Virtual Work Can Help Us Get Ahead & Find Success
Virtual work can be tough on inexperienced organizations but virtual workers can be a blessing and cash windfall. Keys to virtual employees' success include well-defined procedures, metrics, actions, communications, and, most importantly, management modeling. Here’s what it takes to turn virtual work and "work from home" into profit.
BENEFITS
A lot of research shows that virtual employees can be more effective than their in-person counterparts. Understanding the differences between office and virtual work is an opportunity to gain an advantage over competitors.
Low Overhead & Scalability
Virtual employees offer lower overhead costs, fast scalability. For example, no office space costs and utilities. Employees can even use their own computers on VPNs and be reimbursed for software while receiving a tax write-off. They can be hired quickly and trained virtually, allowing fast growth and expedited the processes. 1099 vendors can be used when there is not enough work to justify the employee cost.
Flexibility for happier employees
Flexibility equates happier employees with reduced travel time, more family time, more relaxation, work abroad while traveling, and a better office environment when they do come in. Their personal goals are enabled and they feel lucky, increasing loyalty while reducing turnover.
But…increased management, security risks, less cohesive teams.
Virtual employees require additional management to ensure task focus. They present security risks from their own networks and devices. Without procedural communication protocols from an engaged management supervisor, group and team cohesion often suffers, resulting in project performance confusion, misunderstandings, alienation, and other failings. Luckily, good employee support and good managers easily overcome these issues. Here’s how!
CHARACTERISTICS OF SUCCESSFUL VIRTUAL EMPLOYEES
Some individuals are predisposed to excellent performance in a virtual management system. Recognizing individual characteristics is the backbone of good virtual work. Even if you didn’t originally hire for virtual work, recognizing and supporting these individual characteristics will reduce management workload.
Self-managed with Flow and a personal interest in the work
Good virtual workers are self managed. They can manage stress while giving self-leadership and self-direction. These personality traits also support flow-states, which is a brainwave state of being where time passes without notice and productivity remains at a high-level, almost like a trance. Individuals with high flow often combine a high-level of personal interest in the work or are well suited to it. This is not to be confused with passion, the desire to define oneself through work. Self-motivated and self-managed employees is imperative to the basic success of a virtual employee. Recognize them and make sure they have everything they need to keep working.
Communicative, Participates, Positive influence, Helps team unity
Virtual employees must also be able to operate in the context of a team. A successful virtual employee will foster success among team members. They’ll have excellent communication, participation in meetings, and presentation of ideas. They will also create unity in the group, influencing peers for the better. Communication in virtual work is essential. It is easy to do work at home or a coffee shop without contacting supervisors or other team members, but it leads to stagnation, confusion, and wasted time. For this reason, good leadership from management is an imperative for all virtual teams.
LEADERSHIP MATTERS: ENSURING PRODUCTIVITY
Clearly defined roles and goals.
Leadership is a key factor of virtual employee productivity. Having a strategic plan of defined roles and goals allows management to measure and encourage better performance.
Constant feedback
Not to be confused with performance appraisal, this is part of a strategic pipeline which defines employee progress towards a goal. As work gets done, they need continual feedback to maintain understanding of each new task objective. They also need affirmation, which clears mentally-draining doubts about their work and feels good – it’s a reward. For an extra boost, some people will also be motivated by earned group recognition, but not all, so get to know your team!
Leadership-modeled behavior patterns
This constant feedback models behavioral patterns for employees. Managers must demonstrate leadership by supporting employee project goals and personal advancements, while conferring group values of communication and personal accountability through example.
Self-motivated accountability + Easy reporting
Next, self-motivated communication and accountability will be the result of defined direction and management-modeled behavior. A stated goal of ongoing clear, constant contact helps prevent failure to communicate critical project details. Our brains always try to conserve resources, so easy reporting is fundamental to open communication channels. In turn, this promotes transparency which supports team trust and cohesion.
Transparency, Trust, & Support
Finally, personal interests are linchpins of self-managed employees and flow. Time set aside to pursue personal projects, tangents, or related areas of interest keeps them engaged in their work and the project, yielding greater productivity. For example, passion projects created in paid “free" time is the source of many pivotal products from Google. Training also provides a major support in this role. Training provide growth and advancement satisfaction while introducing employees to new ideas and concepts, resulting in better group understanding or collaborative interests. It also prepares employees for ongoing advancement in company successes and personal responsibilities. Help them level up!
LEADERSHIP MATTERS: 3 POINTS OF INNOVATION
Mismanaged virtual work can be bad, really bad, for creativity. Without casual meandering conversation and office relationships, innovation and creativity can suffer. Here’s how to use virtual work to boost innovation instead.
