvious.
Remote micro-management requires more overt means of information gathering and performance management such as additional Zoom meetings, additional phone calls (in and out of working hours) and tracking of “log on” times and durations to cloud-based operation systems.
These all build a “big brother” mentality: a sense of being monitored, observed, controlled and ultimately mistrusted.
This reduces the sense of flexibility that people crave and the trust that promotes productivity. Add to this the distractions at home, which are many and varied.
Each day holds so many opportunities to become bored with the lack of social connection that office-based work can offer. Water cooler moments, desk-to-desk banter and lunch room chats are either non-existent or sporadic. Some people rely on the presence of others to lift their motivation levels to a productive state.
This can lead to restlessness, loss of meaning and ultimately the search for a new job that offers flexibility AND a better sense of connection.
The traditional means of employee engagement in an office-based setting cannot be employed in a remote setting and be expected to result in the same degree of effectiveness.
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This calls for new patterns of leadership.
The leader needs to create experiences to instill a sense of team, communicating a clear expectation that everyone will be involved regardless of where they are working from.
It’s about making sure people know that they are visible, heard and understood – “I see you”.
Keeping your people and their wellbeing and development as the priority is imperative to growing trust. The impact of this on brand loyalty and buy-in cannot be underestimated.
Personal connection leads to engagement and loyalty.
If you’re ready to build a remote team that is high performing, engaged and motivated, I can help, you can book a call with me.
To your thriving hybrid or remote team,
Lisa