Do Hybrid Work Managers Trust Their Teams or Do They Have Productivity Paranoia?
Managing teams over the past few years has been challenging, with team leaders and upper management reporting lower trust levels in the productivity of remote workers.
As companies shift from the work from home to hybrid in-office working models, re-establishing trust, and recommencing business as usual is high on the agenda – but how can managers achieve this?
In an era when the labour market is tight and living costs are on the rise, companies are having to compete for talent like never before. In 2022 and beyond, smart managers are realising that catering to the needs and working styles of their employees is no longer a nice to have.
Let’s take a look at the latest data on hybrid working from the perspective of team dynamics and productivity.
Your team members trust themselves to work remotely, but do you trust them?
One of the biggest challenges for remote work management is productivity monitoring.
Teams that work from home or remote locations spend most of their time away from the manager’s watchful eye and while most workers consider their productivity to be high, managers often get the opposite impression.
- According to Microsoft data on remote workers surveyed recently, 87% of respondents said that they felt their productivity was high.
- When their managers were surveyed, only 36% shared that opinion. In fact, over 80% said that they considered their teams to be difficult to manage remotely.
Given that many companies have succeeded in being productive during the pandemic, it can’t be claimed that remote working is a total failure. However, there’s a large gap between employee productivity and perceived productivity as viewed by managers.
This phenomenon, that some management experts call productivity paranoia, has the potential to cause serious misunderstandings between teams and management.
- Managers may become overzealous and start demanding a return to in-office work or bog employees down with productivity monitoring tasks that get in the way of actual productivity. Recent revelations about the 180 degree change at Twitter since the company was purchased by Elon Musk are a strong case in point.
These actions by management could cause the company to lose valuable talent and the ability to attract new employees, especially in the age of internet reviews like a Glassdoor where prospective workers can view feedback from current employees.
What causes the trust gap between managers and their remote teams?
Management paranoia usually springs from good intentions. Since managers can’t see or interact with remote employees like they do in the office, they naturally have doubts as to whether the team is performing at optimal levels.
To remedy this, managers often decide to track working hours and other “busyness” signals, when the most important factor for a remote team is productivity: hitting targets and achieving results.
- Taking a project-based approach with a detailed briefing, follow ups using company chat and other electronic media, and a strong emphasis on KPIs is one strategy that managers can use to put their minds at ease while creating a sense of trust with team members.
The fact that remote teams rate their productivity highly isn’t just a matter of pride or overestimating their own abilities. By assessing their productivity using measurable metrics, managers can create a sense of fairness that will allow them to praise good results and address underperformers in terms of what they produce and not how many hours they take to produce it.
Commercial space as a venue for trust and productivity
Creating a Cape Town office space where teams can come together at agreed times to collaborate, learn, and connect socially is the biggest priority for businesses that want to stay ahead of the curve post pandemic.
- An office environment that entices workers to return and touch base with team leaders is good for both sides of the management desk.
- Team members will feel valued by their managers and have the opportunity to seek advice and receive training. Accordingly, senior members and leaders will feel a renewed sense of trust as productivity paranoia wanes and appreciation for the efforts of the team increases.
The perfect office space to foster this environment needs to be safe, sustainable, modern, and on trend. Plenty of collaboration spaces with the option to work in isolation using workpods and a definite end to cubicles is essential for modern productivity.
As businesses remain cost conscious during this period of high inflation, opting for a smaller premium office space that can accommodate collaborative sessions while allowing teams to work remotely some of the time could be the ideal solution from a premises point of view.
The Commercial Space team has decades of collective experience assisting companies of all sizes in finding the perfect office space in the Cape Peninsula. If you’re searching for the ideal office to bring your team together, look no further. Contact us today.
