Leadership – Page 15 – mardihumphreys.com

Red Alert

Our daughter was born seven days before my 31st birthday. While pregnant with her, my OB/GYN referred to us as a geriatric pregnancy. Has a bit of a negative connotation, don’t ya think? I prefer to think of us as trendsetters because these days plenty of women are following in our footsteps. At the time, I hoped that within twenty-five years society would evolve to the point where it’s easier for parents of minor-aged children to work full-time. The deadline to fulfill that hope is January 2022. Looks like I’m going to be disappointed.

Acknowledge

The corporate sector has done little to address this issue, and as we discussed last week, bias against working mothers hasn’t changed much in 25 years. Since the pandemic spotlighted their plight, now is an opportune time to use that momentum and advocate for permanent changes with employers for both mothers and fathers. Child care is necessary for parents to work. Work is necessary to drive economic recovery from COVID-19. More than half of the parents who took this survey anticipate that the cost of child care will increase because of the pandemic. The child care crisis is now a red alert and it affects all of us.

Communicate

If you are a parent in the workforce, the pandemic probably taught you the necessity of work-life integration, especially if your children are very young and/or school-aged. For example, the need for your physical presence when your child is an infant is not the same as when that child becomes a teenager. Even if your work responsibilities don’t change during those years, where and when you do the work can. Gone are the days of sitting in an office for eight hours waiting for work to appear. Work happens 24/7/365; so does the rest of your life. Figure out where your boundaries are, then communicate and negotiate them with your manager. When your employer knows that you’ll write the quarterly report after your daughter goes to bed in exchange for attending her soccer game that afternoon, they should respect your work-life integration. If they don’t, then you can find an employer who will. Right now there are more jobs available than people to fill them. You need to be in an employment situation where you can have transparent, on-going conversations with your manager (e.g., performance reviews) where the goal is to define both what the company currently needs from you, and what you need from the company in order to meet its needs. The result should be an arrangement benefitting both you and the company. If you and your employer are both fair and flexible, not only will you successfully integrate the responsibilities of your life, but you, your employer, and your children will benefit also.

How does your business address the needs of working parents? Please share in the comments.

The Motherhood Penalty

During a networking lunch with a female colleague, we chatted about our grown-and-flown daughters. We have four between us and love them more than life. I said, “I think being a working woman in America is a challenge, but being a working mother in America is a problem. Having children is a luxury.” She replied, “Or a liability.” That’ll preach. She said out loud what plenty of people think but don’t publicly acknowledge because we’re afraid of either hurting our children’s feelings or being harshly judged by our peers.

Research reveals that when both a man and a woman are up for the same job, gender is a factor in who gets it. The general perception is that a man can focus on the job, while a woman, specifically a mother, will be distracted by her circumstances outside of the job. This unconscious gender bias is called The Motherhood Penalty.

It can show up in how managers talk to each other about their direct reports. For example, on Monday a department head comments that Joe is a good example to his children because he worked all weekend to finish a project, but when Jane does the same thing, this department head worries aloud about who is taking care of her children. Also, think about positions in your business that require travel. Are there more men in those jobs than women?

A woman doesn’t have to be a mother to get penalized. Assumptions regarding women’s lifestyle choices are common. Some prejudice is so ingrained and subtle it occurs unnoticed until a vice president looks around the company and wonders why there are so few female directors. To get promoted to director, you first have to get promoted from individual contributor to manager, and that’s the problem.

The solution falls heavily on Human Resources. They possess the data and are in the position to ask questions about what it reveals. For example, if the organization has historically promoted more men than women from individual contributors to first-time managers, why? The answer may require an assessment of the performance review process to bring gender bias into the company’s collective consciousness. You can look at quantifiable statistics like skillsets and who consistently met their departments’ KPIs. But anecdotal evidence must be gathered too. Are female employees held to a higher standard than male employees in the same role? Are female employees’ mistakes criticized more and remembered longer than male employees’ mistakes?

