Remote Working & The Fallout

The sharp rise in people being forced to work from home has fast tracked the evolution of the workplace, furthermore it has made those Senior Directors who didn’t trust their teams, would not entertain the idea of working remotely, and were simply too fixated on doing things like they had always done them to be forced to make radical changes.

The 2 Types of Leader

The epidemic has seen two types of business thinking to be laid out for the world to see.

On one hand those businesses who had already embraced remote working, had already seen the power of flexibility of their people and were able to fluidly navigate the people issues that presented themselves as a result of the lockdown. These businesses had prepared, trained and set up processes for their teams to be able to work remotely. 

As a consequence, when the pandemic hit in March 2020, they were primed and ready to transition their workforce to be fully remote. Many of those operators have seen their business stability remain and even grow in the case of many. 

Many of those now have no intention on returning all of their team to a permanent office, which has significant cost.

In The Press:

Articles like this are now common site on Social Media, TV & Printed Press:

On the other hand there are those business leaders who have mandated that their people be in the office with no flexibility of working remotely, even if there is no reason for them to commute in.

This has been attributed to trust and fear from the leadership teams. How can they be sure people are working if they are not in the office? 

Many of these businesses have struggled through the pandemic, they had neither prepared their people for the forced remote working nor had they prepared their equipment, processes or strategy to cope. This meant much harder adaptation during the lockdown and many are still suffering.

There are still examples of these archaic ways of thinking being displayed as some business leaders now look for video monitoring software to “spy” on their employees to ensure they are working in their home. Software like this tracks employee keystrokes and captures screenshots from their webcams.

There is a very real revolution happening right now. We see news stories like this one from the BBC played out daily on TV and Social Media. How a company values its people is something that all of us are interested in, it’s something that we all care about and quite rightly so.

After all who would want to go and work somewhere where people were inherently mistrusted?

Ask Yourself This

Here is the question that always sits in my mind. 

If a business trusts you to spend their money on Marketing, Training, Sales, Procurement, IT, Finance etc etc then why wouldn’t it trust you to work in your most productive place of choice?

If you know that you are more productive, efficient and motivated when working in an office, a coffee shop, your home or anywhere else then why shouldn’t you be able to do that?

And if you have articulated this to your employer and they still won’t let you then there is a deeper, more concerning problem that you are facing.

Right now employers are seeing mass numbers of people applying for roles, because redundancy is at an all time high. Naturally people are applying for many roles in order to secure their future.

But when the world settles and when the time is right, those businesses who trust and value their teams will be the long term beneficiaries of the best talent. These people will return that trust with fierce loyalty and a highly engaged workforce.

We should be in no doubt that those people who are being watched via tracking software, being forced to commute to an office just for the sake of it and are not trusted to do their job will be looking for their next role. They may not be leaving you today but they will certainly be one day soon.

Trust

Trust is the big word here, trust your people to do the role they have been hired to do, give them the tools they need and let them flourish. If you find you don’t trust your people then your hiring process is broken and that needs fixing too.

Create a people strategy that supports, grows and motivates your employees and ensure you have the right people delivering that strategy.

Finally give all your might, all your trust and all your energy in empowering your people strategy to deliver.

About Me

With 22 years experience in Hospitality, Travel Retail & Aviation I have seen many great leaders who trust their people, I have also seen those who simply don’t. I have experienced first hand the consequences of both sides of the coin.

I can create and deliver great people strategies that support the Attraction, Growth and Retention of your people and would love to talk to you if you found this article interesting.