Managing Capability With Hybrid Workers

The whole working from home concept that arose during the pandemic was so successful, that many businesses decided to introduce hybrid working across their entire organisations ...

Employees work from both home and the office, depending on what they do and whether management agrees, of course. But what happens when someone is struggling with performance?

"What can be done to manage this?"

Obviously, your team has to have KPI's or you may not know one of them was having issues, but the key thing to realise is that managing a team of hybrid workers is not the same as managing an office-based one. Employees need to learn new skills and one of these is self-motivation.

Nearly 38% of employees now work from home at least one day a week, and that's compared with 18% before the pandemic. It's vital that managers can monitor them at home as easily as they do in the office. Can technology be replicated in both places so it's seamless for them to move between home and the office? What additional data protection requirements are needed? Does your software need tweaking to give managers better stats on performance?

Standards must be clearly communicated and goals must be set. Should an employee meet expectations when working from home once a week, maybe they could be rewarded with an extra day a week at home? Conversely, should one of your team members not hit their targets, you could require them to be in the office full time for a while.

"You must always be proactive with them!"

Any HR issues should only be communicated face-to-face as it's easy to take an email out of context when there are no facial expressions or body language to engage with. Tackling issues directly and easily builds trust and helps develop a good working relationship with your remote workers. Scheduled, regular calls and video chats will keep up their motivation.

And involve them as a team. A weekly group call allows people to interact even if they miss each other at the office due to different homeworking schedules. A quarterly face-to-face meeting over lunch is always a good idea too.

"Do be aware of proximity bias though!"

This can arise when you have regular contact with office workers and less contact with those working remove. Assumptions can be subconsciously made when there is no physical presence.

Good management, solid KPIs and regular communication will work wonders with your hybrid workers.

If you feel inspired to find out more about anything I've said here, do call me on 01908 774320 or leave a comment below and I'll be in touch as soon as I can.