Assuming it’s more risky to fill a leadership position with a woman instead of a man is false speculation. Anything could happen. The man could take all the leadership development you give him and go work for your biggest competitor. When organizations advance the person most qualified for the job and provide reasonable support for that person, everyone benefits; especially the clients.

How do you see The Motherhood Penalty at work? Please share in the comments.

Travel Team

It’s vacation season and if you have a spouse, you want to travel together. But there are things you want to do that they don’t, such as spend five hours at one art museum, spend three hours at a coffee shop, or spend an hour reading a book at a botanical garden. Luckily, you have friends who think these pastimes sound heavenly. In addition to traveling with your partner, take a trip with a friend. These adventures are ripe with lessons you can take back to work.

Getting to Know You

Constant togetherness reveals hidden talents as well as idiosyncrasies. For example, you discover that your friend has an uncanny ability to quickly spot your Uber while they notice that you can easily navigate large airports. On the other hand, maybe you are irritated by your friend’s obsession with the weather forecast and they are annoyed by your insistence to walk everywhere. We learn to be more considerate of each other because our time together is finite. The same is true at work. Projects have lifecycles. Acknowledge an interpersonal conflict when it starts. Be quick to define both your and your teammate’s boundary. Additionally, recognize that taking the time to unravel and resolve miscommunication is time well spent.

Plan B (or C or…)

When traveling, sometimes Plan A won’t work. Issues like flight delays, a car rental company losing your reservation, and a broken air conditioner in your hotel room provide multiple opportunities to not only find out how good a business is at customer service, but also work with your friend to figure out how to overcome the obstacle. Which one of you will: Take the lead in patiently communicating the unacceptable situation to customer service? Motivate the other to remain calm? Influence the service you receive by confirming that everyone is working toward the same goal? After recovering from the setback, you can take the lessons you learned (e.g., active listening, empathizing, aligning expectations) back to work and apply them to your team’s next project. When unpredictable obstacles occur, you can confidently take the lead to solve them because you’ve experienced the emotional intelligence required to get through a frustrating process.

Teamwork

The first time you travel with a friend to a destination that’s new to both of you, logic dictates that you set the parameters of the trip and start negotiating. Who is booking the transportation? Who is booking the hotel? Who is booking reservations at the restaurants, museums, sites, etc. that you want to visit? You divide up the task list according to talent. They are good at determining how much time you need between connecting flights. You can detect if a hotel is as good as its marketing says it is. You must trust each other to complete these tasks. During the trip, you both are gracious when unforeseen challenges happen. You patiently support one another when mistakes in judgement cause setbacks. You encourage each other to stretch outside of your comfort zones. You remain flexible so both of you can reach the individual objectives you have for the getaway. See what I did there? These activities are examples of collaborative teamwork. The same skills and mindset you use traveling with your friend apply to the project you’re tackling with your coworkers.

Do you plan to travel with friends this summer? Where are you going? Please share in the comments.

Reservation Highly Recommended

Dad and Me Father’s Day 2021 Photo by MSH

During one of my networking groups last week, we discussed what we learned from the men in our lives in honor of Father’s Day. My dad unintentionally taught me the power of follow-up. In a conversation he habitually listens more than he talks, asks engaging questions, and, even if it’s weeks later, texts or calls for an update. You’d assume the follow-up would be the most powerful part of the process, but no. It’s the listening. If you’re just listening to reply, you’ll jump into the conversation at your first opportunity. But if you restrain yourself and listen to understand, (e.g., repeat what the speaker said back to them, ask investigative questions) you build trust. Acting with restraint is useful in many work situations.

Social Intelligence

Robert Greene advises “Never outshine the master.” You may be smarter than your manager when it comes to the assigned task, but if you push back too hard, you reveal that you lack social intelligence. For example, once upon a time I was in a brainstorming meeting with a group of five people: an executive, his assistant, and two of my teammates. The exec kept falling down rabbit holes and I kept pulling us back with the same phrase, “So, the goal is zero waste…” The third time I said it, the exec seemed embarrassed. By the fifth time I said it, both the exec and his assistant were annoyed and my teammates were uncomfortable. In demonstrating I knew what the goal was, I exposed that his ideas would not achieve it. Remember the cliche, don’t bite the hand that feeds you? When applied to work, don’t break the finger of the hand that signs your paycheck.

