3 Keys You Need to Make the Work from Home Revolution - Work (Hybrid Workforce Series, Part 2)

The movement in the job market is staggering. But it’s nothing compared to what’s about to come.

1 in 5 employees voluntarily changed employers in 2020. More than half of these were Gen Z and Millennials. 

The number one reason they changed jobs? Workplace flexibility.

And this from a research study conducted by IBM. The same IBM that pioneered remote work as far back as the 80’s but who recanted in 2017, recalling thousands of employees back to the office. Big blue has reversed their opinion yet again, announcing that over 75,000 employees will work from home permanently even after the pandemic’s end, proving that even the smartest and biggest among us can change their minds. 

What’s more: that job movement is about to intensify as employees figure out how to transition their lives back to work through (yet again) a new normal.

You are one-of-two opinions: you are either firmly convinced that your team works better in-person and that physical proximity is imperative to good work. Or, you are convinced (or at least leaning towards) the viewpoint that physical proximity is secondary to getting good work done.

Both opinions are convinced they are right because they each hold their convictions from a place of bias, a bias based on experience, anecdotal evidence, and (let’s admit it) personal preference. 

But, in the long run, it doesn’t matter if you are right, it only matters that you are comfortable with the risks associated with the consequences, because the evidence now is overwhelming: the employee today wants the luxury of choice.

Prior to the pandemic, workplace flexibility was the #1 benefit sought by in-demand job seekers. As the pandemic hit, many of us were forced to create work-from-home options. And now that the working world got a taste of what a more balanced life could look like -that we can actually create harmony between our work and personal lives- there will be no going back to the way it was, making this grand WFH experiment a permanent reality. In fact, before 2020, 3% of the U.S. labor force worked remotely, now it’s 42%, and that change is rapidly growing. 

Shopify’s CEO put it this way, “office-centricity is over” stating that all 5,000+ employees will work from home. Walmart’s tech chief told his team that “working virtually will be the new normal.” Quora’s CEO wrote a letter to his employees detailing their “remote-first” strategy. In a survey, 60% of their employees chose not to work from an office even after covid-19 is no longer a threat and, to combat the elitist view that the most powerful people will still be going into an office at HQ every day, he dismantled their HQ stating, “our headquarters will be in the cloud.” 

If future talent (and some of your existing talent) cites flexibility as the #1 requirement, and you operate a business that can operate either fully remote or as a hybrid and you choose not to, the risks for you just got higher: retaining top talent and attracting top talent will be incredibly difficult as the economy roars back. Goldman Sachs predicts that the job market is about to boom. 

Work-from-anywhere is the new health benefits package: the #1 non-negotiable sought by employees.

But why is it hard for some of us to make this adjustment? 

Let’s not ignore the elephant lumbering in the corner any longer, let’s trot him right out in the center of the room:

Most of us who won’t embrace a remote work culture can’t embrace a remote work culture because of one mental block: trust. 

Trust has nothing to do with you, or your character. You are not small-minded or mean-spirited, you’ve simply built a successful business on habits of productivity that you know: in-person meetings, face-to-face management, the visual cues that you can see all that’s happening, etc. You built your success on that model (most of us did) and no one can fault you for sticking to your proven success. 

(I’m operating under the baseline assumption that you absolutely trust your employees to work when you’re not looking, you have to at some level, otherwise, you wouldn’t be building a business with employees at all, you’d be doing the work all by yourself). 

But it’s still a trust issue. When you peel back those layers and try to uncover why it’s difficult to embrace the remote work culture, it’s not about trusting your employees, you don’t trust the way you and your team work. 

You lack three critical factors to making remote work, work: Performance, oversight, and mindset. 

(I) Performance

Consider performance evaluation a critical, missing component in your work-from-home playbook, everything hinges on it.

Evaluating performance varies by role but most of us (actually, all of us) in this business are driven by sales and therefore driven by performance goals tied to sales. Without KPI’s and sales targets, we have no way to measure success, no way to define whether we’re moving forward or standing still.  

 Some distributors go years without setting business goals. Others make broad sweeping statements (“grow by 30%”) with no real tactical plan to get there. We treat goals like wishes, more hope-filled than objective-filled. Worse, many of our goals don’t map to others downstream. Part of the reason why work-from-home is tough on some leaders is that they don’t have a clearly defined system of accountability for performance. Because KPI’s are not codified and sales goals aren’t mapped to individual performance, there’s no metric for how an employee is performing.  Departments and individuals do not have goals that roll up into the larger goal. 

