Remote Workplace Success - Survey Results
In early June, Harbinger and Alavetta came together to discuss the implications of Remote Working success and the impact of these changes on organizations and their people.
See our original article here.
Thank you for taking our survey! We’ve since compiled the results and presented them here, along with some guidance on how to address specific issues if you have weakness in a particular area.
Click the diagram to expand.
First, we want to recognize that this survey was developed as a “rough and ready” diagnostic tool. We understand that we engaged individual participants from various organizations instead of organizations in their entirety, so it does not fully represent the whole of organizations, but just what everyone is feeling during this time. We felt a collection of these impressions would give us the general insights we were looking for.
Our Participants
We’ve received a total of 48 completed surveys. We acknowledge that it’s a bit of a long survey, and appreciate the time spent by those who made it through to the end.
Here are some key demographic data on our participants:
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About 42% of participants work in the public sector and 44% work in the private sector
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The top 5 industries that participants work in are Educational Services, Professional, scientific and technical services, Finance and Insurance, Manufacturing, and Public Administration
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Half of our participants work for organizations with more than 500 people across all locations where their employer operates, and only a small fraction of participants work for organizations with less than 5 total employees
The Results
An overwhelming majority of respondents felt that they were thriving in the Remote Working environment. All but 4 landed in our “Excelling” quadrant, and only one would be considered “Under Achieving” according to our Remote Workplace Success Map.
Click the diagram to expand.
While many of our respondents landed high on the Culture and Capabilities scale, there are a few factors to consider when analyzing the abundance of positive results. Looking back, it's pretty much a given the survey suffers from a massive selection bias, and not fully indicative of the general population:
We shared the survey through our industry connections and via LinkedIn. Between Harbinger and Alavetta, our own network of professionals are guaranteed to slant towards organizations that are more technologically mature. Users of LinkedIn inherently may also have this slant.
Half of the respondents are from companies of over 500+ employees, where one might expect more capability and cultural maturity.
In a voluntary survey, there is always the potential for self-selection bias (e.g. those who are not excelling in the remote workspace may not wish to respond or are too busy to complete the survey).
And the good ol’ Dunning-Kruger effect, when individuals overestimate their ability in a specific area, preventing them from accurately assessing their skills.
Despite the shortcomings of the survey, we felt there was great engagement and hope it made for a good opportunity for participants to reflect.
Our Recommendations
These results are based on an average of our respondent’s scores, which means that while some participants are “Excelling”, there are still a few areas where we saw repeated weaknesses.
Here are some suggestions on how to improve in a given area. While we can’t provide an exact answer in the context of your organization and role, below are some recommendations you can try:
Recommendations for Capabilities:
Click a Survey Question below to expand recommendation.
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We usually come into the office to work, but have made the decision to have all of our people work from home. Where do we start?"The good news is, you’ve already completed the first step! Making the decision to have your employees work from home is often a challenging one, as this will be new territory for many companies. From here you’ll have to develop a comprehensive plan that includes business continuity, communications, a work from home strategy and more. One of the most important pieces will be to make sure that your leaders are informed and have the ability to cascade updates and other important information to keep their teams engaged and connected. Check out our leader communications and work from home tip sheets for more information. It’s also crucial to engage the right groups or areas like Human Resources to ensure you have the appropriate support to address things like flexible hours, ergonomic requirements and how to measure performance in this new work environment.
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We have decided to make it optional for employees to work from home or come the office. How can leaders and our business manage this so that we continue to be productive, while keeping our employees safe and healthy?"There are several things you can do to keep productivity moving when you have employees in the office and working from home, but it’s important to also accept that productivity will also decrease at this time. During times of uncertainty, especially when people’s health is at risk, it’s natural for everyone to be distracted and for productivity to decrease despite all of the planning that may place. With that said, there are ways to help maintain productivity. One of the first things you can do is complete a team charter where you will agree on team etiquette and rules. Some questions to ask and agree on include: Updating your status on Microsoft Teams and respecting your colleagues status (e.g. if they’re on Busy or Do Not Disturb, do not message them!) Turning on the video for all virtual team meetings Staying home if you are sick Updated contact lists including phone numbers Another activity that can be completed is for leaders to have 1:1 meetings with each team member to develop an agile work plan including expectations and measurement. Finally, keep your employees informed with frequent updates on what’s taking place with the coronavirus, and how it will impact them. The situation is incredibly fluid and constantly changing so it will be critical to keep your employees informed of what’s taking place and what it means for them.
