Society is in the middle of a modern-day workplace revolution as COVID-19 completely resets how and where millions do their jobs. What started as a short-term reaction to the pandemic is quickly becoming a long-term shift for many organizations. Those already on or beginning their journey to redefine the future of work must ask themselves how well they know their workforce.
Productivity
Old-school attitudes about productivity persist. A recent EY survey found 55% of organizations believe remote workers are less productive than their in-office counterparts. While it’s understandable businesses feel a need to measure productivity, employees dislike feeling like they’re being monitored. Many remote workers are juggling personal and professional demands — especially if they have children or aging relatives requiring care at home. Team leaders need to rethink their attitudes about traditional measures of productivity.
Instead, they should set clear expectations of tasks and follow up with remote employees if there’s any sense they’re lagging. They should also resist the temptation to reinforce old ways of working when using modern technology like Zoom. Instead, technology should complement new work models. Use it to collaborate and inform, not to hold the same types of time-consuming and inefficient meetings that were held prior to the pandemic and caused employees to disengage.
Good old-fashioned communication is usually best when it comes to assessing productivity. Talking to employees and reaching out often to try to determine if they’re struggling, and how you can help, is good management. Assign tasks that have clearly defined goals and have one-on-one conversations with staff. If remote workers have clear deliverables, it’s easy to measure output volume and quality. Above all else, work to foster trust and maintain engagement, even from afar.
Employee preferences
As the pandemic endures, organizations must assess who truly needs to return to the office. If team leaders believe some employees should head back to the office, they must be specific about why — it shouldn’t just be because they’re wanted in sight due to concerns they’re not being productive from home. The command-and-control environment no longer works for modern-day workers.
Ultimately, businesses must listen to their staff about where they feel most productive. Each worker is different. Millennials and Gen Z workers, for example, complained of loneliness working from home in a recent EY survey. They feel better gathering around the white board with their colleagues. Baby boomers, on the other hand, are happy working from home and don’t want to go back to a stressful daily commute.
That means companies should be working hard to establish a distributed work model which starts by assessing where each individual employee is most efficient and productive and taking steps to accommodate them. Unless a job must be performed from the office - and the reasons are clearly communicated to the employee - workers will expect flexible work arrangements to continue.
Workspaces, health and safety concerns
Physical health is, of course, among the top concerns shared by survey respondents — regardless of generation or geography. Addressing these fears is critically important, but so is understanding how they influence employee mental health and happiness.
Here are some considerations for how you can create a safe and welcoming workplace for those either required or willing to work on site:
- Redesign your workplace of the future. Designing the office of the future includes creating physical spaces that are designed to promote engagement and productivity. Offices should include workspaces that are designed to foster collaboration and teaming. Incorporating technology into the office is a great way to help build a team environment and can increase employee satisfaction and engagement with their physical environment.
- Be compassionate and transparent. Understand that personal and professional situations evolve, and employees may require flexibility or change to their remote or in-office working arrangements. Make sure to clearly communicate the measures in place and resources available to everyone regardless of where they fall in the distributed work model. That includes transparency around health and safety protocols.
- Keep health and safety top of mind. Your health and safety protocols still apply to remote workers. If your remote workers don’t have ergonomic desk setups, for example, it leaves the door open for workplace injuries — even in a home office. Ensure working conditions are discussed ahead of time so you’re not surprised by any disability claims down the road.
Workplace culture
It’s relatively easy to shape a company’s culture when you’re in an office and chatting with your teams throughout the day, but it’s more difficult when people work remotely.
It’s tough to build bonds and culture from afar, but it’s important to do so. You need to keep your people engaged, and communication is key. A large majority of employers, 86%, told us in the recent EY survey they intend to establish moderate to extensive workplace safety strategies. Those types of efforts are likely to create positive morale and office culture.
Culture can also play a key role in attracting talent. Let’s consider the case of an IT company that opts to implement permanent remote work and go completely virtual. By selling all their real estate holdings, they can use the substantial savings to reinvest in human capital, not only helping keep existing team members happy, but to attract top talent, some of whom may place a high premium on workplace culture. It can be a win-win.
Working abroad
In a distributed workforce model, talent pools don’t necessarily need to be located where the company is based. Hiring people who live abroad or having existing employees move elsewhere may help you recruit and retain top talent you wouldn’t otherwise be able to access.
But what does it mean for businesses? If you allow employees to work anywhere in the world, you’ll have to develop integrated and enabling policies, controls and governance and work closely with a multidisciplinary team to mitigate the risks.
While not limited to just these areas, you need to know and understand the labour laws of the countries where you’re hiring or have talent. If you’re providing someone with a Canadian employment contract, what applies to them? Are they being paid comparably to what they would get paid to do the job in the local economy? What do they receive in terms of health benefits, for example, if they cannot take advantage of the company’s local plan?
You also need to get comfortable with the tax implications. What are the tax laws? Will the company now have a corporate filing in that jurisdiction? Do you have an obligation to withhold and remit payroll taxes? Each country has its own tax model in terms of income and corporate taxes, and employers should abide by them.
Looking to the workplace of the future, organizations should be laying down a solid foundation from which to propel their employees towards continued productivity and success. Remote work is clearly here to stay. So business leaders need to make the necessary changes to help their organizations and their employees thrive in the post-pandemic era.
