Remote Working

Remote working arrangements is happening across our nation with record numbers of employees. The initial reaction from companies is that employees are producing more than when they were located physically on site. The consensus is that there has been no drop in productivity. In addition, if this trend of working from home continues, we will eventually see vacant office spaces like we have never seen in this country. The thought of companies saving on office space expense would affect the bottom line in a positive way.

If you’re struggling with productivity of your employees who are working from home, you need to look at some measures you can take to turn this trend around.
Accountability is a major factor to ensure the same or greater productivity with remote work. It is very difficult for some industries; however, you need to find a tool to measure output. If there is no way to measure their productivity, then distance working can be a disaster. An example of measuring employees would be how many audits were conducted in a finance group? Another example would be having objectives set up to determine if the design of a product is being completed on time with a certain level of quality? If you currently have a performance management system in place with strong objectives written, this should be an easier transition to manage remote working. If not, developing strong objectives will increase productivity.
The difference with remote working is that you will need to break out their objectives into smaller milestones. If you have smaller milestones as subsets of the objective, it will be easier to determine if remote working is placing your employees behind or ahead of schedule. Without a system of accountability, remote working will most likely become a major issue in the productivity of your company.
With the rapid increase in COVID-19 cases sweeping our country, remote working could be the only alternative to get the work done. If you find your company in this situation, then make sure you incorporate a plan to create accountability when you transition to remote working.
What has been the effect on the actual employees during this transition to remote working? Depending on the location of the employee, this new phenomenon has either been a blessing or a curse.
If you factor in the typical commute in larger cities of several hours a day, this would be a blessing since you’re not in bumper-to-bumper traffic and being stressed out before you arrive to work. Imagine having several hours per day to do what you wanted to do each and every day. All this free time would make it extremely difficult for any employee to return to the long commute again.

According to a survey of 2,800 workers, by a Los Angeles-based staffing firm, Robert Half, states that 70% of professionals who work remotely are now working weekends too. Working hours have also increased for 45 % of all professionals. In addition, the survey also showed that working parents were more likely to work weekends and more than eight hours per day.

Workers under the age of 40 were usually working weekends and more than eight hours per day than those older than 40. Finally, men were more likely than women to be working weekends and more than eight hours per day.

Consequently, the effect is that it’s very hard to disconnect from the work environment when the workday ends. When you find yourself answering email late at night that you would normally ignore, you know you’re having difficulties with your work life balance. When your workspace is your home, it makes it very difficult to turn off the switch when you quit work for the end of the day. In the past, you would disconnect from work by the physical commute back to your home.

Another area of concern for your employees is what they see and read in the news. They see high unemployment rates and states closing down certain businesses; this creates fear. The uncertainty of keeping your job is a strong motivator to burn out by working excessive hours.
Ultimately, how your employees handle working remotely depends on how your people respond to the uncertainty of the current environment. Group 1 will be stressed and feel they need to over work themselves to keep their jobs. Group 2 will do as little work as possible. Without accountability this group will barely get by and create more work for group1. Group 3 will cherish this opportunity because it allows them the flexibility to choose their working hours during the day. It will create freedom in their schedules and more time to do the things they like to do because of the reduction in commuting time.

As leaders you will need to be able to address the challenges of group 1 and group 2 while being grateful for group 3. The under performers will need accountability. The over-worked will need encouragement to take some time off for rest and refreshment in their lives. Weekly meetings and monitoring of hours is a good start for this group. With weekly meetings you can prioritize workloads, extend the due dates for projects and rebalance the workload to others.

With the proper leadership, working remotely can be a true benefit to companies and employees.