Managing the Pros / Cons of Remote and Hybrid Work Arrangements
Five years after the seismic shift caused by the pandemic some companies are now forcing employees back to work on site. This is in many cases after they’ve worked remotely for 5+ years and adjusted their lifestyles, finances, and work behavior to be effective in that environment. Remote employees are pushing back.
Time will tell which companies, with which attitudes about remote work, succeed or fail. Clearly the need for astute problem identification and a continuous improvement mindset by both managers and employees will be needed.
After a career of working at a job site, running manufacturing and distribution operations, I now find myself “commuting” to my home office upstairs. As you might guess, I have my own opinions as to the benefits and difficulties about working from home – and yes, there are BOTH benefits and difficulties with this arrangement to be managed.
Remote Work is a Controversial Topic
Opponents of remote or hybrid work arrangements suggest that productivity, innovation, and work culture are hindered by the lack of physical presence.
Proponents argue that productivity does not suffer where properly managed and supported, employee engagement is higher due to increased flexibility and reduced commuting time, and employee retention is vastly higher leading to cost savings in recruitment and turnover related training.
Both sides cite examples and/or research to support their arguments.
Let’s remove politics, dogmatic rhetoric, propaganda, and conspiracy theories from the conversation. Here’s what reputable research says about remote and hybrid work pro’s and con’s.
What Does Research Show?
Let’s start by understanding the obvious. Remote work cannot be applied to all jobs.
The US Career Institute published statistics that showed the average number of days worked remotely by employees in different sectors of the economy. Not surprisingly they reported the groups most likely to work remotely included Tech & Information (2.28 days/wk avg) and Finance & Insurance (2.23 days/wk avg). Also not surprisingly, they reported that Manufacturing (0.91 days/wk) and Transportation & Warehousing (0.72 days/wk) were two of the least likely job sectors where employees work remotely.
Stanford Study
One very reputable research study comparing hybrid work to fully-on site work at a large travel firm, led by Stanford Economist Nicholas Bloom, demonstrated that a hybrid work schedule allowing remote work 2-3 days/week led to benefits for both employees and employers. This was a large scale randomized and controlled study – the gold standard in research technique. The study concluded that;
There was no loss in productivity associated with hybrid work. They made the further observation, based on their data across groups, that perhaps studies of fully remote work that showed a negative correlation to productivity had more to do with management practices than the work arrangement itself.
There was no evidence that hybrid workers were over-looked for promotions compared with their coworkers.
Worker retention improved by 33% for the hybrid workers. Worker retention translates directly into cost savings benefit for the employer as they avoid costly recruiting efforts and training of new employees.
NIH Publications
Another study, published by NIH and conducted by Kowalski and Slebarska, focused on managers, found that how the manager perceived the role of remote work correlated to the effectiveness of remote work – and that lower-level managers who were closer to the employees conducting remote work viewed remote work more favorably. In their introduction, Kowalski and Slebarska also cited many other studies, stating that;
There is abundant research on the benefits and limitations of remote working [27]. The most common benefits include no commuting, reduced distraction, work–life balance and increased work flexibility, creativity, and motivation [28,29]. In addition, many studies have shown increased productivity [30,31].
It seems that the type of work being conducted and the managerial practices in place largely determine if the work arrangement will be beneficial to both the employee and the employer.
Most companies appear to be sticking with the belief that offering remote work allows them to recruit the best workers and that they will install managerial practices and data systems to mitigate potentially negative effects.
How to Optimize Remote Work?
If we start with the premise that remote work offers benefits and also carries risks, then we need to ask the question ‘How do we maximize the benefits of remote work and minimize or mitigate the risks?’
Managers must ensure that the work needed is appropriate for remote work. This may seem obvious. For example, a Chemical Reactor Operator cannot work from home for most of their responsibilities! But they can for some! Maybe certain indirect aspects of their job – like procedure writing / reviewing or training can be done remotely – giving them a chance to feel that management trusts and respects them. Someone not accustomed to work from home may struggle with this setup and may decide to do the tasks back on site – but what a way to drive trust and workplace culture. Trust drives engagement and engagement drives tangible results.
Managers must ensure a good environment and ergonomic setup. Clearly most work from home scenarios involve tasks that are done on a computer. For someone to be effective in computer work requires a good ‘office environment.’ Managers must work with individuals on their team to help them improve their setup. This may involve approving better equipment like chairs / desks / monitors, offering noise-reducing headsets, or even acting as a coach to help employees see solutions to their specific challenges. BTW – you’d better be doing this for your on-site employees too!
Managers must ensure that expectations are clearly documented, communicated, and understood. Remember that just because you sent an email, it doesn’t mean it was received, and certainly doesn’t mean it was correctly deciphered! Managing remote workers requires extra attention to the expectation setting step. This is a major gap where managers screw up in general with their teams – remote or not! If you leave it up to the employee to determine what is expected of them, they will fill in the void with their best intentions – which may be far removed from what is actually needed.
Managers must stay in contact with all remote employees frequently. A standard cadence of contact is always required between managers and employees. It is even more important when we are purely remote. Having routine contact helps build the relationship and also helps head off issues before they can have a large negative impact.
Encourage the use of cameras so that employees can see each other while talking. So much of our communication is non-verbal. Seeing each other is a well proven way to increase accurate communication. It also helps us build and demonstrate empathy – another huge trust builder!
Encourage team members to solve problems by talking to one another! I am 100% convinced that no meaningful problem was ever solved by a tweet or a text message. Certainly, no complex problem is likely to be solved by email either. If you don’t believe me – go back to your own emails and read some from a few months ago – did the issue get solved? Can you even tell what the issue was? What is the likelihood that the receiving party had a clue what you were talking about? How many follow up emails were required? Encourage real communication! Emails and texts have their place but are vastly over-relied upon.
