WFH, Quiet Quitting and Flexibility/Productivity Conundrum - Let us stop complaining and act – Seven Axioms
Two terms: Work from Home (WFH) along with quiet quitting came into existence as a direct result of COVID which changed the way/method of working for workers who “technically” could work from home. ?Naturally, this excludes a large fraction of the labor force in industries such as manufacturing, retail, distribution, logistics, etc. But for others, the pandemic required, and technology allowed for that to happen in sectors such as “professional or office workers” albeit some initial growing pains.
While it was widely expected that WFH may actually lead to increased productivity due to reduced commuting hours, less stress, along with increased flexibility, some new evidence suggests that productivity may have actually declined – but the evidence is mixed and is country/job/survey design specific. ?This (decline in productivity) may be a result of lack of proper working environment at home coupled with the lack of in person supervision and thus reduced oversight and discipline and corresponding impact on productivity. ?Also “quiet quitting” began to surface which meant many just reduced their commitment to the organization.
In many cases, WFH also led to reduced collaboration, eliminated individualized touch, reduced employee bonding and that may have also reduced “aggregate”? productivity. It also became clear that organizations which required creative output through group involvement (e.g. creating a new solution, a new advertising campaign, a new TV show) may not fare well when everyone starts WFH – virtual meetings with 28” screen notwithstanding.?
It is now clear that WFH is here to stay for employees where face to face interaction with the “customer” is not required. So organizations must adjust to this new world of WFH/remote work/quiet quitting. While companies like Tesla, J P Morgan and others can state “come to work or quit,” only a few companies can do so without impacting “retention.”? There is now evidence that more than 25% + office workers would rather quit the job than go back to a physical office 5 days a week. ??
So as leaders we need to do some soul searching and not make a generalized statement that WFH leads to lower productivity and thus everyone must come to the office. I would state that any reduction in productivity is the fault of the organization and not necessarily that of the individual. So rather than enforcing a “come to work or resign” edict,?here are 7 axioms that every leader must think through. ?The context and these axioms below may not be applicable to countries like India where WFH may not be advisable for most positions as the lack of space, noise level, a need for supervision and even a lack of trust, family distractions and frequent disturbances during the day at “home” are not conducive to WFH. Also a recent survey states that 78% of Indian employees want to work from Office and many may prefer Hybrid mode. Of course, there is a trade off between horrendous commuting time in cities like Bengaluru and Mumbai versus actual WFH productive work time especially for female employees of sandwich generation.?
Axiom 1: Give people interesting work, provide a fair compensation which has internal equity and fairness right from the top and recognize them for excellent work. ?This is only common sense WFH or not.
Axiom 2: Establish a?reporting structure with smaller groups (maximum ten people) and a clear RACI for the team leader as to their accountability for the output/outcome of their team. Incentivize accordingly thru line-of-sight controllable metrics and recognize frequently.
Axiom 3: For a person who does mostly transaction-based work (e.g. accounts payable processing, inside sales), provide clear targets for delivering on a reasonable number of transactions in a typical day/week and build clear metrics around quality and response time and outputs/outcomes. This was a central theme of activity-based costing and management frameworks I practiced and delivered across the world for many years.
Axiom 4: For non-transaction-based work (advisory, consultancy, etc.), monitor outputs or outcomes in a weekly or biweekly cadence.? Also identify what is a definition of a job well done – for which they get paid versus a “beyond the call of duty” which would be incentivizable.
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Axiom 5: Clearly define and execute a simple individual reporting cadence. I manage my dispersed direct reports with a simple four quadrant one-page weekly PowerPoint slide: accomplishments/activities/outcomes; learning;?risk/challenges/road blocks; plan for coming week/fortnight/month. ?
Axiom 6:? Ensure a weekly cadence at a group level, where each person has to share three highlights of their week – this transparency could lead to a “wall of shame” and a “wall of fame”. They need to know that others are “watching” and that there is no hiding place. Also find ways to create social connections thru group cocktails, games, quizzes, hackathons …..? these are a good substitute to “corridor” talks and interactions. Wherever possible and required, adopt a hybrid three-day office and two-day home as workplace.
Axiom 7: Frequently recognize and reward good/impressive performance. Let everyone know and reinforce the philosophy that we all get paid to do excellent work and it does not matter where we work. For example, we have established five quarterly rewards for our diverse and distributed work force:? Adroit Star Performer, Accountable Star Performer, Awesome Star Performer, Triple Ace Champions and Peer Nominated Award.
So let us stop complaining about WFH, quiet quitting and reduced productivity – let us do something about it and not insist on “one model fits all” mentality.
Some data points and references:
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Founder & CEO ( more of Chief Executing Officer and less of Executive) at Agilisium Labs | A Life Science Industries Data, AI & GenAI Agent and Insights company with Global Digital Innovation Hub's
1 年Vijay, Thank you very much and it is very well thought through and articulated. I 100% agree with this statement " WFH also led to reduced collaboration, eliminated individualized touch, reduced employee bonding, and that may have also reduced “aggregate”?productivity" I think this particular point is key "It also became clear that organizations which require creative output through group involvement (e.g. creating a new solution, a new advertising campaign, a new TV show) may not fare well when everyone starts WFH?" Plus one of the major issues and challenges that WFH poses is Grooming and training fresh and new talent coming into the organization. Training, Coaching, and mentoring new talent is impossible while their senior peers are operating in a WFH model. It is like running an all-remote school which does well for some parts but is completely ineffective to a large degree... For example, for someone like me who has 25 years of experience and working with people who all have 15 plus years of experience working on Business and Business operations WFH may be OK. But for coaching and mentoring people or working on innovative solutions that need brainstorming, whiteboarding, and collaboration WFH is quite ineffective. Thanks