Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER December 11, 2017 NEWS 3 Remote workers feeling excluded: Study Consistent communication with manager one way to alleviate distance BY JOHN DUJAY OFF-SITE workers are more likely to feel overlooked by their on-site colleagues, according to a survey of 1,153 workers in the United States, as physical isolation contributes to virtual isolation. Remote employees are more likely to say their colleagues "don't fight for my priorities," "say bad things behind my back," "make changes to a project without warn- ing me" and "lobby against me with others," found the study published in the Harvard Business Review. Overall, remote employees find working through and with oth- ers becomes more challenging. Workplace politics are more per- vasive and difficult, and they have a harder time resolving conflicts when they arise, according to the study. Off-site workers also reported larger, negative impacts to these challenges, including productiv- ity, costs, deadlines, morale, stress and retention. "(Today), we have relationships where we are supposed to get high-trust, rapid-turnaround, col- laborative work done with people that we've never met before," said Joseph Grenny, co-founder of Vi- talSmarts, a corporate training company in Salt Lake City, and one of the study's authors. "What we know is distance de- creases feelings of trust and reci- procity; managers have to over- compensate for distance." Recommendations After questioning more than 800 of the respondents about what makes a good manager, the study's authors identified seven best practices: •Check in frequently and consis- tently. •Use face-to-face or voice-to- voice contact. •Demonstrate exemplary com- munication skills. •Make expectations explicit. •Be available. •Demonstrate familiarity and comfort with technology. •Prioritize relationships. Managers can alleviate the dis- tance by fostering more of a per- sonal relationship with remote workers, according to Grenny, who recommended sending "a personal note, checking in on family, trying to just make a per- sonal connection." As well, effective supervisors should schedule one-on-one meetings and add time to sched- uled interactions. "Don't just get through your 15-minute agenda, make it a 20-minute plan," said Grenny, and talk about something personal. "e tendency when we have a scheduled call is to try and get our work done; what you miss out on is the unplanned interaction that happens the five minutes before the meeting or the five minutes after the meeting — that usu- ally is the substance of personal connection." By checking in, managers can facilitate workers discussing any potential concerns, said Alex Panetta, head of sales at Collage, an HR technology provider in Toronto. "We have remote workers in another province, and for us it's super important that I connect with them on a daily basis, even if it's a quick five-minute phone call or using one of our chat sys- tems, just to see if anything's go- ing on," he said. "It lets the remote worker feel as though they are being heard, and that's the most important thing." "e luxury of being a part of a bigger office is that you can vent — whether it's frustration or vent a success — or just express your- self in real-time," said Panetta. "As a remote worker, a big challenge that we face is that they will kind of bottle it up until they get that moment where they check in with somebody." A weekly message to the team, something that makes them feel part of the group, is a good way to establish that personal connection, according to Susan Hamade, director of operations at Segal, an accounting firm in Toronto. "Share photographs of each other, make sure that IT has tech- nology (where) you can do a team meeting where somebody can dial in and you can see their physical presence in the room. at to me is vitally important." "If you structure yourself in a way that people can reach out to each other, where a couple of times a year you put people face- to-face where they at least get a sense of who that person is, you develop relationships," she said. When considering the benefits of setting up remote employees, many companies "greedily antici- pated" cost savings — but bring- ing workers together is a best practice to establish good rela- tions, said Grenny. "Trust and reciprocity are the immune systems of an organiza- tion: ey are what inoculate you against politics and pettiness and conflicts — all the things that tax an organization's ability to get things done," he said. "If there is no personal con- nection, if I have no sense of so- cial obligation to the group that I am working with, you can expect minimal retention and minimal engagement." It's about more than just remote workers; it's about managers mak- ing sure everybody's feeling part of a team, said Deb LaMere, vice- president of employee experience at Ceridian in Minneapolis. And regularly planning face- to-face meetings is crucial to con- tinuing that connection, said Hen- ry Goldbeck, president of Gold- beck Recruiting in Vancouver. "You have to make an effort: You either have a system or you have to make an effort," he said. "It's so easy to not include them because 'Out of sight, out of mind.'… You have to make an ef- fort to regularly schedule contact." e meetings can be social or work-related but "make sure they are included and make sure it hap- pens regularly," he said. "It shouldn't just be social; there should be reasons to contact and it should be consistent." Employers would also do well MEET > pg. 10

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