Done correctly working remotely can increase your team’s productivity, but it also comes with inherent and unique challenges like lack of face-to-face information exchange, social isolation, and distractions at home -- all examples pulled from HBR's Guide to Managing Your (Newly) Remote Workers. Compounded with organizational and financial disruptions caused by COVID-19, leaders and managers may be finding employee engagement has become even tougher.
I’ve been discussing this topic with Samin Saadat (founder of Jalapeño Employee Engagement Solutions) over the past two weeks and find their focus on addressing systemic causes of a poor engagement or productivity instead of the ‘symptoms’ to be a refreshing and useful way of thinking. I asked Samin for advice on how to separate the two and she provided me with the following insights.
It’s important to realize that cause and effect are not always related to time and space. Many symptoms experienced in this new world of remote could have causes dating pre-pandemic, but changes to your physical workspace have exposed and highlighted them. Here is a hypothetical.
Symptom: A new vision for the company was created based on the risks and opportunities of the pandemic, staff said they understood and agreed with it, but there has been a lack of accountability and engagement on their behalf.
Assumption: Now that everyone is remote, information is not being disseminated properly, staff are slacking off without oversight, and being distracted at home.
Quick-fix solution (a.k.a. painkiller): Communicating the vision and expectations repeatedly, through various channels to ensure everyone is aware of the way forward.
Alternative Systematic Approach: Ask yourself, your leadership, and your staff the following questions:
By challenging assumptions, forcing yourself to validate them, and asking questions that focus on causation, you as a manager can begin to identify the key ways in which you can solve the engagement issues.
It’s attractive to address symptoms with “painkillers”, aka quick fixes that provide temporary relief, like rewards, cash incentives, and digital happy hours. These things may provide some uptick in behaviour or mood, but without addressing the cause (lack of connectivity to the team; lack of information/misinformation about role and company mission; etc) the negative symptoms will return.