New Working Norms - Are You Anxious about your Growth and Career?

Recently I had a long conversation with my ex-colleague (Let us call him Amar). 

Amar was continuously complaining about his work, company, peers, management. I know Amar for a long time, and he was not like this before. He was energetic, proactive, a problem-solver, and social. 

I deeply listened and probed a few questions, and discovered that the entire negativity and frustration were due to the absence of face to face interaction. Amar was feeling left out, he seems to be missing the attention he used to get from peers and the Manager. He suddenly seems to find himself in a vacuum and no have no growth and development. 

Working from home elevates miscommunication, amplifies back in forth communication, delay in response/decision making, constraints in collaboration/brainstorming leading to drag in innovation, and problem-solving. Does this sound familiar?

Companies in India struggled to shift their workforce to a remote-work setting following the nationwide lockdown. Companies scrambled to provide computers to hundreds of thousands of employees; overcome low Internet bandwidth; and get permission from clients to allow working from home, which was earlier barred due to security concerns.

After initial hiccups, business leaders say that they have been able to transition more than 70 percent of their staff to work from home.

It has been seven months, and many companies are encouraging employees from WFH. Business and HR Leaders have done a phenomenal job in transitioning and creating new working norms. I commend the leadership and execution. 

Let me share how WFH could be highly detrimental to employees and organizations if not supported by effective change management, employee engagement, and development initiative. The leadership team should focus on specific areas before it spirals and dwells into a vicious cycle of disengagement, non-productivity, waste, quality issues, and execution challenges. 

Medically it is proven by WHO that Solitary confinement negatively affects all these aspects of health. Hence a long-term reduction in social interaction with fellow human beings promotes depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. 

Lack of face to face social interaction among colleagues lead to increasing social rejection, growing impersonality, individualism, and the loss of a sense of community. It negatively affects learning and growth, and it prevents people from effectively socializing, which is a fundamental human need. 

The growing use of screen time and technology affects face-to-face interpersonal communication negatively according to Elon edu research. 

The larger issue is the growing political climate in the organization due to a lack of visibility. While in Office, informal walks by Leaders and having a water cooler, tea, or lunch conversations, valuable informal information is exchanged. This information helps understand the underlying currents, employee engagement, organizational climate. When it comes to contribution, achievement, and recognition, the current setup will heighten the bias towards those who are loud in the meetings. 

The idea of having everyone present physically is more reassuring to organizations wishing to have immediate visibility into work execution. Managers can then ascertain if everything planned is on track for completion.

But not everyone talks about the challenges of doing so, from lack of a structured routine to fewer social opportunities for social interaction and rapport building with co-workers. 

Without other co-workers around to hold you accountable, you may not be as productive when working from home. 

The Key Question is how do we promote, collaboration, engagement, innovation, growth, and execution, especially in this new norm and the associated challenges. 

Researching on a couple of best practices and business cases around working from home and speaking with various business leaders. I have narrowed down to two areas, where Leaders have to pay attention and get into details. 

Clear Roles and Responsibilities / OKR's: 

Lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities is a major challenge cited by mid‐level managers, perhaps because more daily managerial tasks fall to mid‐level management than to top-level management. Mid‐level managers report being particularly concerned with the following: Unclear job descriptions and guidelines for roles and responsibilities; When ambiguous roles and responsibilities create tension among employees; Confusion over who is the boss; and Not knowing whom to contact for information. It is crucial to understand that, as business and organizational demands evolve, so too must employee roles and responsibilities. This ambiguity potentially may create unease with employees unaccustomed to change. Furthermore, most organizations expend a great deal of effort in delineating functional roles among those in upper management and relatively little energy in doing the same for mid-and lower‐level employees. Employees expect clarity from leadership, while leadership simultaneously assumes that employees will take initiative in adapting to change. This disconnect between the two can intensify the feeling of ambiguity. Employees work in a variety of ways – around products, functions, and journeys – and we need to be aligned within and across teams to achieve our priorities as an organization. We’ve seen the speed of change in the media and technology landscape accelerate, and the ability to more quickly iterate and align on strategic priorities is key to sustaining our leadership. OKRs provide a common vocabulary and quarterly process for teams to articulate and align what they want to achieve, focus efforts on measurable outcomes, and iteratively learn with data over time. OKRs are a way of defining and achieving our best possible outcomes as teams and as an organization; they are not a way to measure individual performance. OKR software provides a platform to stay on track 

Growth and Development:

Humans thrive for a higher self. Remember Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Constant challenges, problem-solving opportunities, learning, and development will help them to meet some of their intrinsic motivation. With WFH setup, there will be a lack of face to face training and development program, Virtual programs is an alternative however it comes with its own set of challenges. The best way to induce a learning culture, development, and growth is to embed the learning the flow of work. Instead of scheduling a half a day, full-day course, break it down into 2 hours chunks (bit size learning) and spread across over a week or two, Learners do not feel the heavy downtime or investment of time (psychological pressure) during office hours, and the learning happens in a continuum.

This new form of learning can happen only with the use of technology. LXP can help to facilitate learning in the flow of work. A rich learning experience through deeper personalization will provide a richer learning experience through deeper personalization and more wide-spread learning opportunities. By integrating with other platforms – Google Services, YouTube, Social Media, Communicational tools e.g. communication leader Slack – LXPs extend the learning experience beyond the corporate learning system. LXP supports various types of learning, including problem-based learning, group-based learning, ILT, blended learning, through approaches such as Microlearning, Gamification, and Adaptive Micro-Learning. LXP delivers content using highly intuitive interfaces, much like Netflix and based on past interactions and preferences. Through intelligent knowledge discovery (IKD), LXPs can provide highly adaptive, contextualized learning experiences based on the analysis of job performance, skills gaps, and on-job competencies required.

As a result, LXPs deliver highly immersive learning experiences to users of the platform.

If you or your employees do not want to feel like Amar, then it is important not to leave the situation unattended on the assumption that humans will adapt. Yes, humans will eventually adapt however it will come with a cost. To avoid the long emotional cycles of change, if you plan and induce the change using the technology it will shorten the change cycle. Hope this article helped you bring some insights.