Swinging the pendulum back…

Work-from-home accountability is one of our biggest challenges in our new, remote work setting.??Most of us are accountable, but in our new world we need to raise the bar for ourselves and our teams.

Without team member accountability, our?hybrid/remote organizations can't succeed. Individual and team accountability calls for our team members, regardless of position and hierarchy within our organization, to take proactive ownership for assigned tasks and projects. It also calls for us to consider it our responsibility to complete?project deliverables before deadlines and with better results … and with our organization’s best interests in mind.?As leaders we need to embrace a new way of thinking, leading, and communicating to get the best from our teams.

In the last week, I have seen team members fail to show up for a chat with our CEO, team members sleeping in a meeting, team members not wanting to travel to the office for an important meeting, team members appearing unprofessional (not casual) in a video call.??The list goes on.??Over the last six months I am realizing we have different issues in the workplace now that relate to expectations, connectivity, mentoring, learning by being submersed in a great working environment, social office chatter that helps the business grow, psychological loneliness, and innovation. The list goes on.

Please do not get me wrong, I am a supporter of our new and more flexible working arrangements. Hybrid work is here to stay, but it is time for us as leaders to understand the downsides to work from home and try to change our (and our respective teams) habits to improve our NEW culture as it relates to performance and accountability. The onus lies on all of us as leaders to make this work.

Accountability is one of the greatest indicators of successful and productive teams – in the office or working from anywhere. While it was rather straightforward to monitor and keep team members accountable in the previous office environment, work-from-home accountability brings a unique set of challenges for us as leaders and team members to overcome.?Accountability at work means we take responsibility for our work, keep our word, complete projects on time and with quality, and proactively own our roles and responsibilities for our organization.??It also means new and enhanced communication, better discipline, and improved team interactions.

Of course, as leaders, we essentially trust our team with their assignments. However, there are many other details of the hybrid work model that make it difficult to measure employee accountability. And as we have seen over the last 28 months, hybrid team member productivity isn’t necessarily consistent.?And we have also seen the great team members in the office are great team members working from home, and the not so great team members ….. well they might just make it tougher on all of us (and believe me, their peers know who the slackers are). That is why we need to better manage our teams.

For remote team members, being accountable includes delivering our assigned tasks with emphasis on the quality of output.?This means we need to help our teams focus on task completion, quality of work, taking responsibility for their performance. meeting deadlines, delivering the expected output, and keeping promises by fulfilling their obligations to the team. As leaders managing a remote work team, our accountability revolves around trusting the success of our teams, while the accountability of the organization involves meeting the needs of our customers and stockholders.

Trust is important in a regular office setting, but it’s highlighted in our remote environments where team members may never meet each other in person. And, with globally?disperse teams and working in different time zones, building trust becomes even more important.?Trust will be the glue to building your success with remote teams.??Trust is built through transparency and communication.

As we think about our communications, we need to rethink and reset communication paradigms?that define previous communication channels, information sharing, and general etiquette for remote communication.

As hybrid workforce leaders, we need to overcommunicate?to make sure our team members understand the specific project-based objectives as well as the larger company vision and mission.???It is imperative to offer regular feedback?to ensure our teams understand their performance, progress, and improvement points.??(We should probably also try to reduce the use of email in remote communication?as it is not as effective?for quick, urgent conversations.)?

Encourage video conferencing?(it is 2022 and we should all use video all the time) to create better connectivity between team members and foster a sense of accountability between teammates.?And, just as important, we need to organize in-person meetings, team meetings and social events that add value we cannot gain from remote working (if the geographical distance and time zones allow) to create a more tight-knit team.?

To create a culture of accountability in remote teams, we as leaders and project managers must lead by example and optimize our work environment to reward teammates who proactively embrace this renewed accountability.?As leaders, we can teach our team how to be accountable and produce the best results, even while working remotely.?Using accountability tools (Slack, project management tools, smart sheets, milestones, and open discussions with the team about projects and progress, etc.) is another great way to create a remote culture?of accountability.?

When our team understands that a delay in completing our tasks causes delays in other teammates' work and deliverables, they are easily motivated to carry out their duties. Little mishaps like running late for meetings, missing deadlines, and delivering subpar work must be addressed early to create a culture of team accountability.?

As leaders managing remote employees, we can adopt a few things to help team members stay accountable, like setting monthly targets, establishing key project milestones, setting dates to deliverables.??We can share important company or project related information like project plans, objectives, dependencies, and workflows.??Also, we should conduct frequent (and short) scheduled virtual team meetings AND one-on-one conversations to discuss expectations and work progress.

These measures will help us ensure that our team members are all on the same page and marching forward. Every great team is responsible for holding themselves accountable, and that is fundamental for hybrid work teams. When we work from home, we don’t have any sets of eyes watching over us, and subsequently, when it comes to accountability, we’re responsible for ourselves.

A great way to remain accountable to ourselves is to remain accountable to our boss. While many?remote team members are quite hands-off when it comes to micro-managing, it really can be effective to send in daily or weekly progress updates including strategic projects, open discussion items, and project updates to our boss.??Doing this will keep our boss up-to-date and inspire us to be a more efficient worker. Just because we’re not in the office doesn’t mean we can’t use the usual office pressures to help motivate ourselves.

Together.??We.??Win.