Emotional Intelligence

Let’s say our team missed a deadline because you spent more time on social media than working on our project. If I pointed this out, how would you react? Would you get defensive and lash out? Or would you take a few deep breaths and ask for a safe place outside your workspace to store your phone while you’re working on our project? The latter choice shows restraint. Reacting out of ego won’t serve you in the long run. Humility is strength, not weakness. You fell into temptation. Get up, make the necessary adjustment, and keep going.

Business Intelligence

Creative freedom is an oxymoron. Freedom leaves choices wide open. You’re more creative when given parameters like a direction, deadline, or dilemma to solve. In other words, a restraint. For example, I’m constantly looking for ways to promote brand awareness that won’t break my budget. The views on the company’s social media pages go way up when I post photos or videos of our dog. Thus, “Tails From the Home Office,” a photo/video series starring my adorable-but-less-than-helpful “assistant” was born. Restraint is also crucial when searching for B2B clients. No one wants to miss a lead, but lack of focus denies you a priority. BTW, Priority implies one. If you have multiple priorities, then you don’t have any. Define yours and filter decisions through it. If your sweet spot is fast-growing manufacturers with 50 or fewer employees, build relationships with them. Don’t let FOMO cause you to miss those you serve best.

How has showing restraint helped you get ahead at work? Please share in the comments.

Satisfied ≠ Engaged

When I hear the term employee engagement, in my head I see a scene like the photo above; engaged people satisfied with their work. I thought engagement was synonymous with satisfaction, but no. An engaged employee is probably also a satisfied one, but a satisfied employee is not necessarily engaged.

What’s the Difference?

Satisfied employees do their job, but don’t look for ways to contribute to the mission or vision of the company. They’re satisfied with short term incentives like a raise, and dissatisfied when the work gets stressful. Satisfaction is how happy employees are, which may include things like getting paid for doing as little work as possible. Satisfied employees avoid accountability, try to maintain the status quo, and resist change.

Engaged employees are enthusiastic about their positions, dedicated to the company, and work beyond their job descriptions. They believe in the company’s mission and actively promote it. They’re both mentally and emotionally dialed in to their work, teams, and organizations and expect a long-term relationship with all three. They embrace change; taking the initiative to seek out processes that can be improved and improving them.

Why is it Important?

Eighty-one percent of business leaders said engaged employees perform better than satisfied ones. They’re more productive, less absent, attract new talent, and stay with the company longer than satisfied employees. This results in growth and innovation in a thriving economy and the ability to bounce back after a recession. Engaged employees know their role in the company’s objectives. When an employee knows their purpose, they filter their work through it. The company can then harness and channel this energy to reach its goals.

How Do You Do It?

Communication: Employee engagement starts at the top. Senior leadership should authentically view employees as their most valuable asset and prove it by:

Casting a vision for the company, clearly and repetitively stating it, and lead accomplishing the company’s mission by example
Giving organization-wide updates on the health of the company including changes. Disclose what leadership is doing to improve the current conditions
Focusing constructive feedback on employees’ performance (not the person) and following up
Offering a process for anonymous company-wide feedback and implementing employees’ responses
Publicly recognizing engaged employees and giving them a system to publicly recognize each other

Cultivation: Business moves at the speed of trust. Senior leadership can build trust with employees by:

Defining what success looks like to the company and how to reach it with honesty and integrity
Providing clear expectations, holding people accountable, and focusing on delivering results
Making enriching employees’ lives a company value and acting like it (e.g., supporting employees’ career development with both money and time)
Developing cross-functional teams to complete projects. Pro-tip: When coworkers do projects together, they organically bond and create positive team memories because they achieve communal success

