Making remote working a success depends on a lot of different factors. Employee engagement is an important metric, but so’s the ability to work at least part of the time in isolation. You don’t want to be micromanaged, but productivity is important, as is accountability. Liking your job and the people you work with is important as well.
But one thing that stands out as being more important is that satisfaction with remote work has a lot to do with individual managers. Multiple studies, including one from Zenger Folkman, show that there is a direct link between the engagement of remote workers and their positive perception of their managers.
The same goes for quality of work. Those who report that they are highly satisfied with their managers often do the best work and are among the most productive employees.
Collaboration with teammates located in the office or elsewhere is rated slightly higher for remote or mostly remote workers than on in-person teams. Again, there is a direct correlation (and we know correlation is not causation) between how you feel about your manager and proactive team collaboration.
Some of this just makes inherent sense if you’re a remote worker. If you like your manager, and most of your interactions are neutral at least, and positive at best, you’re more likely to communicate often and more honestly. Trust is a huge factor in successful remote work.
But a lot of getting the most from a remote team isn’t based on the workers themselves. The manager plays a critical role. Here are just some of the things those managers who were rated highly do well:
- Keep employees up to date on what’s going on in the company (not gossip, but actionable information)
- Facilitate connections between teammates
- Check in often enough to effectively manage performance without micromanaging the workers or getting in the way of productivity
- Recruit and hire people who will be a good fit for remote or hybrid work. (They probably don’t do the recruiting, but they sure are in on the interviews and final decision)
- Make sure work is aligned with the team and organization goals
- Understand the challenges of the remote workplace (logistic, physical, psychological) and offer assistance and solutions where necessary
- Get people the help they need to succeed. This includes resources, training and motivation
Yes, good remote and hybrid work depends on individuals who take responsibility for themselves, have the talent to do the job well, and are proactively solving problems and getting answers. Talentless, untrained, or lazy people won’t do good work whether they’re in the office or not. But without a manager who understands this, and has the leadership skills to help people do their best work regardless of location, even the best employees will eventually struggle.
You don’t need a lot of data and statistics to know that good leaders get the best from their teams (although it’s good to know someone is gathering that data and it’s not your imagination.) But this leads to an important conclusion: we need to help leaders adapt to the remote work environment.
So what are you doing to be a better leader in that situation? And what is your organization doing to help develop the skills needed for a mid-21st century workplace?
