In this two-part blog series, we take a look at how Kiwi businesses can navigate the evolving world of remote working to benefit both the employer and the employee, with the help of “flex specialist”, HR veteran, and author, Gillian Brookes, AUT Professor of Management, Dr Helena Cooper Thomas, and Senior Lecturer at Otago University Business School, Dr Paula O’Kane.
Part one focuses on a collaborative approach to remote working, while part two explores the nitty gritty details that businesses need to get right.
Many New Zealand businesses are now offering staff some form of remote working after COVID lockdowns proved the majority of businesses could keep successfully operating when staff were off-site.
In Aotearoa New Zealand, close to 70% of SMEs offer remote working, according to MyHR’s SME Employment and Employer Insights Report just out.
While It’s not technically an employee right, working from home (at least some days a week) is an expectation most people have, and it’s certainly something many people look for from an employer.
For businesses in which working from home is feasible, there’s no going back, so it’s about making it work for the company and your team. The great news is that if you get it right, you’ll have loyal employees who will never want to leave.
When managing a team working remotely, it’s a good idea to:
- Make your remote working policy a collective decision.
- Develop more touch points with staff virtually during the working day.
- Give clear goals on what staff should be achieving during their working day at home.
- Understand that performance management will be more important.
- Remember, it’s about outcomes achieved, not hours worked.
- Carefully consider how to communicate with remote workers.
- Think of new ways to mentor junior staff when senior leaders are out of the office.
- Let go of the to-do list when all staff are in the office; it’s more about bonding.
- If a staff member is underperforming, don’t “punish” them by bringing them back into the office.
- Remember that for most people, remote working is a good thing.
All for one; not one for all
One of the first points "flex specialist", HR veteran and author Gillian Brookes, makes to small businesses deciding on their remote working policy is to make it a collective decision, rather than listening to individual choices.
This is especially important for small businesses, because it ticks the box for employees but doesn’t detract from the company culture, says Gillian, author of "Flexperts - getting the best from flex in a world that’s ever changing".
Small business leaders should be running the conversations with staff members on a remote working policy, adds AUT Professor of Management, Dr Helena Cooper Thomas.
"If you’re individually negotiating with each person and they can have what they want, you’ve lost control," she says. "It’s not about what individuals want; you have to think collectively about what works for the organisation."
According to Gillian, an example of hybrid working failing because it hasn’t been decided in a collective way is when someone comes into the office ready to connect with their colleagues but they find it empty, and then spend the day on video calls.
"This is hybrid working at its worst," says the HR expert who trains managers and HR teams on flexible working online, and is also launching an online Flexperts course in August.
When people come into the office they need to find others around them, she says, and this is only possible when business leaders make collective decisions on how staff are working. It can be as simple as deciding together on the business days you’ll come into the office, and sticking to that plan.
In small businesses, it’s common to have a high proportion of part-time staff, and it’s important they also get to experience a combination of remote working and coming into the office, advises Gillian. "You won’t be able to retain your people over the medium to longer term if you don’t take this into account."
Being open to adapting the days when everyone comes into the office is critical to the long term success of your hybrid working policy, she adds. "Ideal hybrid working is when we get the best from being at home and the best from being in the office."
"To get the best from being at home, we need to focus on doing individually driven tasks and ticking off our to-do list. Doing complex work that requires input from other people is best done when everyone is in a room together," she says.
"The time we spend together in-person tends to be the type of work that drives innovation and creativity."
She also cautions that if we don’t get time to be face-to-face, the business will suffer over the long term because we haven’t created the conditions for people to problem solve, get creative, and drive our business’s long term productivity.
"When people are working from home they’re typically more productive over the short term because they can keep focus and stay on-task, but a short term productivity focus can crowd out long-term productivity and companies need to get the balance right," she says.
On the days in the office, it’s vital that there’s space for unplanned conversations with your colleagues, says Gillian. "This gives us time to reconnect and have conversations that are better face-to-face."