Contribution: Engaged employees want to feel like they’re instrumental to the success of something bigger than themselves. Senior leadership can tap into that desire by:

Matching roles to employees’ strengths
Giving employees tasks they find both interesting and challenging
Sharing ownership of the company’s mission
Reiterating how the work employees do contributes to the company’s success

A company with engaged employees experiences less turnover, higher sales, and more customer satisfaction. When an employee quits their job in America, it costs the employer about $5000 to replace them. It was hard enough to find good employees pre-COVID-19. It’s so challenging now that it’s simply a wise business decision to invest in keeping the ones you have.

Does your company have an employee engagement strategy? How does it work? Please share in the comments below.

You’re Not the Boss of Me

Here in the mid-digital age you may find yourself working as a member of a team more often than completing deliverables on your own. I’m a big fan of the-more-heads-the-better for problem solving, but when your supervisor tasks you with exerting influence over coworkers who aren’t your direct reports, you have responsibility without any authority. What do you do?

This scenario usually employs a version of the Matrix Model of Management. It’s a popular construct because it allows departments to share resources according to their functions. A company can take employees who report to various supervisors and assign them to project teams based on the talent required to complete the work. This not only saves the company money, but also fosters creative problem solving. The tricky part is: Who’s in charge? This ambiguity creates multiple challenges, especially if the team is large and/or there is competition to lead the project. Best practice: when forming the team, the supervisors assign the leader and communicate that information to the entire team.

When you’re the one in charge, you can’t offer the incentives (raises, promotions, getting fired) the supervisors can, yet you have to find a way to both engage and motivate the team because if they miss the deadline, you’re the one who gets in trouble. Leading through influence requires strong interpersonal skills. You have to take initiative early in the process to build relationships and persuade with diplomacy. Some things to consider:

Clarify

Defining roles and responsibilities at the outset helps eliminate frustration and duplication of efforts. At the first team meeting, decide together who does what and when:

What is the goal? What does success look like?
Who will shepherd which task and what are the deadlines? Pro Tip: The person who sets the deadline is in control no matter what their title is.
What are the project’s KPI’s? How will you know you’ve met them?
How will you meet? In person? Videoconference? How often? Daily? Weekly? What hours is everyone available for questions or huddles?
What information will you need from them? What information will they need from you?

Communicate

Each of your team members has multiple demands on their time from multiple supervisors and multiple projects. Every week team members should either submit an email report or meet with you for a brief update on both the progress of your project and the status of their other projects. This alerts you to competing deadlines and prompts you to notify your team’s supervisors. Ask the supervisors to prevent a crisis by prioritizing projects. Pro Tip: A written status report (on both successes and challenges) can double as documentation for annual performance reviews.
From the beginning and throughout the project, remind the team that you support their individual brands. Email their supervisors when they produce good work. Give the team visibility to the rest of the company.
Observe what motivates your team. Who works because it’s intrinsically rewarding? Who works for recognition? What are their career goals? Connect working on this project to reaching them.

Cultivate

Teams working on short projects together don’t have much time to connect on a personal level, yet business moves at the speed of trust. It’ll make your life easier if you can accelerate team bonding.
If a teammate is uncooperative, schedule a 1:1 and find out why as soon as they miss a KPI. Are there barriers you can remove (e.g., other projects)? Do they need resources you can obtain (training, equipment)? If the teammate still refuses to produce in a timely manner, send them an email reiterating your conversation and copy their supervisor. If you still can’t convince them to contribute, schedule a meeting with their supervisor and ask how they motivate the employee. Pro Tip: the emails should be enough evidence to keep this employee off of future teams you lead.

If you have to manage projects without authority over people, then you must build commitment and engagement. Find common ground and use it to align goal setting. Get your team the resources they need to do good work. Explain the logical (not emotional) reasons for taking an action and the consequences of not taking it.

Have you had responsibility without authority? How did that work out? Please share in the comments.

