Profit vs Employee Mental Health & Productivity

Many large employers have been banging the drum about permanently transitioning most of their employees to remote working. The question is, are they doing this because it’s best for their employees, or are they principally doing it to save significant amounts of money on office costs?

Covid-19 has empowered office-based businesses to question whether they actually need all of their employees in the office Monday to Friday, and this has allowed them to realise that there are substantial cost savings in the offing.

My fear is that many will grab this beast by the tail and not the head; they will focus on the cost savings and not on maintaining/improving employee performance and mental health.

I hope the following assists you and your team to make the right future decisions for your organisation and your employees.

STEP 1  –  EVALUATE EACH ROLE

Objectively review each role with your management team and ask these three questions with respect to the Covid-19 period to date:

1. Overall, did your employees in each role deliver less, the same or better productivity? You should take into account all factors such as the quantity of work, quality of work, engagement levels and customer service levels.
   LESS / SAME / MORE
2. Did the manager of each role modify their leadership and people management style/skills to ensure that all remote team members maintained effective communication and connection to their peers, managers and the organisation as a whole?
   YES / NO
3. Did cross-departmental communication/cooperation stay the same or improve during remote working?
   YES/NO

STEP 2  –  EVALUATE EACH EMPLOYEE

At Peoplogica we have discovered that individuals with particular hardwired behavioural traits have adapted and thrived in a remote work environment, while others have not. There are many reasons why some employees have struggled with working from home, these include:

+ They have an internal need to keep business and personal lives separate (working from home has a severely deleterious effect on their work/life balance).

+ If they live by themselves you may find that the office is an important part of their socialisation and taking this away can impact on their overall personal happiness and wellbeing

+ Their home environment is stressful/harmful and going to work provides relief and respite

+ They may be at high risk of being distracted by others in the household, such as their children, spouses, housemates or friends, which reduces their productivity during the week.

+ They are a “cup-half-empty” person and therefore tend to dwell on what is wrong rather than a natural optimistic and resilient disposition (we measure this hardwiring via “Attitude” and “Resilience”)

+ They are a strong team-based player, they need to have supportive people around them (we measure this hardwiring via “Independence” and “Assertiveness”)

Objectively review each employee with your management team and ask these two questions with respect to the Covid-19 period to date:

4. Based on your overall impression and One-On-One reviews, did each employee “enjoy” working from home and did they feel they were as, or more, productive?
   YES / NO
5. Does the manager of each employee believe that they (the employee) were less, the same or more productive?
   LESS / SAME / MORE

STEP 3  –  MAKE THE “RIGHT” DECISION

Use the following table to identify which employees could be considered for ongoing remote working (please ensure that you discuss with each employee before making any blanket decision). I would suggest that you will need to achieve at least four out of five positive responses and any negative responses would require a management plan to ensure a positive outcome:

STATUS	Q1 ANSWER	Q2 ANSWER¹	Q3 ANSWER	Q4 ANSWER	Q5 ANSWER
HIGH Probability of Successful Remote Working Outcomes	SAME / MORE	YES	YES	YES	SAME / MORE
LOW Probability of Successful Remote Working Outcomes	LESS	NO	NO	NO	LESS

¹ Q2 (improving leadership & people management capability): – This is one area that can be attended to immediately by improving leadership and people management capability. The reality is that managing employees is hard enough when they are all under one roof, remote management multiplies this challenge by at least a factor of three. One of the areas that all organisations will need to invest in is gearing up managers to better lead their direct reports so that remote working has the highest chance of success. We use tools such as Coaching Reports, Team Leadership Reports and Individual Leadership Reports to provide operational managers with the information and confidence to effectively lead their teams.

STOP PRESS

Results just in from the “Pulse of the American Worker Survey” found that:

+ 59% of those surveyed report feeling as productive at home as they did in the office

+ 55% felt less connected to their company (which I assume means co-workers)

+ 46% experienced higher levels of stress that negatively impacted their work

+ 47% worked more hours when at home versus being in the office

+ 54% want to work remotely in the future (therefore 46% DON’T want to work from home)

The above statistics further reinforces that any decisions made need to be made with care as the potential negative impact on future organisational performance and success could be more than substantial.

For further information on how you can improve remote working outcomes, please contact us