1. Leader-Member Exchange
Procedural input and flexibility.
Leadership support.
Collaborative efforts (democratic leadership).
Frequent, quality communication.
Leadership and communication are critical to productivity, but also innovation. Leader-member exchange, sometimes referred to as LMX, emphasizes procedural virtual employee management and innovation success. To foster innovation, the project pipeline must incorporate employee input and be flexible enough to support adjustment according to new insights or ideas. Think of it this way – the collective ideas of 10 people’s diversified experiences easily outperform one star individual, IF they’re empowered. Therefore, teams must have leadership support to adjust to new project opportunities. Flexible support can be achieved in part by collaborative empowerment with democratic leadership. Employees who remain in contact with their team and manager tend to become as good as people think they are and rise to the opportunity when presented with ownership. As always, the key to enabling flexibility is the communication. Organizations which support and encourage LMX become leaders in innovation on the strength of their entire workforce, rather than merely a few, limited individuals.
2. Psychological Safety Group Norms
Everyone contributes in meetings.
Opinions considered equally and seriously.
Positive outlook and moderation
This point is everything. Strong LMX is ideal but insufficient unless group norms promote psychological safety. There are several ways groups can go about this to encourage innovation. First, everyone contributes in meetings. Extroverts and robust individuals are adept at always putting forward their ideas, but these are not always are not always the most skilled or insightful people. Many individuals stay silent unless prompted to share, and then they hold back unless the environment is benevolent. In order to foster a safe, innovative environment, the most radical opinions must be considered equally and seriously. Many laughable thoughts have become the most important products and services which streamline work and society today. Likewise, many pivotal products and ideas were scrapped, only to have a competitor make win instead. The respect for and equal dissection of all ideas, even bad ideas, creates conversations which lead to innovation. Refined concepts become feasible even if the original idea is not. A positive outlook and skilled moderation is the key which promotes psychological safety. If a leader criticizes or moderates negatively, individuals who struggle to share will be encouraged to remain silent or only share safe ideas which would result in less innovation.
This one is tough, so here’s an example. One of the most successful applications of psychological safety as a group norm can be traced back to the leadership of Lorne Michaels at Saturday Night Live. Lorne enacted standards for company meetings which required everyone to speak. Everyone’s ideas were considered both valuable and equal. He goes farther, noting when cast members are tired or upset and making space for their emotions, knowing these would otherwise harm them and the group. The results of his care for people over and above the work and to treat even the lowest level of work as valuable are clear. SNL is the longest-running comedy series of all time and has produced more comedians and spinoff films than any other show.
3: Greater Purpose
Strengths leveraged for fit
Service of greater cause
Finally, greater purpose promotes innovation. Greater purpose is achieved when an individual’s true strengths are leveraged for positional fit or compatibility. Personality assessments such as the Big Five and StrengthsFinder help in this area. Additionally, the service of a greater cause with individual strengths creates employees deeply invested in the work. Connecting profession and vocation to skill and mission results in an individual who has found a reason for being, or “Ikigai” as Japanese culture defines it. If that reason for being is the work they're doing for the company, the company will be extremely benefited by the work they do.
HOW TO MEASURE PRODUCTIVITY
Productivity Appraisals, Performance Goals, & Quality
Productivity and innovation measures can hurt or help. Performance is the ability to meet reasonable productivity goals. These goals can be attached to the productivity pipeline and derived from the abilities of office workers to complete tasks. Management of employee progress differs from appraisals, which assess of whether or not employees are performing to standard, which is a question of the work product quality. Even if an employee is completing tasks on target, it is important to maintain quality. This can be contrasted with other team members’ work quality as well as other employees noting they have to redo, support, or compensate for another employee's performance. It can also be contrasted against past in-office performance.
Innovation Measurement, Variables, and Assessment
Measuring innovation is more difficult. Companies can begin with a baseline over a set period and assess how changes to plans to impact innovation. It is important that these measures ensure variables are changed in a way which can be controlled to explain outcomes. Changing multiple measures or initiating multiple plans will corrupt the data. Moreover, innovation must be measured on a group basis which allows employees to gain ideas from one another or adequately refine each other's ideas into Impactful work.
INTERVENTIONS: INVESTIGATION & ACTION
Investigations
When metrics indicate intervention adjustments, these should only be performed after a thorough investigation which is motivated by support and compassion towards the individual. Data must precede judgement. The issue might immediately present itself, but the source might be different. For example, an employee might constantly be at odds with a team member, but the underlying issue might be a lack of skill, a manager jeopardizing psychological safety, or personal stress.
