Three Reasons Your Remote Employees are Losing Their Minds
And how to save them…
According to a survey conducted by Gallup in 2014, most full-time workers spend about 46–47 hours per week at the office. And in those 47 office hours, those workers are probably spending a significant chunk of time working directly with others. Collaborating on projects, seeking input or feedback, just basically working together. But because humans aren’t robots, casual interactions also happen all the time — stories will be shared and updates will happen over coffee, at the water cooler, and lunch. You’ll hear about Jen’s marathon or Duleepa’s birthday party. People have an opportunity to connect. To be social, to be human!
For me, and the millions of remote workers in America there is little opportunity to feel like a part of society, part of humanity! Like alien outcasts we hide in our houses, toiling away at computers while dressed in our most work appropriate pajamas. After a leisurely 10 foot walk from my bedroom to my kitchen, I have arrived at the office! But, something, or rather somebody, is missing. The usual social interactions are gone. I am the only one getting coffee in the kitchen, I don’t bump into anyone while making lunch. In fact, I literally don’t see another human being during work hours, unless there is a delivery! And I think the UPS guy is on to my desperate need for interaction. He drops stuff at the door and breaks into a dead sprint back to the truck before I can ask him how Sheila and the kids are.
Take away those formal and social interactions and you remove one of the most important ways of exchanging information and engaging with your team. “Fortunately” technology has found a way to extend its reach and tries to bridge the communication gap faced by remote teams. The old school telephone will do in a pinch, but it is more likely a text, IM, e-mail, Slack conversations will take the place of that in person chat. Still, even with all that technology remote workers like me still feel out of the loop, or worse — disengaged. Why? With all this technology at our fingertips, how are we still failing to communicate?
The truth is, managing remote employees is much, much harder than working with people in one common office setting or multiple regional offices. Remote workers face serious hurdles in achieving alignment and maintaining engagement. The way I see it, there are three major problems remote workers face. To be clear, all businesses must deal with these, but they are magnified with remote workers.
Problem #1: What the hell are we supposed to be doing — what’s the plan Stan?
This is always a challenge. Waiting for plans to cascade down from exec teams, be interpreted by each successive layer and then cascaded again takes a long time. Each layer of interpretation can dilute alignment and clarity on what needs to be accomplished and how that really aligns with what the overall business needs to achieve for the year. What’s worse is that if these plans are only reviewed when they are made — what value are they in a fast paced, ever changing environment? Are they being updated? Where are they stored? How do I see what other teams are working on? This is a challenge for a business that has everyone in one place where social interactions can facilitate these discussions. Imagine what it is like for those of us that don’t get to interact with the knowledge holders directly? We may get the important directives in an e-mail which doesn’t allow for easy clarification. We also don’t get to talk about it across the table or in the hallway. Something critical may be communicated during an impromptu gathering where we miss out. It is not easy to be remembered when you aren’t around all the time. I guess the saying is true: Out of sight, out of mind.
Problem #2: I’m not sure if I’m awesome or terrible — am I doing the right thing?
We all like praise. We equally like to know if we aren’t doing something right, so we can correct it and get back on track. The problem is — who do you ask? Who really knows how you are doing? The other issue, is how do you ask. If someone walked up to you without warning and asked, what would you say about their performance? Would you be more positive than you should be? Would you focus on more general statements that don’t specifically call out how someone is doing? How would you collate all the feedback data? When would you use it? It is funny, we all like praise, but when it comes to giving formal feedback on a written review, don’t we usually focus on the weaknesses and what could be improved? These are challenges that ad hoc feedback collection faces. This is even more of a challenge for remote workers. Bumping into someone so that you can ask them how you are doing, doesn’t happen. Being out of the loop, means you might miss opportunities to provide feedback on others, let alone collect it for yourself where you can have the chance to read someone’s body language and not just hear the words or see them on a small screen and try to interpret that.
Problem #3: I’ve lost all touch with humanity and haven’t left my house in weeks. Send food — scratch that — send conversation. Where’s Wilson?
Like I discussed earlier, lack of contact with other “real” people can be a challenge and can impact a person’s engagement. Oh, I will try to hide it, because who is going to listen to someone complain about working from home. You don’t have any commute to fight through, you don’t need to worry about your appearance — you don’t even really have to get dressed for that matter! But the isolation does impact your engagement. I wonder if my teammates can notice when the isolation impacts me? Again, these aren’t problems for only the remote workers. This can happen in any organization. Do people talk about other people’s engagement levels? Do managers have access to people’s feedback of you on an ongoing basis? Is it unbiased? Do managers know what to do with the data and know how to interpret it? Many organizations will collect this type of information, but often only once a year and it is usually in vague and general ways. What is this person good at? What could they improve on? What makes it worse is that you get to pick who gives feedback on you — hmmmm — I think I will pick the people who will provide positive feedback. Also, how does a manager normally use that feedback? Is it for your growth — or is it presented in a way to justify not getting as big a raise/bonus?
Your Squadley Solution
Squadley wasn’t built specifically for remote workers, but it certainly solves many of the problems remote workers have to face. Good news for businesses is that if you are solving these problems at elevated levels compared to “in-house” workers, you are going to nail it for them as well!
Squadley is designed to be a transparent goal alignment tool that clearly allows for a plan of record that everyone has access to and can see what everyone is working on. It is easy to update and course correct as needed. Rapidly changing business environment — no problem! Squadley is a tool used by all and keeps track of all relevant comments associated with goals. You will know where to look for the information you need. This isn’t something recorded and saved in some exec’s folder somewhere to be pulled out a year later. Want to know who is working on a goal and what their role is? Squadley uses RACI (responsibility matrix) assignments for each goal, so you know exactly who is doing what and how they are doing. Those RACI assignments drive micropulses that ask squadmates who are working on that goal what is being done and how it is being accomplished. There is no hiding behind your friends! Having an off period, Squadley and its Virtual Coach will flag that to your manager and prompt them to check in with you and find ways to support you as you get back to the performance level you were at before and beyond! Managers are supported as well. Feedback on them allows for their growth and development. The best thing about all of this? It is always on. You don’t have to wait for the one time of year for this to occur.
The world is moving more and more towards remote work and distributed teams, we just have to accept that. But we also need to recognize the unique challenges this approach creates, and think creatively about how to solve them. Squadley does just that, giving managers the tools they need to be awesome, bridging that gap between the office and the home office.
