Making product innovators leading business assets focused on customer value
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COMMENT
WHERE IS EVERYONE
REMOTE OR HOME WORKING
GETTING IT RIGHT
What you need to know
The epidemic has pushed many businesses to trial remote working. Or perhaps to tolerate it!
The experience has demonstrated that in many cases home working can be effective. It certainly reduced the pollution from travel to work, a good thing, and freed up the travel time, another good thing. It is in all of our interests to create an environment where time for work and play is maximised.
But were you left wondering what your teams were doing, unable to determine whether the business was really benefiting?
Did the communication drop, fuelling misalignment or perhaps resulting in a loss of that team cohesion or friendly banter?
I have spent many years managing remote teams, integrating individuals that are home alone. There are tricks to getting this right, they are often not the ones we learnt in the office.
Read on if you want to hear about some of these and please get in touch if you want help delivering the culture that will ensure home working works for your business.
THE NEW CULTURE BEHIND SUCCESSFUL REMOTE WORKING
Everyone has to play their part
REMEMBER THIS HAS TO COME FROM EACH INDIVIDUAL THROUGH PERSONAL DRIVE AND CULTURE, FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL
Doing the job is not enough, you have to be seen to be doing the job!
Somehow in the office it was the responsibility of the manager to find out what was going on. People frequently seemed to sit at their desks and only report progress when asked. This was always bad behaviour but such behaviour will break remote working.
All staff at all levels have to recognise that part of the job is being seen to do the job. This is both up an down any chain of responsibility; the Managing Director needs to set the standard but expect every employee to do the same, the job is not done until it is declared as done.
Plan ahead, write it down and publish it!
For many a year books on performance have stressed the importance of planning what you intend to do and, by declaring it making it more likely to happen. This becomes ever more important in the remote working environment.
Everyone in the team should want to become great at what they do, recognise the need to plan and declare firstly to make that happen but also to support the remote working that it sustains.
Say what you are going to do and do it!
Gone are the, “how are you getting on?” discussions at the coffee machine. The principle is simple, everyone is relied upon to say what they are going to do, and say immediately when they find they cannot, updating the expectation. No news is good news.
Challenging commitments should abound with hard work to deliver but realistic expectations that these will need to change regularly.