Remote Work and Productivity
The question on everyone’s minds: Does this work and is it effective? Can you be productive whilst working remotely? Do you get more out of your staff, as opposed to when they were sitting in your offices/cubicles? The answer is yes and no. You can be productive when working remotely. And you can also be very unproductive when working remotely. Let’s look at this a bit closer.
Productivity equals Performance, right? Performing employees equals productive workers? So do we then draw the conclusion that as long as our employees perform, it means they are productive? Think about that… For me, performing is not the only contributing factor to being productive. Being productive is getting your to-do lists ticked off in a day’s work – that which is reasonable (you know yourself to justify what can be done in a day and what needs a bit more time). Your to-do lists needs to contain the contents that aligns with your performance goals/targets and not “what am I going to do today for 8 hours?”. Ask yourself “why am I doing this?” and then you get to the reason why you want to perform. Then the link between performing & productivity can be made, because you will now understand how productive you are on a daily basis – are you achieving those objectives on your to-do list?
Being a massive extrovert myself, I really miss the face-to-face engagements with colleagues and clients. I do understand the safety measure that goes along with the virtual meetings, but no matter who you are, you can’t tell me it is the same as sitting across from another person. There are a number of elements that are removed from that meeting in-person. The quick catch-up and greeting people in the morning when you arrive at work. The chats by the water cooler when refilling your bottle and taking that break from sitting the past hour. That is an element that a phone call just can’t replace. We humans like to chat – especially when it comes to sharing our own stories, jokes, or funny videos you received on that one WhatsApp Group.
Remote work introduced us to virtual meetings. We can still meet, where and however we wish to, as you only have to accept the meeting request. People don’t always engage in the same way they would have, because now I have the option to switch off my video, or put myself on mute without it being questioned? Sure, I get that a lot of times you have the neighbor’s dog making a noise outside and you want to respect the other people in the meeting, but that does not always happen (if it does, please go speak to your neighbor). People sit and scroll social media, answer messages, take phone calls, whilst attending the meeting online and at least they can prove they were present, but they are busy with things that you would never have done if the facilitator sits in front of you in that boardroom/office. That hampers your level of engagement and then filters through to your level of effective communication. The meetings end with “nothing from my side” or “all good thanks” and then you have to follow up with an email afterward and basically have the whole meeting again on paper. This puts a massive damper on if remote work is productive. The game-changer however, is that if you have a chairperson/facilitator who is well prepared and sticks to the point, meetings flow even better than if they were to take place in person.
What then, is the answer to ensure that we have productivity whilst working remotely? Have a balance – all things in life, TED talks and great speeches of moments in history, always comes back to balance. Don’t forget to also check in with the person that is sitting on the other side of that screen. Yes, they are employed for a specific reason/goal, but they also form part of a family, lead a household, have sport interests etc. The moment we forget to do that, we have lost sight of the employee-employer relationship. People can’t be seen us numbers, but rather as resources. A resource needs to receive in order to give and vice versa. Expectations can’t only be set from one side – then you will never have engaging employees (which everyone wants).
Regular check-ins with staff is another meeting/frequent engagement that surfaced, to make sure people see each other, engage often, can be redirected and ask for support when needed. The pitfall in this case however, was that these meetings became one-way communication. A lot of people got a mental block against these meetings, and I could understand that if you asked people to explain why and just listen to them. The importance of a manager/chairperson/facilitator is vital in these conversations because they are there to lead the conversation, not have it as well. Allow people to provide feedback regarding if expectations were met, ask questions where they might seem stuck and request support with difficult scenarios/situations. Remember, that colleague can no longer just get up from their desk, knock on the door and run something past you. It looks different now. The new “knock on door” is now a missed call or message notification. It needs to be treated with the same urgency.
Remote work can be productive – I am a firm believer of that. With people no longer need to travel to work daily and factor in travel time, it makes up in a way of contributing to your day. We all said with last years Level 5 Lockdown, that “we were given the gift of time” and we embraced it. But soon, we found ourselves back in the rat race of working those long hours daily, because you don’t have to leave somewhere now. We still need breaks, need to have lunch, rest and spend time with our loved ones. If we get to a point where there is a balance between all of that, we would not be having this conversation. But, reality is, that we need to be open to learn something new daily – remain teachable. You never know, that one employee, employer, manager, supervisor might just be able to teach you something you did not know. Get up, work hard and achieve daily (even if it is remotely) – do it.
