Managing teams remotely now becoming a struggle

Did you know that new data suggests that productivity and engagement plummets between 30-40 days after teams go remote? Adding to that, few businesses know what to do about it. Generally, in light of everything, we’re also seeing big companies lending a hand in the fight against the virus.

For those working from home enforced by the Covid-19 pandemic, for a while, it seemed to be working brilliantly – until it didn’t. While early surveys showed up to 80% of remote employees were more productive when working from home. It tuns out though that the more that is, the more things start to change.

The challenge of managing remote teams is only going to grow in the coming months, as more companies announce plans to permanently allow remote working. Twitter has already said that all its employees can telecommute. But many managers of remote teams are battling to know what is really going on in their teams, says Oran Cohen, the founder of online people management platform GWork.

“If productivity plummets after 30-40 days, what happens after 180 days? How do you onboard someone remotely? How do you gauge anxiety, and know who is battling and needs support? Who is slacking, and who is an asset? Most managers just don’t know the answers to these questions, which means they don’t always feel in control and struggle to have a full picture of how their employees are showing up,” said Cohen.

“Organisations are good at managing tasks, but are they thinking about leading their people? The remote work problem is real and complex, and requires innovative solutions. There are platforms out there that do culture, and others that measure performance. But none enable the view of a holistic journey to a remote workforce that organisations need right now,” said Cohen.

Part of the challenge is how to build trust and connection in remote teams. A CoSo Cloud study shows more than half of remote employees feeling disconnected from in-office employees, while a Buffer study on the state of remote work says 19% of remote employees report loneliness as their biggest challenge.

“The GWork platform empowers the manager to gain access to insightful data about their people, but it doesn’t stop there. Like a co-pilot for managing your remote teams, it links daily actions to performance to learning feedback, guiding the behaviour managers want and unlocking their employees’ ‘genius’ work remotely,” said Cohen.

Cohen says it was important to put the psychology of how people grow and change at the heart of the GWork solution, and then guide them to change their behaviour to optimally fulfil their role. “What makes GWork unique is that it offers all of these solutions in one single platform, equipping managers with the people data they need to make intelligent decisions about their teams and enabling employees to get the feedback they need to grow, know where they stand and have a clear idea of how their work moves their organisation forward,” said Cohen.

Image credit – @cwmonty

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Thabiso Moloi

With many, many years of PR, digital & influencer marketing work under his belt, Thabiso has worked on a great number of technology, business and consumer brands. In addition, he has become obsessed with most things under the sun including music, series, sports, movies etc which he now regularly writes about. You can find him on Twitter: @Thabz_14