Remote Work - Cope or Grow?

With the lockdown now impacting many organisations and their transition to remote work now complete. How effective are our teams? 

The quick response may well be "We’re OK. We meet, work is still happening and we're saving time by not traveling to work!"

The data and what I’m personally seeing with my clients suggests it is a very wide spread of experiences for different people and different businesses. 

I think it’s time to look a bit deeper into how people are coping and what can be done to improve performance all around. By checking in on trends we might head off potential issues and start focussing on what we can do to optimise performance and outcomes being produced during this new normal. 

The teams that take on the challenge to customise the remote work experience will be leading the pack on the flip side. I think the online tools we now have available to check in with people will be very beneficial going forward. I’m using them to keep a pulse check on how people are coping and connecting. 

I currently have some broad results across some of my clients showing that 50% of people feel they are performing at the same productivity levels compared with being in a physical workplace. 33% actually are feeling more productive and 17% are feeling less productive working from home. 

This compares with a major recent study that found 31% felt more productive working from home with 33% feeling less productive. The results will vary widely depending on the circumstances of your team. 

It’s an ideal time now for leaders to make a stand for their teams and dig deeper to uncover issues and support individuals and the team to not only cope better but grow! 

I’d love to hear what others are seeing and doing with their teams during the remote working period.