And why your success depends upon it.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way we’ve been working for the past 12 months. Working from home has become the norm and managers have led teams remotely.
As global vaccination programmes take effect and we begin to emerge from the worst of the pandemic, employees’ expectations on working arrangements have changed.
Most people have experienced a new way of working and many will demand a more flexible approach to their jobs using a blend of home and office working.
It’s also likely that social distancing measures will be in place for some time; there may even be a need for seasonal adjustments in future, with an increased number of staff working remotely during winter periods. Therefore, people and teams will need to be managed and led remotely in the long term.
The impact of remote working and the implications of how we’re managing our people is currently unknown. There is however an increasing sense that people’s mental health and wellbeing is deteriorating. Much of this is due to the intensity that is associated with this new way of working.
Because of this, business performance is at risk.
So why is this the case?
If you cast your mind back and think about a typical day in the office, you’d have been used to visitors at your desk, popping to make a coffee, bumping into somebody in the corridor and having a quick chat. Sometimes this would be about work, often it would be about other things.
These conversations are now missing.
What’s also missing is the slight pause that these lost opportunities used to provide people during their normal working day. Without realising it these pauses in work allow the brain to reset, making it more productive in the long term.
Although some businesses have reported healthy or in some cases even increased productivity levels with people working from home, can they really be sure this is sustainable?
What’s the real cost of this new way of working in the longer term?
When people are working at home, these mini breaks no longer happen. Because of this, the intensity of the working day has increased. Every hour spent working, is exactly that, focused effort without the mini breaks that allow the mind to reset.
The more productive people become, the more stuff they will generate and need to get through. It’s like a spinning hamster wheel that’s getting faster and faster.
Many people then feel the need to work harder and longer and it becomes increasingly difficult to draw the line between homelife and work.
This is impacting people’s mental health, wellbeing, and personal relationships.
According to a Forbes survey, before the coronavirus struck, 62 per cent of employees reported positive mental health. As the pandemic continued, Forbes reported that number
dipped to just 28 per cent. Perhaps not surprisingly, job satisfaction and job motivation has also fallen; satisfaction from 57 to 32 percent and motivation from 56 to 36 per cent.
So, how do businesses manage people remotely, retain them, and keep them highly motivated to ensure continued business performance in the medium to long term?
Here’s the key… companies need to lead people not just manage them.
Management and leadership are both needed, but there’s a difference. Management is about driving people to perform to the highest standards they’re capable of. It relies on processes, rules, procedures and the like, to control what people do.
Leadership however is about inspiring people to do things for themselves; it’s more about freedom.
When the pandemic first hit, companies moved quickly to get people working from home. This led to an over-reliance on management processes which were adopted to ensure productivity of home workers.
Now have a think about this analogy.
Imagine it being a bit like a car journey. We’ve all been taught how to drive, put into our vehicles, and then given a route to drive with several drop-off points. We accelerate away, gently at first and then we go faster until the accelerator is flat to the floor. Every time a drop-off is completed, we need to get back on the road quickly to head off towards our next destination.
We’ve connected our phones via hands- free, and it rings from time to time. We try to get people off the phone as soon as we can so that we can concentrate on our journey. Longer calls distract us, we miss our junction and must double back on our journey.
Some of us may enjoy driving to new destinations with instructions on how to get there, but others find this extremely stressful. At some point we need to re-fuel, but we push the car into the red as much as we can to complete that next drop off on time.
We see other people on the road and at service stations when we fill up. We may even have a quick chat to someone when we’re buying a coffee or sandwich, but we don’t really know any of them. We eat our lunch quickly and on our laps in the car.
We complete the last drop off and our day comes to an end later than expected. Many of us feel isolated and alone. We feel exhausted after an exceptionally long journey. The next day we need to repeat it all over again.
So, what’s the point of this story?
It describes how task-driven, management-led activity can feel for people when they are working from home.
So, what do businesses need to do?
Put simply, businesses need to create an environment that allows individuals to become leaders, not just at work, but in their home lives too.
Helping people to understand personal leadership is key. It’s not just about what we do in the workplace, it’s also about our personal lives.
The minute we influence another human being, we are in fact leading. Personal
leadership looks at leadership from a much broader sense. It’s about helping people to:
· understand responsibility to the point where they see it as a gift.
· become aware of how their thinking impacts their daily lives.
· recognise that how they communicate has a profound impact on those around them.
These days people don’t really know each other at work, and relationships are not as effective as they could be. Because of this teamworking and collaboration is not at its best; new ideas, continual improvement and business success is being held back.
So, there’s a need to help people feel more in control and better connected.
Personal leadership enables businesses to create strong effective teams, based on solid relationships that are built on two-way trust. It will allow organisations to inspire and motivate people in a way that will help them take greater ownership and responsibility of what they do on a day-to-day basis. This will help them at work and in their home life too.
Even when employees can operate flexibly, from both the office and home, understanding personal leadership will ensure they’re taking responsibility to work in the most effective way possible, not just for themselves, but for your business too.
So, what’s in it for business owners and organisations?
Done well, adopting the principles of personal leadership will enable companies to support their people to achieve and maintain a healthy work-life balance, enhancing employee engagement, reducing sickness levels, and boosting employee retention.
By creating a workforce of highly engaged employees, this will lead to improvements in customer service, increased customer satisfaction and happier customers.
All these things will lead to increased profitability and improvements in the bottom line.
As we emerge from the impact of the coronavirus, businesses have an excellent opportunity to take advantage of changes to the way we work.
If, however, they choose to carry on and operate in the way they’ve done for the past 12 months, they’re at significant risk of seeing a downturn in performance and profits. For some, their businesses may not survive.
To find out more about Personal Leadership and how it can help your business, contact Gherkin Associates.
Find Gherkin on LinkedIn at
https://www.linkedin.com/company/gherkin-associates-ltd
Helping People and Businesses Thrive
Glenn Smith – Gherkin Associates Ltd
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