Set up metrics and data that will help you monitor results and react to issues. This is needed whether the work is done remotely or in-person! Data helps us remove our biases and focus on facts. The data needed might be identical whether the worker is remote or in-person. I am not advocating for the Big-Brother approach where we monitor all activity by a remote worker! Conversely, I am a proponent of monitoring data that is directly tied to key results.
Consider if there are cases where the team would benefit from being brought together. Sales teams generally do this well. They’ve long known that face to face interaction can drive relationships and relationships can drive advances in problem solving and opportunity identification. Sales teams are often remote by nature, and yet they fill that gap with periodic assemblies for training, group awards, presentations, and team building. In operations we often scoff at the amount of money that Sales groups seem to spend on their ‘conferences.’ Yet, when reviewed in the light of better managing remote work, it seems to make a lot of sense!
So, there you have it – 8 ideas for improving remote work effectiveness of your team. The astute reader will note that these same recommendations are relevant for in-person work forces too!
My Own Experience
Prior to the pandemic, I can recall very few instances of people in Operations careers who worked remotely, or who even thought of trying to work remotely. It was simply an expectation that we would arrive on site every day, do our thing, and then go home. As the data above suggests, it is still uncommon in Manufacturing and Distribution Operations to work remotely.
It wasn’t until 2018 that some of my team, working in an office building, who were managing logistics operations remotely from a computer, began to ask about working from home one day a week. Immediately I was uncomfortable with this foray into the unknown. Their Director argued their case based on improving employee engagement and retention. I was quite skeptical but eventually decided that this was not something I needed to be rigid about - after all, I was already managing them remotely - from a work site halfway across the country. It was worth a try, and I gave my nod to a program where they could all work remotely on one day / week – so long as productivity and effectivity didn’t slip.
Frankly, it worked. It worked well.
Then came the pandemic.
In March 2020, we all had a shock when the pandemic hit the US. In most companies a line was drawn between those ‘essential employees’ who had to be on site to maintain the operation, and those who did not need to be on site to do the majority of their jobs.
The fear of infections spreading was so strong that not only did all non-essential employees get forced to go home, but even those remaining on site had their mobility curtailed to limit interpersonal contact. For example we closed the cafeterias, banned employees going to buildings other than their own operation, and found ways to ‘drop-off’ materials between departments without human contact. ‘Social distancing’ became a requirement.
At the time, I was leading a large manufacturing operation across several large sites and with many employees. I was in the ‘non-essential’ category and had to find ways to do my job from the dining room table for several months. I hated it!
I had to find new methods to be effective and manage. Further, because the computer never got turned off and I was living alone, I found myself working 14-18 hours per day.
I really missed the interpersonal contact aspect of my job. In fact, the highlight of my day was generally waving to my neighbor every morning through my window as he came outside to take his dog for a walk!
I was thrilled when restrictions started to ease up and I was able to get back on site and into different departments. Leadership in Operations, where many employees are tethered to manufacturing equipment or inventories, is one of those jobs that today I believe is best done in person whenever possible. The leadership techniques I teach and coach today are best employed with live contact, but of course can be used in remote settings too.
Employee Reactions
One dynamic that I observed through many, many conversations during the pandemic was that there was a strong resentment between those forced to work from home and those essential employees who were forced to stay on site. Neither group was happy!
The remote team resented being forced to work from home and many felt, as did I, the profound loss of social interaction as well as an initial reduction in effectiveness and self-perceived value. The group who was forced to stay on site did not recognize that very few of the non-essential employees actually wanted to work from home, and the essential employees resented the image they had of the at-home workers leisurely ‘strutting around in their pajamas taking it easy and not being held to any work standards.’
There was a profound lack of understanding or mutual empathy between the two groups.
The reality is that this was a difficult time for EVERYONE, whether they were left on site, or forced to work from home. The most common question I got from essential workers was “why can’t I work from home?” Meanwhile, the most common question I got from non-essential workers, was “when can I come back to work on site?”
The grass was always seemingly greener on the other hill.
The enforced changes were difficult on everyone. Gradually, the technology improved allowing more effective remote work for some groups, and people adjusted their behaviors to the new ways of working.
In my experience during this time, I cannot remember a single instance out of all of those employees where people shirked their responsibilities. In general, I saw the opposite; those remaining on site did their best to take on tasks that had been ’orphaned’ by their coworkers who were forced to leave – and those working from home, generally put in far more time and effort to try to make sure everything still got done.
My Personal Conclusions
My experience in dealing with the remote work topic throughout the pandemic and its aftermath, reinforced one of my core leadership beliefs;
People come to work to positively contribute to the team goals and they do the best they can under the circumstances. It is management’s responsibility to improve the circumstances, collaboratively with the employees, to drive continuous improvement.
Are there issues with remote work that hinder productivity, communication, and relationship building? Are there arguments that work-culture and innovation may suffer in remote environments? Yes. Certainly. And it is management’s responsibility to improve the situation.
In over 35 years, I have very seldomly run across any exceptions and therefore give all employees my belief in their positive intentions.
One of the biggest inconsistencies I see between my own observations and those arguing against remote or hybrid work, is that they argue from a belief that people will not act in good faith and will be lazy and unproductive when given half a chance.
I reject that theory that workers will abuse the remote work arrangements and I belief that leaders who follow that guidance will see their firms under-perform to firms where leaders build trust, respect, and engagement.