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My employees cannot work from home. What steps can I take to make sure they remain healthy?There will always be roles where employees will not be able to work from home. In these cases, we recommend enforcing additional health measures such as providing them with hand sanitizer, new or more frequent cleaning processes and information on how customers should be interacting with them (think social distancing). Once these new steps have been implemented, make sure you share this information with your customers as well. This can be done on your website, by providing your employees with messaging so they are able to communicate this with confidence when dealing with customers, or by email.
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What are some of the ways of the ways we can make sure to stay connected while working from home?First and foremost, do the best you can to operate business as usual. If you have daily huddles, continue having them so that you can maintain some form of regularity. If your business is setup to operate virtually, change your meetings to digital ones and leverage the tools you have in place like SharePoint or Yammer to keep your people informed. Also don’t forget about email communications and using the phone where possible. If you’re not digitally setup, you can stay connected by setting up regular touchpoints where you can connect through conference call. Or set up group text groups. And despite everything that is taking place, don’t forget to have fun to keep your people engaged. Share tips or ideas on how to keep children entertained at home, recipes, or television and movie recommendations.
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I am not digitally savvy and feel uncomfortable using most of these tools while we work remotely. What are my options?Change is hard, and we completely understand if you are not comfortable using some of the digital tools available. Our recommendation is to continue communicating and connecting with your employees in the way you feel most comfortable, and to also take advantage of this time to learn how to use other tools so that you can become more comfortable. During times of change, training is crucial. To help you through this, we’ve included some free courses and information for Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Outlook for mobile, and Microsoft Icebreaker, a new tool that uses chatbots to connect two random employees each week for a meeting.
-
Unfortunately, I don’t trust some of my people to work from home. What can I do to help facilitate this?"For these types of situations, it is always good to engage your human resources team if you have one. They will be able to make the appropriate recommendations and will help you to develop a plan of action that includes how to measure performance, goals, as well as, the support you can provide them so that they can successfully work from home. You can also use this time to determine what kind of support you need to help make this transition easier for you and your employees who may have a challenging time in this new work environment. In the initial stages there will be more frequent touchpoints, but as you settle into a routine, you and your employees should find a rhythm that works for everyone.
-
Where can I get the most up to date information on the COVID-19 situation in Canada and the United States?We strongly encourage staying up-to-date with the coronavirus and recommendations from reputable health experts such as Canada’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Theresa Tam and government websites. You can follow Dr. Tam on Twitter and make sure to bookmark the government websites (Canada and United States of America) which are updated frequently. Use this information for guidance when making decisions for the well-being of your employees and customers.
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With schools, most daycares and city facilities closed in Canada, how can we ensure productivity continues when the majority of our workforce will be required to take care of their children as well?"In such circumstances, productivity will decrease. The important thing to note here, is that one of the priorities for you and your business is to do what we can to flatten the curve and keep everyone as healthy and safe as possible. There are however steps you can take to minimize the impact to productivity. See the response to question number two above.
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I’m worried about the impact this will have on our customers. What do I need to do and plan for to ensure there is minimal impact to them?If you haven’t done so already, develop a customer statement that provides them with more details on what you are doing as a business to protect your customers and employees at this time. This may include limiting in house appointments, shutting down your business completely, or delayed response times. Once you have developed your customer statement, share it across multiple channels including your social media channels, on your website, and through email. Also make sure to equip your employees who interact with customers with the appropriate messaging so that they can accurately rely the information. At this time, many businesses will be suffering and fortunately there have been actions taken by the government to help to alleviate the impacts of the coronavirus. More than anything, it’s important to note that your customers will appreciate and welcome the steps you are taking to keep everyone safe and healthy.
