When working remotely becomes a necessity rather than the choice that the employer provides, the practical dynamics need to be seen a bit closely. It is no longer an option, so a new norm has to be defined. With the removal of autonomy, both employers and employees are trying to work out a new routine.
The biggest challenge in remote working is to try and replicate the informal catchups, the greetings, the smiles and the bonding that gets created in the office atmosphere, not to mention the social side of coffees, lunches and after-office drinks. Many firms have adopted or promoted programs to support mental health, physical health, social connectivity through collaboration tools like Friday evening team catchups, cooking club, reading clubs, zoom meet over drinks etc. However, now is not the time to let up on this care and compassion and employers will have to find methods to keep this up as lockdown lifts, as the future is still uncertain and there’s looming second lockdowns (already in place in many countries and areas).
Even as offices start planning for life post-pandemic, one thing is for sure – remote working now has assumed a permanent place in our working lives. So, we now need to plan for hybrid models of working, whilst avoiding the risk of having two unintentional organisation cultures – the in-person collaborative culture and the remote one, devoid of social cohesion. There are a number of hybrid working models, the leadership needs to choose the one, best suited for their workforce and supportive of their customers, while being flexible and able to change as the future unfolds.
Currently companies are managing remote working in varied ways, some have asked employees to work remotely till end of 2020 and some have gone further and extended the date till summer of 2021 or given the employees the choice of where they want to work from – remote or in-office. Others have scheduled staggered working hours or days and got employees back in the office to provide for the “team” feeling. There’s however a fine balance of not creating a two-tier workforce. Steps taken today will define the future workplace – hybrid, digital, flexible and productive.
Hybrid working needs more discipline and most companies already have a designated Head of remote working. Hybrid meetings need agendas in advance, contributions (verbal as well as written) being acknowledged and recorded, clear role definition and regulated airtime for all participants. There is a fear that remote workers would be less likely to get promoted or be given the best projects, so we need a proper work distribution system as well as regular and documented performance reviews. Companies also need to be prescriptive about which medium of communication to use for what – email, chat, meetings, document sharing etc.
The remote working location also need to be defined; some confidential work is best not done in an open café which also means that the location of remote working is made fit for purpose. Most employees are working from home and that brings in other factors which need to be considered for efficient working. At the new office location, i.e., home – better understanding and clarity of the other occupants’ working needs is equally important. There are cases of cabin fever setting in. Not everyone can be fully productive at home, issues with childcare, online schooling, adult children moving in etc, can pose some constraints. While some employers have provided for the infrastructure of working from home, the managers need to have a proper conversation with the team members on what is needed on an individual basis.
Here are some thoughts on working strategy post pandemic:
- Culture – for a hybrid model to succeed, there has to be buy-in at the top, and companies may need to flex their culture to include this model to deliver value to their clients as well as provide an inclusive environment to all employees (remote or in-location)
- Care – Partially distributed teams also commonly report feeling of “not being included”. Just as a remote worker need more care, so does the remote customer as well as remote supply chain. Empathy and understanding of others’ issues will become a big part of corporate ethos as we move towards the future working world.
- Communicate – We all know that digital communication can never convey the exact meaning as spoken one and as we move to more digital communication, we need to make sure that the written communication clearly expresses our intent or have important communications more through video calls. Sometimes digital communication can be harsher as social inhibitions are more powerful when working face-to-face, we need to be mindful of this as it can harm team effectiveness.
- Connect – For teams to remain connected to the organisation, the small steps made to be more collaborative on social fronts, need to be continued. We need to have more creative interactions for distributed workforce be it work or social settings. Coming together for strategy and team building weeks is one such option being embraced by organisations.
- Collaborate – Work and project designs will need to be more collaborative so that the distributed workforce does not feel as if they are working in silos.