Performance metrics and goals are your most powerful, non-invasive way of building accountability with your team. Quarterly goals, monthly goals, individual goals, departmental goals (whatever method you choose) acts as your oversight. It replaces micro-management (which reduces leaders into overlords) with athletic development (which transforms managers into coaches) by helping teammates (athletes) move toward peak performance, building championship-winning teams. 

If Susan is in sales or if John is in support and you have no way to monitor their success, no feedback loop for progress other than the laying eyes on them in the office, having chats about projects, or “checking in” frequently, then your feedback loop -your metric for success- is simply your own perception rather than quantifiable metrics, goals, and performance. 

One reason why the virtual office might be a leap for you is not that you don’t trust your people, but because you don’t trust your system. You have no way of evaluating whether or not you are succeeding. 

The good news? Systems are easier to fix than people. ;-)  

The second factor you might lack is equally as simple to fix: clear oversight. 

(II) Oversight

That office wall you have between you and your employees does not give you x-ray vision into their day-to-day work. Even a glass-lined office cannot tell you anything about the hum of your team except the visual cue that heads are down and typing away, or at least that they are at their desks working.

It’s ironic, but those leaders who have entirely remote teams and who have intelligent systems that provide immediate feedback on real-time projects have more insight into their day-to-day business than those who can “see everyone” and walk among their colleagues chatting about projects in play. 

You are not omniscient but your systems can be. 

On commonsku, you can watch the literal workflow of real-time interactions between your employees and their colleagues, you can gain more insight into the day-to-day of your business whether you are in Brazil or in the breakroom. What’s more important is that colleagues have that same visual access so that everyone can see and everyone is connected to the rhythm of the business, not just by slack, but by projects as they are updated.

This isn’t just a commonsku plug, all of your systems should give you this transparency, this all-knowing immediacy. From slack, to tools like Ally for goal-tracking, and more, the idea is to create systems that communicate everything happening in your business rather than relying on your sense perceptions only. If I’m driving down the autobahn at 95 MPH, I can’t get a visual on my tires, my fuel levels, or my progress except through my system, I’m moving way too fast. If I rely on my gut instinct or if I fly by feel, then the next hairpin turn could be my last. 

It sounds self-serving to state this except that the explosive growth in cloud technology is mind-boggling and that growth is going to lead to even greater improvements. Tobi Lütke, Shopify’s CEO stated that we’re entering a new era of creating “high-fidelity teams” and like high-performance cars, we need our systems to match the velocity and distance we want to travel. 

Diane Gherson, CHRO at IBM said that “We are seeing an acceleration of the trend to democratize the workplace. During these last few months, digital technology has flattened hierarchies, with everyone connected and getting information at the same time, and so many channels for employee input and involvement in decision-making in real-time.”

So, perhaps it’s less about trusting people and more about trusting your system. What’s the missing link for you? Is it a performance tracking system? Goal setting? Communication? Order management? 

Figure out which system you are either missing (or underutilizing) and give your teams the democracy and the engine they crave. 

(III) Mindset 

Some of us have built a bias toward working in an office-centric environment because we can’t imagine any other way. Or, the virtual experiment we’ve experienced might have been incredibly strenuous on us and our team, evidence that it wouldn’t work. But just because it was a struggle, doesn’t mean it won’t work. Like all major shifts, these sea-change events require nothing less than a full-time dedication to make it work. 

Most of us who fight the work-from-anywhere culture fight it from our personal preference, just as some who embrace it also do so from a bias and personal preference. But it’s largely a question of attitude first, then aptitude. 78% of HR leaders identified mindset as a greater challenge than skill set in driving the success of a hybrid workforce model. 

Do you have the mindset to try and make it work? Or are you convinced it will fail? Because either way, you’ll be right, you will prove your bias. Because you can acquire the tools and develop the skillset to make it successful. 

No one came into this new virtual work environment with all the skills to lead a team effectively, we’re all learning. But if you have the mindset to make it work and the willingness to change and challenge yourself and your team, you’ll help usher in a new renaissance of anywhere creation, and “reverse the brain drain” by creating an equitable collaborative workforce, plus create an organization that is faster, more adaptable, and who can attract talent from anywhere because you now work - everywhere.

In a recent Harvard Business Review article (Our Work-From-Anywhere Future), Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury stated, “The question is not whether work from anywhere is possible but what is needed to make it possible .... if leaders support synchronous and asynchronous communication, brainstorming, and problem-solving; lead initiatives to codify knowledge online; encourage virtual socialization, team building, and mentoring … and set an example by becoming work-from-anywhere employees themselves, all-remote organizations may indeed emerge as the future of work.”

Stay tuned to this series as we’ll explore next how to set goals that help monitor progress, provide oversight, and motivate your team!