-
There’s a lot of fake news and rumours circulating around our business about the impact of COVID-19. How can we manage this?It’s natural for people at a time like this to have fear and question what is taking place. A great example of this is the toilet paper phenomenon and panic buying. It will be challenging to manage the message, however the best way to combat such reactions is to keep your people informed. Having one trusted source of information, like the President of your business, communicating at set times each day, will help to manage this. Also keeping your leaders engaged by providing approved FAQs and key messaging will go a long way. Don’t forget about developing an avenue where employees can send in their questions. This may be through a portal, or by email. Once you have answered their questions, share them with everyone in your business. Many of them are likely to be asking or wondering the same things.
Recommendations for Culture:
Click a Survey Question below to expand recommendation.
-
We usually come into the office to work, but have made the decision to have all of our people work from home. Where do we start?"The good news is, you’ve already completed the first step! Making the decision to have your employees work from home is often a challenging one, as this will be new territory for many companies. From here you’ll have to develop a comprehensive plan that includes business continuity, communications, a work from home strategy and more. One of the most important pieces will be to make sure that your leaders are informed and have the ability to cascade updates and other important information to keep their teams engaged and connected. Check out our leader communications and work from home tip sheets for more information. It’s also crucial to engage the right groups or areas like Human Resources to ensure you have the appropriate support to address things like flexible hours, ergonomic requirements and how to measure performance in this new work environment.
-
We have decided to make it optional for employees to work from home or come the office. How can leaders and our business manage this so that we continue to be productive, while keeping our employees safe and healthy?"There are several things you can do to keep productivity moving when you have employees in the office and working from home, but it’s important to also accept that productivity will also decrease at this time. During times of uncertainty, especially when people’s health is at risk, it’s natural for everyone to be distracted and for productivity to decrease despite all of the planning that may place. With that said, there are ways to help maintain productivity. One of the first things you can do is complete a team charter where you will agree on team etiquette and rules. Some questions to ask and agree on include: Updating your status on Microsoft Teams and respecting your colleagues status (e.g. if they’re on Busy or Do Not Disturb, do not message them!) Turning on the video for all virtual team meetings Staying home if you are sick Updated contact lists including phone numbers Another activity that can be completed is for leaders to have 1:1 meetings with each team member to develop an agile work plan including expectations and measurement. Finally, keep your employees informed with frequent updates on what’s taking place with the coronavirus, and how it will impact them. The situation is incredibly fluid and constantly changing so it will be critical to keep your employees informed of what’s taking place and what it means for them.
-
My employees cannot work from home. What steps can I take to make sure they remain healthy?There will always be roles where employees will not be able to work from home. In these cases, we recommend enforcing additional health measures such as providing them with hand sanitizer, new or more frequent cleaning processes and information on how customers should be interacting with them (think social distancing). Once these new steps have been implemented, make sure you share this information with your customers as well. This can be done on your website, by providing your employees with messaging so they are able to communicate this with confidence when dealing with customers, or by email.
-
What are some of the ways of the ways we can make sure to stay connected while working from home?First and foremost, do the best you can to operate business as usual. If you have daily huddles, continue having them so that you can maintain some form of regularity. If your business is setup to operate virtually, change your meetings to digital ones and leverage the tools you have in place like SharePoint or Yammer to keep your people informed. Also don’t forget about email communications and using the phone where possible. If you’re not digitally setup, you can stay connected by setting up regular touchpoints where you can connect through conference call. Or set up group text groups. And despite everything that is taking place, don’t forget to have fun to keep your people engaged. Share tips or ideas on how to keep children entertained at home, recipes, or television and movie recommendations.
-
I am not digitally savvy and feel uncomfortable using most of these tools while we work remotely. What are my options?Change is hard, and we completely understand if you are not comfortable using some of the digital tools available. Our recommendation is to continue communicating and connecting with your employees in the way you feel most comfortable, and to also take advantage of this time to learn how to use other tools so that you can become more comfortable. During times of change, training is crucial. To help you through this, we’ve included some free courses and information for Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Outlook for mobile, and Microsoft Icebreaker, a new tool that uses chatbots to connect two random employees each week for a meeting.
