Unlocking the Potential of Remote Work: Navigating the Pitfalls and Promoting a Connected Workforce (part 2)
Over the past decade, I have been employed by startups and small businesses. All startups or small businesses I have worked or consulted for during the last five years have used pure remote work. For me this says a lot. I perceive this phenomenon as a robust trend with significant potential to reshape the future of work.
And I want to share my observations about remote work: how it changed and how it may influence the future of work culture. I want to compare the evolution of remote work with that of the smartphone. Did you know that iPhone wasn’t the first smartphone? It was the first smartphone that had such a huge success that it changed our lives. The same with remote work. Before pandemic time remote work had been used in different companies to some degree. In pandemic time we were forced to start working remotely everywhere it was possible. After the pandemic, management found that it is difficult to bring employees back to the office and many companies started to work in hybrid mode. Exploring this experience of remote work I came to some conclusions, but I was afraid that they were subjective. But I came across an article by McKinsey about how remote work influenced real estate. They collected data from many companies in various cities and countries. In those articles McKinsey came to some conclusions that I want to share here:
The number of people going to the office is still 30 percent less than it was before the pandemic. People are now working both from home and the office, and this way of working is going to stick around. When the pandemic started, many stopped going to their offices, but now they are going back, although not as much as they used to. How often people go to the office depends on the city, the type of job they have, and their personal details. In some cities, fewer people go to the office, especially if houses are expensive and most people work in jobs that need a lot of knowledge. Different industries and types of workers also have different rates of going to the office. McKinsey concluded that there are a few reasons to believe that the proportion of people going to the office has stabilized and will remain the same. Links to the McKinsey articles can be found at the end of this article. Five of the six McKinsey articles listed at the end of this article focused exclusively on real-estate market data.
So, I want to share my interpretation of the data they found. There is much more behind the numbers than just real estate. One of the laws of economics is reducing costs of operations. Office renting is a huge expense for companies, especially for startups and small businesses that don’t have enough money. It means that even after the pandemic when most companies moved back to working in offices or in hybrid mode, most startups still start by working remotely. This means that they will have remote work in their DNA and culture and this trend will only increase. Why hasn't it taken off globally? The answer is that we are not yet ready for it. “Work has changed—and so must leaders,” wrote Sandra Scharf and Kirsten Weeda, authors of the McKinsey articles. Yes, many leaders don’t know how to organize remote work effectively. Success requires from the leaders more skills, more attention to subordinates, and a shift in approach to work. We need to grow new leaders with a new approach to work.
The following recommendations are relevant even for work in office, but they are strongly necessary for remote and hybrid environments:
Manage performance through outcomes, impact, and ownership. In places where people work both in the office and from home, bosses must focus more on what gets done and how it matters. Employees are given the freedom to figure out how to do things and really take charge of the results, and it is important that everyone takes responsibility. This works best when everyone knows their roles and goals, and there are regular check-ins to talk about any problems, provide support, and make sure the amount of work is reasonable. People are also held responsible for getting things done. I could say it is a revolution in managers’ minds.
Many managers still expect people to come to the offices and sit there for nine hours or more. I remember going for an interview at a company that had an open space work environment. Developers and testers were sitting in lines, and behind them were managers observing their screens. In the same space, there was a kitchen and a coffee machine. This company didn't care at all about the distractions employees faced at work—every movement and conversation were seen and heard by others. In addition, no one manager cared that one developer was ten times more productive than another. I would call it unhealthy management. Workers should be measured by results, not by the time they spend doing it. Measuring employee productivity sometimes may be complicated; I will discuss this subject in a separate post.
Build trust and togetherness. Trust and being together are very important to help employees be creative and think of new ideas. But when you work remotely this is difficult to achieve. Similarly, as there are democracy and autocracy in politics of countries, the same model is present in politics of companies. It is known that autocracy and dictatorship are more effective in the short run. As an example, a manager gives a short and precise command to a subordinate and the subordinate without asking any questions runs and does what was asked. Minimum time was wasted. Sounds great? But in reality, this works only for simple tasks that subordinates are very familiar with. In modern life most tasks that companies face are complicated and require creative thinking. A real democracy is possible in countries with high public consciousness. The same law works for companies. Democracy in a company requires creating an environment of trust and togetherness among employees. A company to be successful should have several options and discuss them to choose the best one. Managers should let teams make decisions and work together to create common goals and a shared vision.
Mechanics matter. Even the best intentions and philosophy can be thwarted by poor execution. Successful managers will pay significant attention to remote work mechanics and details, especially in meetings. Sometimes, certain actions can make it hard for a team to stay focused and work together well, like not paying attention during meetings or turning off the camera. Besides avoiding these problems, managers should keep meetings short and use tools like chat and polls to make things interactive. Clear meeting minutes should outline the specific decisions made and identify the responsible individuals along with their corresponding tasks and deadlines.
Solve Problems Together. Some bosses might focus more on their own work than helping the team. Good managers in a mix of office and remote work see team problem-solving as really important. To solve hard problems, they get involved, find the things the team needs, and connect teams. When everyone helps find a solution, it makes everyone feel more involved and responsible for what happens.
领英推荐
Modern management should recognize that remote work is here to stay. It will persist, and the number of people working remotely will only continue to rise. Remote work is an exceptionally powerful tool, and like any powerful tool, its effectiveness depends on understanding, goodwill, and proper implementation. Managers should acquire and adapt to the skills needed for remote work; it is a new skill set for a new era that demands fresh knowledge and a different cultural approach.
?
Sources: