In our last posting we shared about the “Managing Remote Workers” report. It’s a report that individuals and managers can reference in preparation for their engagement with team members and teams, for greater effectiveness. The report is generated based off the PPA reports that are already in the Thomas Hub
Since then, we have also conducted numerous webinars for leaders of team and individual contributors about some key considerations in virtual engagement.
Approaching Virtual Engagement
From the many profiles that we have generated for the Managing Remote Employees and the inputs that we have gathered from our webinars, it is apparent that there many diverse reactions to working from home. It is our premise that by understanding behavior types, Virtual Engagement can be more structured and impactful. Although no one approach fits all, there are some fundamental considerations that can help contribute to having a more effective virtual engagement.
Here are some things points to consider:
Ensure that are regular schedules for virtual meeting sessions
A clear approach for dealing with additional unplanned interactions due to job exigencies
Make time for engagement that is beyond work (one-on-ones, group social)
Understand what works (approach) for the different behaviour types in your team
Let us expand on the points listed above:
Ensuring a regular schedule
This is particularly important to enable team members to plan and schedule their work day. By having regular schedules registered on the calendar, it will facilitate better meeting preparations, focus and also reduce the “surprise call” and “surprise check” reactions.
Approach for unplanned interactions due to work
It is inevitable to at work and related projects, that there will be situations that will require for unplanned calls when exigencies arise and team members may need to discuss a decision, or need for additional support. To enable this, it would be helpful for teams to discuss how they can reach each other when needed. Ideal options will be by using team-chat groups, corporate messaging apps. That way individuals will have time finish what they may be doing (having lunch?) and then respond without being immediately interrupted.
Make time for Informal Engagement
Most times, virtual meetings and engagement at work is usually about “work”! However, with the distancing and lacking of face-to-face interactions, it is even more important that team leaders and members make time to engage informally without a focus on just work. There can be virtual “tea-breaks”, virtual lunches, one-to-one catch up sessions, etc. These are activities that are very important to continue the maintenance of team relations, trust, and morale. It is during this time that actions from leaders, and how they engage that will impact future teamwork, motivation, and retention.
Understand what works for the different behaviour groupings in your team
While the above considerations focus on the “how to engage” from a process perspective, this consideration is about “which approach” from a people-behavioural perspective. In our work with profiling of talents in organisations, team-building and coaching sessions, we find there generally various groups of behaviour types. Obviously human behaviour is very complex and varied, however, some basic groupings/categorization will help us approach behaviour in a more structured manner.
So if we know that some individuals prefer to be the proactive, action oriented and who has a need to control how things occur around them, the approach to take for engagement with them will be different from those who are more reflective, reserved, compliant and needing regularity at work. Just these two combination (an other types) will be useful information for leaders to approach team members more effectively and achieve the desired impact.
Summary
Engaging teams virtually is definitely more challenging and requires leaders to be more perceptive, and will also test their ingenuity in working more effectively with their teams. With Covid, anything and everything that can dilute productivity is present. As such, engaging individuals and teams is a critical platform to ensure productivity, teamwork, motivation and retention.
What we would hope to share is that, there is a need for consistency and planned regularity in processes to ensure effective Engagement. However, engagement is about people and not processes, and it is on this premise that we suggest that leaders and teams look into the different characteristics and needs of the various behaviour types to be even more effective and impactful in their virtual engagement.
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