Brand Awareness

Last week we talked about bringing your whole self to work which concentrated on the impression you give. This week let’s talk about your reputation and if the brand you’re projecting is being received the way you intend.

Why do you need to know?

In the 1980’s, Lee Atwater coined the phrase, “Perception is reality.” You may think you are kind, compassionate, and thoughtful, but if your peers, bosses, and clients see you as cruel, harsh, and insensitive; that’s a problem. For example:

You thought that you were being assertive, but your team mate accuses you of being difficult
You thought that you were celebrating accomplishments, but your boss suggests you stop bragging
You thought that you were being diligent, but your client complains your follow up is aggressive.

You can’t control every opinion of you, but shouldn’t you intentionally manage what you can? Every day you’re creating an impression and it affects what projects you get assigned, who you do them with, and even future job opportunities. Your performance is judged not only by what you do, but also how you do it. Your skill at influencing how others perceive you is a key to controlling your career trajectory. This is not manipulation; it’s both personal and leadership development.

How do you find out?

Self-awareness – Much of our behavior is unconscious and habitual. Consider taking an assessment like The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, DiSC Profile, or Clifton StrengthsFinder. Look for patterns in the data. E.g., Do you behave more dominantly when you’re stressed? Pro Tip: Don’t dwell on the results you disagree with. These tests are snapshots of where you were mentally and emotionally when you took them.

Feedback – Choose peers, managers, and direct reports you trust to give you objective evaluations. Ask them about a specific situation where their reaction was not what you expected. Graciously receive their feedback. Resist arguing and/or accusing them of misunderstanding. There will be at least a bit of subjectivity in their opinions, so evaluate them carefully. Excavate the truth from their feedback, then determine how you will communicate differently during your next interaction.

Reconnaissance – Observe leaders you admire. How do they behave? How do they influence? How do they present themselves in meetings, 1:1s and on social media? Define the traits they have that you want people to associate with you, then model them. E.g., is the leader known for facilitating productive problem solving? Before your next project meeting, think of three open-ended questions that will prompt discussion of how the team can push the project to the next step.

What if you want to change it?

Start Small – Begin with the easiest impression to change and make altering it a S.M.A.R.T. goal. Activate the perception-changing conversation by digging up common ground. For example, is your team full of dog lovers? If you like the same things, it’s a small step to reason that you want the same things (e.g., accomplishing the project you’re working on together).

Advertise – Let team mates know you’re in the process of changing your behavior, and that you’ll periodically ask for their feedback. Leading with vulnerability triggers support. Resist exaggerating. You can’t sustain deception. When it’s discovered, it’s really hard to earn trust back.

Repeat – You’ve trained people to anticipate you’ll react a certain way. It takes time, both for them and you, to unlearn the pattern and replace it with your new one. Participating in team projects is a good way to demonstrate your change. When successful completion depends on working together, your coworkers are motivated to perceive you positively.

It’s all interpretation. If coworkers, managers, and customers see you in a negative light, soon they don’t want to work with you and you don’t want to work with them. You have the power to make your light shine positively.

What do you do to control your narrative? Please share in the comments.

Who Are You?

During the first team meeting after Jane got promoted from individual contributor to manager, she admitted she was nervous about the new role and asked her team for help. Her honesty and vulnerability were counter productive. Instead of regarding her as authentic, Jane’s direct reports perceived her as weak and unable to do her job. They didn’t trust her decisions, making it impossible to lead them. Her leadership style should have evolved as she gained experience, but instead Jane lost the courage necessary to promote her ideas.