-
Unfortunately, I don’t trust some of my people to work from home. What can I do to help facilitate this?"For these types of situations, it is always good to engage your human resources team if you have one. They will be able to make the appropriate recommendations and will help you to develop a plan of action that includes how to measure performance, goals, as well as, the support you can provide them so that they can successfully work from home. You can also use this time to determine what kind of support you need to help make this transition easier for you and your employees who may have a challenging time in this new work environment. In the initial stages there will be more frequent touchpoints, but as you settle into a routine, you and your employees should find a rhythm that works for everyone.
-
Where can I get the most up to date information on the COVID-19 situation in Canada and the United States?We strongly encourage staying up-to-date with the coronavirus and recommendations from reputable health experts such as Canada’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Theresa Tam and government websites. You can follow Dr. Tam on Twitter and make sure to bookmark the government websites (Canada and United States of America) which are updated frequently. Use this information for guidance when making decisions for the well-being of your employees and customers.
-
With schools, most daycares and city facilities closed in Canada, how can we ensure productivity continues when the majority of our workforce will be required to take care of their children as well?"In such circumstances, productivity will decrease. The important thing to note here, is that one of the priorities for you and your business is to do what we can to flatten the curve and keep everyone as healthy and safe as possible. There are however steps you can take to minimize the impact to productivity. See the response to question number two above.
-
I’m worried about the impact this will have on our customers. What do I need to do and plan for to ensure there is minimal impact to them?If you haven’t done so already, develop a customer statement that provides them with more details on what you are doing as a business to protect your customers and employees at this time. This may include limiting in house appointments, shutting down your business completely, or delayed response times. Once you have developed your customer statement, share it across multiple channels including your social media channels, on your website, and through email. Also make sure to equip your employees who interact with customers with the appropriate messaging so that they can accurately rely the information. At this time, many businesses will be suffering and fortunately there have been actions taken by the government to help to alleviate the impacts of the coronavirus. More than anything, it’s important to note that your customers will appreciate and welcome the steps you are taking to keep everyone safe and healthy.
-
There’s a lot of fake news and rumours circulating around our business about the impact of COVID-19. How can we manage this?It’s natural for people at a time like this to have fear and question what is taking place. A great example of this is the toilet paper phenomenon and panic buying. It will be challenging to manage the message, however the best way to combat such reactions is to keep your people informed. Having one trusted source of information, like the President of your business, communicating at set times each day, will help to manage this. Also keeping your leaders engaged by providing approved FAQs and key messaging will go a long way. Don’t forget about developing an avenue where employees can send in their questions. This may be through a portal, or by email. Once you have answered their questions, share them with everyone in your business. Many of them are likely to be asking or wondering the same things.
Other Themes
Many of our respondents shared their specific thoughts as well. A few themes arose:
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Shifting to the remote workplace means more than having the technology in place to do so. Tools need to be aligned to a strong culture of communication and trust to combat resistance from organizations and their people.
"My employer has a very conservative and traditional culture and lacks digital documentation and communication collaboration tools. Unionized staff comprise a large percentage of all staff. Trust and alignment between departments is lacking. I believe transitioning in a careful and thoughtful manner to a blended remote / office workplace could be quite effective. Modern collaboration tools, policies, etc. would help support this along with stronger alignment across all organizational divisions."
"Clear boundaries/rules might be needed on hours/availability. I feel I start my days earlier (due to no commute) and stay on longer, and at times do some more hours at night. Difficult to set limits and avoid 'burn out' without a change of scenery for me personally."
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It's important to find the right balance of boundaries in the virtual landscape to help you balance work and home life when they're both happening in the same space. This includes identifying personal boundaries (e.g. how you manage or structure your workday) and interpersonal boundaries (e.g. your colleagues know when they can expect to reach you).
"I think for large public organizations working from home would force institutions to adapt and become flexible. We have been bogged down by bureaucracy and red tape for so long that I truly believe a shift if work spaces would lead to a shift in work culture and productivity."
What's Next?
Although there’s no telling when the crisis will be over, we can make some reasonable predictions on what we think will happen next. Will some organizations choose to stay remote or will they develop a blended approach instead? What will employees prefer most?
When we asked our respondents to select a scenario that they think is the most likely to happen at the end of the Covid-19 crisis, a majority of respondents (68.75% or 33 participants) selected “the workplace environment will be a blend of ‘remote’ and in-person”. A smaller fraction of our respondents chose that the workplace will either remain exclusively remote or return to what it was before.
