kind of force people to come back into the office .”
Todd Larrabee , president of Gold River-based Employer ’ s Guardian , says when his company went remote in March 2020 , productivity went up because the number of interruptions fell . Instead of stopping in unannounced at a colleague ’ s office , staff with a question learned to send chat requests over Microsoft Teams . “ If you come into my office , you ’ re forcing your agenda and presuming your priority is greater than mine ,” says Larrabee , whose company provides human resource outsourcing support to about 100 employers , most of them in California . “ One of the big wins was learning to use the chat features effectively .”
Remote hybrid workplaces — with staff on-site only part of the time — take endless forms . At the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce , Mondays are a collaboration day , with all staff on-site , says President and CEO Amanda Blackwood . At Microsoft , employees are allowed to work remotely as long as it ’ s less than halftime . And at River City Bank , working from the office has been entirely voluntary , Fleming says .
Many employers worry that their staff won ’ t work hard out of sight of the boss . But management experts say remote work or no , supervisors should be setting goals instead of measuring seat time . Daniela Devitt , vice president of workforce development at the California Employers Association , says managers should know roughly how long projects take , create milestones and then check in with their staff daily — not to micromanage but to see how they ’ re doing and what they need to stay on track .
When it ’ s hard for an employer to measure individual output , they can make department managers responsible for measuring it in their own units , Larrabee says . If a department head knows a project should take 30 hours but the staff person took 50 , they ’ ll let them know it can be done faster and how , which is healthy . “ If the department ’ s not keeping productivity up , they ’ ll figure it out . They ’ ll challenge each other ,” he says .
Those manager check-ins also are essential to figuring out when staff aren ’ t doing well emotionally , which hampers output . An October 2020 survey of 2,000 workers in the U . S . and U . K . by HR tech services company Hibob found a 27 percent drop in self-reported mental wellness since the pandemic hit . Blackwood says in the first six months of going remote in 2020 , her staff were working 12-hour days and she was doing team check-ins mornings and afternoons to determine who might be struggling so she could follow up individually .
Employers rightly fear an off-site team will lose cohesion , so managers need something to replace the in-person exchanges at the printer . Neeley , who ’ s studied remote work for 20 years , sees effective managers creating virtual coffee and tea chats that rotate among different team members . They allot extra time before and after virtual meetings so employees can visit . They plan regular in-person gatherings outside work . Or they pair up employees to check on each other once a week .
Creating a plan
Whatever model a company chooses , a remote work policy is essential , experts say . It covers issues such as when staff are expected to be in the office , whether off-site employees still get a desk , who pays for equipment , whether remote employees are allowed
“ We ’ ve never been more creative , more productive . Deadlines are met . Everything ’ s getting done . Honestly , operationally there are no challenges .”
JAMIE VON SOSSAN CEO , 3fold Communications
January 2022 | comstocksmag . com 41