What Bringing Your Whole Self to Work Means

Being both courageous and comfortable enough with coworkers to reveal both personal interests and flaws, thus creating space for them to reciprocate
Normalizing what employees experience outside the workplace affects them in the workplace
Includes both the impression we give of ourselves (consciously or unconsciously) and the impression we have of coworkers
Some elements we consider: authenticity (“This is me, warts and all”), humility (“I don’t know everything”), and vulnerability (“I need your help”)

Bringing your whole self to work is a relatively new concept. It presupposes that employees want to find purpose and higher meaning through their jobs. During the industrial revolution, no one looked for engagement with their work. They worked to buy food, clothing and shelter. They looked for purpose and higher meaning at church, in nature, or through art. Even today, some employees will never see their jobs as a source of fulfillment. If employees spend their energy trying to fit in to the culture, then they don’t have a lot left to be innovative, engaged, and productive.

Why You Don’t

Maybe, like Jane, you brought your whole self to work in the past and got judged or were less than your coworkers expected
The culture of your workplace is not conducive to sharing, keeping conversations at surface level
You fear revealing certain parts of your personality will make you appear unprofessional (e.g., you remain silent in a meeting after your feelings were hurt)
You are ashamed of something in your background
You feel pressured to always be right because your work culture does not support learning from failure

Why You Should

The more willing you are to be authentically vulnerable, the more positive an impact you have on both your work and your team. Bringing your whole self to work:

Breaks down silos
Accelerates trust
Creates a culture where honesty is valued
Removes the stress of hiding flaws
Allows genuine connection (critical to successful networking)
Enhances productivity and performance
Boosts creative problem solving
Helps managers resolve conflict in a constructive way

Someone who recognizes when to risk being vulnerable also recognizes a smart business risk when they see it.

How You Can

Start the authenticity ball rolling by:

Both recognizing and appreciating coworkers. There is a difference. Recognizing is feedback on performance. E.g.,“You gave an excellent presentation today.” Appreciating is expressing gratitude for valuable human qualities (e.g., humility, kindness, humor) regardless of whether the deliverable succeeded or failed. E.g., “It’s obvious you care deeply about serving our customers.” Recognizing and appreciating them helps coworkers feel seen. This leads to deepening trust and improving job performance
Having a growth mindset. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn, and we learn more when we do it together
Leading through both modeling and celebrating behaviors like: speaking up, taking smart risks, and owning mistakes. This enables your workforce to feel psychologically safe which leads to creativity which leads to productivity which leads to revenue

How comfortable are you bringing your whole self to work? Please share in the comments.

Balance vs Integration

Photo by EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA from Pexels

I mentioned last week my mom is retired. If you’re envisioning a little old lady sitting in a rocking chair and knitting, you haven’t met my mom. If she’s sitting in a rocking chair, It’s more likely she’s on her laptop in her home office, videoconferencing with a mentee in Turkey rather than knitting. Instead of trying to balance work and life, Mom has integrated them. She’s incorporated elements she loves (The Bible, studying) into her daily routine (counseling, mentoring).

If you have a job that can’t be done remotely, (e.g. factory, hospital) you have a better shot at work life balance because you leave your work at the place you perform it. But those jobs tend to have hours that don’t coincide with the school day. Balance then becomes: Are you going to your eight-year-old’s piano recital on Saturday or are you working your normal shift as a hair stylist? If you have more of a sales role (talent acquisition, productivity consultant) or knowledge worker (software developer, career coach) you have more freedom to integrate all of your responsibilities. For example, instead of working eight hours straight, work-life integration could look like this: you do deep work at 5:00AM while everyone is asleep. You break at 7:00AM for breakfast with the family. You work while the kids are in school. You answer emails after everyone goes to bed. Integration blurs the lines between home and work. Life becomes more fluid and less categorized. For example, developing a marketing proposal for a client and developing a vacation proposal for the family are both duties you may have, and you get paid to do one of them.