Q24: Of the following, select the scenario you think is the MOST likely to happen to your workplace environment at the end of the Covid-19 crisis:
Additionally, 83.33% or 40 respondents selected that they would prefer to work in a blended workspace, with the option to work remotely sometimes. Only a small fraction of participants would prefer to either work exclusively in the workplace or have the option to choose where their permanent workspace or location would be.
Q25: What would you LIKE to see happen to your workplace environment, at the end of the Covid-19 crisis?
When it comes to making the permanent transition to a full or blended remote workforce, there are many elements needed to support a successful transformation. According to the data we collected, respondents felt most strongly about two specific components.
Q26: On a scale of one to five, rate your agreement with each of the following statements, given your place of work decides to go fully remote or adopt a blended model after the Covid-19 crisis.
What do you think is needed to support a “permanent” transition to a full or blended remote workforce?
They frequently agreed with:
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“Employees would need additional ways to feel connected to the workplace”
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“New employees would need different tools and methods to get to the know the workplace and its people”.
Thus, reinforcing one of the common themes that arose throughout the survey, the need for organizations to align their remote working technology, tools, and best practices, to a strong culture of communication and trust.
Final Thoughts
A full return to business-as-usual and fully staffed physical offices is unlikely. The future of the workplace is a blended or hybrid environment, as 69% of our survey respondents believe it to be and 84% would prefer it to be.
As employees begin returning to work, many limitations are put in place. Offices are limiting capacities typically to 20-30% of their pre-COVID 19 capacities, or employees only come into the office on specific days or shifts. This results in a hybrid team structure, where some employees work remotely, and others work from the home. Organizations will continue to evaluate permanent remote working arrangements as a way to meet expectations, but fully remote teams where all staff are exclusively working at home, where there is no office to meet your teammates in person, will be rare. Merely replicating the physical environment into a remote environment will invite the worst aspects of the workplaces left behind and lose the opportunity to improve the way you work; to cut back on length and number of meetings, to cut back on the number of people that need to be involved in any decision, or giving staff more flexible work hours and autonomy.
There are numerous new opportunities to pilot approaches like deep work, the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task, improved productivity, work satisfaction and personal life balance.
“If you threw a guitar at me, and I’ve never played a guitar before, everyone would understand that I’m going to suck. It’s the same thing for remote work. If people haven’t practiced before, they’re going to suck for a little bit. My hope is that people look back at this time and see that they ended up getting a lot done and people enjoyed it. It will spur companies to revisit the way they work.”
Josh Fried, CEO, Basecamp.
Hybrid creates two fundamentally different working experiences to manage. Smaller organizations that have one physical office location will have relatively simple transition challenges. In contrast, large organizations with multiple locations and divisions of operations will find the complexity and nuances of the transition, significantly more difficult to design and manage. Maintaining and improving the corporate culture and the employee experience is essential to ensure organizations achieve the outcome to thrive. A culture built on physical office interaction that acts as a glue for culture and as a stopgap for inefficiencies in communication systems will need to be fully re-examined.
Also, creating parity between the remote and in-office experience will be a concern. New compensation and expense policies will take time to develop and implement. Remote work expenses traditionally have not been reimbursable as optional work-from-home programs are at the employees' convenience, and such employees continue to have the option to work in their employer's office and use company equipment and supplies if they desire. However, we would expect proactive employers to consider the business case of redirecting real estate costs to reimbursing expenses for a more remote-enabled employee, for efficiency reasons (e.g. home office expenses, which may include a portion of the expenses associated with internet, mobile devices, personal computers or tablets, office furniture and other associated software or hardware). Furthermore, the employment landscape will also evolve, creating more opportunities for job-seekers geographically. Employers can now search from a larger pool of candidates for the best fit but may need to compete for talent on how robustly they enable these prospective employees to work remotely. (We’ll refrain from going down the rabbit hole of remote employee experience and retention here.)
We are still in the middle of a massive transition. Over 85% of our respondents believe that they still need more ways to connect to their workplace and teammates, and that better methods and tools are still required to feel connected to their workplace. Remote working will continue to evolve and organizations will further define their best practices, but the learning curve for many is still very steep.