Helping people understand for themselves what type of work to prioritise at home and what to prioritise at the office is important, she adds. "The to-do list can be saved for home, and the more complex conversations are best done in the office - as long as you’ve all agreed to be there together on the same day and time."
Remote working staff need good leadership
University business schools are studying the new way of working closely post-pandemic and leaders will have to change the way they manage staff who are regularly remote working, they say.
Dr Paula O’Kane, Senior Lecturer at Otago University Business School, stresses that small businesses’ successful management of remote working will come down to leadership and company culture.
"Good leadership is key when managing people who are remote working and understanding that it’s about giving people trust and autonomy," she says.
"When people feel trusted, they’re more likely to engage with you and the organisation."
With people working off-site, connecting with staff virtually is much more important, she says. "Small business leaders need to increase the tech that they use to communicate, whether it’s Facebook, Whatsapp groups, or video conferencing."
There should be many more touch points, with leaders and staff talking more regularly and in a more formalised way, says Dr O’Kane. It might be a quiz that the team all do on Stuff every morning at 10 am, for instance.
"For small businesses it’s about having people on your wavelength and building up that trust without which it’s never going to work," she explains.
Performance management is key
It’s also about communicating very clear goals of what staff should be achieving when working from home, says Dr O’Kane. "For this, managers will have to think about how to set goals, so that people know what’s expected of them. It won’t work if this is fuzzy and there’s a lack of trust. The onus is on the manager to give much more support."
Dr O’Kane believes that performance management is a positive tool for small businesses leaders to use in this situation. "Performance management can strike fear into everybody but when performance management is done well, it gives the business leader the opportunity to set those goals and have meetings more regularly," she says.
For example, meet at 10am every Friday, to discuss goals with a staff member working remotely. Having this meeting set up virtually can make it easier than when you’re in the office, because you might miss it as other things come up.
Focus on outcomes, not hours worked
Anxiety from small business owners about having a remote working policy can come down to the basic question: "Is the work being done?" says Dr Cooper Thomas.
It’s important to have clear conversations on this to help set expectations for both sides, find a middle ground, and agree on any checkpoints. If either party doesn’t feel that it’s working, then the next steps are agreed and it’s all clearly laid out, she advises.
"If an employee is expected in the office two days a week but the company doesn’t see much of them, it may be because the staff member is counting client visits as the same thing as being in the office. Be clear on all of this."
When managing staff working remotely, those regular check-ins are vital, and Dr Cooper Thomas likens it to her habit of seeing her students weekly or fortnightly.
"It can keep them aligned and moving forward with research. They also know that I’m supporting them and they feel more confident about bringing me questions. It's always worth investing more time upfront to keep things on track," she says.
Meanwhile, if you’re worried about staff slacking at home or working shorter days, this is the wrong thing to worry about, says Dr Paula O’Kane.
"Part of what we need to do as a nation is look at how we set those outcome goals. If an employee can do their job in 30 vs 40 hours, why is that a problem? If they work between 7am and 10am, then meet a friend for lunch, and work later in the afternoon, what does it matter?" she asks.
It’s about getting out of a 9am to 5pm mindset and looking at the bigger picture of what needs to be done, says the academic.
The work process shouldn’t be ignored either, adds Dr Cooper Thomas. For example, a staff member may have sold a lot of product or a service, but they might have been very aggressive and damaged a customer relationship. Working remotely still means that processes need to be followed to make sure staff are doing things in a way that represents the company well, she says.
And if there’s a bad apple who abuses the remote working policy, deal with them, but don’t over react, cautions Dr O’Kane. Some businesses might respond by putting in another 15 rules around remote working but this takes away everyone’s autonomy. Don't let it affect the 10 staff who are displaying more commendable citizenship behaviour.
In part two of this series, we focus on the nitty gritty details that businesses need to get right in order to have a successful remote working culture, such as support, understanding, and communication.