When I think of balance, I visualize the Scales of Justice and constantly trying to keep both sides even. But you don’t have work on one side of the scale and everything else on the other. Life is more like a large Marion’s Super Cheese Pizza whose squares are unevenly cut. Some are huge and some are tiny. Your squares include work, family, friends, health, personal development, spirituality, volunteering, leisure, etc. Some days, those bigger squares are going to be children (e.g., you have to attend parent-teacher conferences). Some days those big squares are going to be work (e.g., attending the all-company videoconference). After you eat a couple of big squares, you fill up on smaller ones: checking email while awaiting your turn at the parent-teacher conferences, light weight lifting while attending the all-company videoconference. (I recommend both video and microphone muted for this one.) Only you can decide which squares and how many to eat everyday. Make decisions based on your values, goals, and priorities. When you feel overwhelmed, write down where your T.E.A.M. is going (i.e., how many squares you’re eating). If you discover you’re spending your T.E.A.M. out of sync with your values, goals, and priorities, consider reassigning the squares. Maybe today the biggest square is the slide deck that’s due at noon and the smaller square is the social media post you told your church you’d do for them this week. You can even share your pizza, giving a square (like the social media post) to someone else.

Switching your mindset to integration can help you achieve the balance you want. How have you changed your routine to bring more harmony to your life? Please share in the comments.

We Can Work it Out

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels

American employees have worked in office buildings since 1906, even though emerging technology enables us to work from anywhere, any time, and with anyone. Companies buy buildings, so we must use the tools that work in them. Besides, if you can’t see your employees, they aren’t working, right? Let’s face it: If they’re watching Netflix at home, they’re probably watching it at the office too. In 2016, 43% of employees spent at least a few hours working remotely. During COVID, the exponential increase revealed outdated assumptions about it. The top three are: productivity, communication, and culture.

Productivity

This study shows employees are actually 35-40% more productive working remotely than in an office. Managers can boost productivity by:

clearly communicating goals (deadlines, KPIs)
giving individual contributors necessary equipment (laptop, industry specific software)
encouraging calendar sharing and ad-hoc communication (IM, video chats)

Time and activity tracking apps are available to keep an eye on the workforce (e.g., Teramind) or managers can insist on hourly activity reports. But, going overboard backfires. Productivity slows when employees have to interrupt their work to report on it; not to mention the distrust it cultivates. Working remotely not only increases productivity, but also reduces costs from real estate, employee absenteeism, and turnover. Research suggests a hybrid-remote work model could collectively save American employers over $500 billion a year.

Communication

Technology allows teams to communicate who is doing what, how close to the target they are, and what the result should look like. Data privacy is an issue; mostly a people one. For example, do all employees know they shouldn’t use free coffee shop Wi-Fi? Most data privacy issues can be addressed through company-wide training, secure VPNs, and well-communicated best practice policies. Implementing a hybrid-remote work policy helps employees understand business expectations, and advances both transparency and accountability for everyone. What should a best practice policy include?

COVID protocol: What are the rules for masks and social distancing? Must employees be vaccinated to work in the office?
Logistics: Who decides if an employee can work remotely; the employee or the employer? When in the office, does the employee have a dedicated workspace?
Equity: Is the remote employee reimbursed for office supplies, internet, and electricity? Will in-office employees receive better performance reviews due to unconscious bias? Is there a central company information hub that’s accessible to all employees?

Culture

A pleasantly surprising result of pandemic-induced remote work is that it has made some underrepresented groups feel more seen. Helping teams bond takes employers’ creativity, as well as time, and technology can facilitate initiatives.

Use employee recognition software to issue company-wide wellness challenges. By broadly defining wellness, (e.g., drinking water and meditation count as well as physical exercise) employers get more buy-in.
Schedule a recurring weekly thirty-minute coworker coffee, or happy hour (or both) via video chat.
Onboard new employees by pairing them with existing employees via instant messaging for one shift.
Engage employees with brief company-wide surveys (e.g., “What do you need most right now to be successful at your job: training or tools?”)

There’s no going back to the office-centric model. If an employer’s attitude is, “My employees have to work where I want them to, and I want them in the office,” then 54% of workers are willing to leave that employer when they find a position that supports remote work. If management and individual contributors come together to communicate what is working and identify where waste can be eliminated, we can create a sustainable hybrid-remote solution.

Do you want to go back to the office full time? Please share your preference in the comments.