The future is for leaders who are ready. Are you?

At the start of February, I wrote an article called “How To Successfully Lead Your Hybrid Team.”

I have also been doing a series of videos called “The Future of Work Is The Future of Leadership.”

The driver for both the article, the videos and this article is that the future of work is hybrid and the fact that most of our leaders are not ready, They have not done this before and are just not equipped.

If we do not change this situation, It is going to have devastating effect on our hybrid workforce. Increased stress, uncertainty, anxiety, fatigue and burnout will result and no employer should be prepared to accept that as a future state. No one.

This is uncharted territory. Let’s chart it.

Objectives and Measuring Performance

This is my hybrid leadership model that is evolving the more I write about it.

I firmly believe that this is going to be one of the biggest challenges managers will have now that they have to lead hybrid teams.

As I mentioned in the introduction most managers have never led hybrid teams before. For most managers, setting objectives and managing performance have to fundamentally change.

Objectives

Motivation

Employee objectives or goals, should motivate individuals to perform at their best. Whilst this is always important, it is even more so when employees are working remotely, as some may find it hard to motivate themselves.

Some employees may not find their motivation any different in relation to where they work but others my feel less motivated when they are not in a shared office environment.

Research from Harvard Business Review found that working from home was less motivating and the measurement dropped by 17 points if people had no choice in where they worked.

Objectives should energise behaviour, provide clear direction, and give employees a challenge.

Set objectives that are SMART.

Learning goals

Employee motivation can also be increased by setting learning objectives or goals. As opposed to performance targeted goals such as “Run three town-hall meetings to reach over 700 of our employees”, make it into a learning goal by adding some discovery, problem solving and innovation.

Turn it on its head and say “Find a way to reach over 700 of our employees in the next quarter.”

This gives your employees autonomy to find the best way to achieve the desired outcome themselves.

Clarification

You have to ensure that you and your employee are absolutely clear about what is expected.

What is it they are to deliver? When is it needed? What budget do they have? How often are you going to have a check-in?

Ensure that you get your employees to play back to you there understanding of the expectations, so that there is no doubt that you are both on the same page.

This is even more important in a hybrid team as remote workers cannot just keep popping in and out of your office to check their understanding. The understanding has to be clear from the absolute start.

Comfort zone

Make sure that employees are comfortable with the objectives that they are to achieve.

Again, this is easier when physically face-to-face with an employee. There can be both verbal language and body language signals that your employee has concerns.

These could be harder to detect when meeting virtually.

Keep asking the question “Are you ok with this?” until you are absolutely sure that they are.

Assure your employees that it is ok to step outside their comfort because that is where they grow and develop. Each time they step outside their comfort zone, their comfort zone gets bigger.

Assure your employees that they are not alone and you are there to support them whenever they need you.

Read more about the comfort zone.

Support

Let your employees know that in addition to the regular check-ins you are available when you are needed. Your role is to provide support when needed and help remove obstacles when they are encountered.

This is important for remote workers because they can’t see if you are at your desk or if your door is open.

Let them know how best to reach out to you when they need you.

Proximity bias

One of the biases that may arise when managing remote workers, is called proximity bias. This is when a manager puts a higher value on the work being carried out by someone they can physically see doing the work over that being carried out by someone they cannot observe.

As a leader, you need to ensure that your objectives provide a clear guide to compare performance regardless of an employee’s location.

Co-create

Make sure you co-create the objectives with your employees. When there is co-creation, your employee is more committed to achievement of their objectives as they have “skin in the game” as opposed to having objectives assigned to them.

Measuring performance

This is where the fundamental shift for many managers comes into play.

There are still far too many managers who measure performance by hours worked rather than outcomes.

I described the problem the article that kicked off this series.

When COVID hit there was a surge in interest in employee surveillance software which tells me managers are not ready to lead hybrid teams. They do not know how to lead when an employee is not in direct line of sight.

I will leave you to read the article I wrote back in August 2019 called TITO Versus TITO. It compared managers who focus on Time In The Office with leaders who focus on Trust In The Outcomes.

When you are leading hybrid teams you have to measure performance on outcomes.

Check-in on a regular basis with every employee regardless of location and find out how they are managing both in achievement of goals but also in their day-today work experience.

Please do not want for the annual performance review to provide feedback to employees.

This should be done on a regular basis. In fact, get rid of the annual performance review – it is a waste of time and money. Reviews should focus on the present not the past. Regular informal check-ins on progress are far more effective.

Summary

Are you ready?

Setting objectives and measuring performance should not vary due to geographical location.

Everyone, regardless of where they work, should be on a level playing field.