Questions for Getting to the Root Cause
First of all, what problems are being experienced by or caused by the employee, and what immediate causes have stifled their performance and/or innovation? Are additional innovation and performance expectations contributing? Next, how has involvement been suffering? Does the employee feel trust and integration with their group and or team? Do they trust their manager? What communication channels are suffering, and what does this tell us about their LMX or team? Then how about equality? Do they feel treated fairly, and are they exposed to the diversity of their group’s varying values, or are meetings a stifling set of homogenous ideas? Are their peers also struggling? Finally, does their work have direction and intention? Are they being provided with freedom and the opportunity to build in the area of their interests and abilities?
Actions: Support, Fixes, Training, Promotion, Referral, or Termination.
After investigation, positive support begins with fixing problems in protocols, whether a complication of LMX, teams, or workflow. Training and development of the employee should be considered, depending on the nature of the problem and solution enacted to promote integration. While this step should already part of the productivity plan, additional investment in employees who might have been terminated by other companies will promote a culture of good will and psychological safety. This will encourage employees struggling to ask for help and prevent lost time from future interventions. Struggling employees often just need responsibilities which adequately satisfy their skill set or strengths. Adequately utilizing skills can encourage passion, profession, admission, active identity, and service of all other employees. In rare cases, the employee will be struggling with factors which cannot be solved through support. In these cases, don’t just fire – refer employees to another team or company where they can be adequately integrated. This will create goodwill ambassadors for your own company, which will further promote both their success and company success. This can turn a poor situation into one with good returns.
3 STEPS FOR PREPARING VIRTUAL MANAGERS
1. Transformational Leadership
Program managers must be adequately trained to support and develop virtual employees. This can be stated as the incorporation of transformational leadership, a leadership style which focuses on active engagement and growth rather demand, prodding performance, or transactional leadership. Transformational leaders pass power on to the employees and allow teams to decide on directions where possible. Employees do best in a collaborative environment which supports their efforts and values their insights, rather than a heroic environment where they are expected to follow a dynamic leader with all the answers.
Transformational leadership metrics have been widely studied and found to be extremely effective due to leaders' ability to replicate their compassionate, supportive behavior in subordinates. This replication of leadership for effective results is crystal-clear education, where every position leads. When a transformational leader initiates in these environments, teachers are compelled to grow and engage responsibilities on a new level. Resources suddenly abound. Where teachers once found themselves short handed and resource poor, volunteers now fill their classrooms and new resources abound. This is the effect of transformational leadership.
2. Leader-Member Exchange (LMX)
LMX bears repeating. Managers are usually promoted based on personal skill, politics, or height, not leadership qualities. They have to learn to model appropriate behavior, support, compassion, and communication. The written word is cold without extra effort, se they will need to cultivate positive and trustworthy behavior. Their subordinates should feel as though work is going well and problems can be solved. They should feel their manager owning the burden of decisions while honoring their insights. Managers should provide psychologically safety. They should continually elicit employee opinions and take time to understand employee viewpoints. Failing to do so might mean project failure. They can actually go farther here than just LMX, as a good leader can coach.
3. Coaching Behavior
Great managers receive coaching, and then coach their own teams. Here are six principles for coaching plus one redirect reminder.
Safe environment
Subordinate focus
Investigate their needs
Advocate Self-awareness
Growth Mindsets
As with LMX, coaching requires a safe environment where individuals experience their manager’s benevolent language, their own insights as acceptable, and the situation as under their control. In coaching, Insight is only given by permission if the employee is interested, so the focus will be on the coachee. Managers do not force growth in any particular area upon a coachee, only a struggling employee. They coach their virtual employees to develop the areas and strengths they are interested in developing. They facilitate investigation of needs through question-based, Socratic conversational methods, advocating self-awareness but not pushing investigation or ideas until they are ready. Coaching managers will encourage adoption of a growth mindset through interest in learning rather than a focus on proving their own value.
6. Model Coaching Behavior
7. Trouble? Return to the beginning.
Finally, managers must remember to model coaching behavior. Our reports copy us. We must model psychological safety and collaborative investigation principles to develop virtual employees' communication skills. If we continue to encounter trouble and problems, the final redirect reminds us begin at the very beginning by returning to a safe environment.
CONCLUSION
With covid-19 locking everyone inside, virtual workers have a chance to surpass the competition if they have an appropriate plan, open communication, specific goals, and a collaborative team. A lot of the success of our virtual employees relies upon us, the leaders and managers, to provide an example of effective communication and strong relationships. Managing virtual employees has challenges, but at its core, it is humanizing, valuing, and advocating for the other individual.
