Canadian HR Reporter is the national journal of human resource management. It features the latest workplace news, HR best practices, employment law commentary and tools and tips for employers to get the most out of their workforce.
Issue link: https://digital.hrreporter.com/i/1389848
www.hrreporter.com 11 day — but there are ways to mitigate against this, according to Fugman. "It's important to recognize that there could be recency bias: 'If I see you, I'm more likely to remember you were there, what you're doing.' [So] making sure you're doing those check-ins with all of your employees... this is a skill." Bridging the gaps During team events or town halls in the hybrid world, the disconnect between in-person and remote workers becomes even more palpable, says Pimentel. "When you see people in a hybrid event, how often do the people that are on the screen actually participate? Very rarely. It's the folks that are in-person that are dominating the discussion, and maybe some very bold person online will raise their hand, but it doesn't feel natural." Solving this isn't easy but it must be done to eliminate any feelings of disen- gagement, she says. "The same way that managers have to be more deliberate about the check-ins they do, facilitators for hybrid events also have to be more deliberate about dedicating time to say, 'OK, now we're together, making sure that everyone is connected — and even if they're remote, they still feel local, meaning they still feel part of that culture and community." Leadership requirements To help leaders deal with these and others issues in the new reality, it's important to keep them up to date on h o w t o s u p e r v i s e e ff e c t i v e l y, says Fugman. " The other part of performance management is manager enablement: it's the capability to manage people. It's harder to do in a remote environ- ment than in-person, so spending time investing in your managers to make sure they're equipped with the compe- tencies, tools and skills to manage in a remote environment is critical as well," she says. "There needs to be an investment from organizations to recognize that there could be potential skill gaps, and upskilling your managers to address them is critical." One of the unintended negative outcomes might be a bias against remote workers who aren't in plain view every going to turn to the people onscreen and let them ask questions.' Or, if they don't want to ask them, solicit them: 'Do you have a thought on that?' Which maybe doesn't feel fair to the people that are in-person, but people when they're on Zoom — they're just going to sit there, and it's not easy for them to participate." By moving some employee experiences online, that naturally engenders equality because all workers must access it the same way, says Bunce. "I would encourage organizations to look at their recognition program and move it virtual. Have a Teams chat related to recognition; give out virtual cards recognizing people; you can email gift cards and you can send flowers," she says. "If you have that virtual program, it won't matter if someone's in-house or external because everyone's getting the same updates and seeing the same kudos and recognition going out." Growing pains While many employers seem to be ready for some change, a completely successful hybrid model should have a "Hybrid work for a lot of organizations is brand new; how you create internal consistency is going to be key." Sharon Bunce, HRdownloads few growing pains before it becomes truly successful, says Pimentel. "It's not impossible, but it's going to require another full-year cycle of perfor- mance evaluations for people to really get a handle on 'How can we be equi- table across the organization?'" she says. "Companies are going to experiment with different models and find one that works. We're going to see success stories in the news and then we're going to see the horror stories of employees that went unsupervised for six months and did nothing." CHRR