The Long-term Strategic and Cultural Impact of Covid-19

The Long-term Strategic and Cultural Impact of Covid-19 - from kitchen table of Michael Legut, PhD.

People are a key part of any successful business strategy. Things such as productivity, office space costs, employee satisfaction and talent availability, all impact a company’s ability to execute their strategy. And for most companies, investments in human resources are one of the largest expenses. In this article I will provide some thoughts on ways that the residual impact of the pandemic will influence future work activity, strategy and organization culture.

How Things Work Around Here

While business strategy deals with growing the operational parts of a company, the organization’s culture tends to reflect the human elements. The norms, values, behaviors and expectations of a company are the things that are internally felt and demonstrated by the employees. Many describe a company’s culture as “how things work around here”. For many companies, one of those expectations is “butts-in-seats".  The simple way to describe this is that managers and employees are expected to be physically present at their work stations during work hours. Their work performance and career advancement is dependent upon regular physical presence and face-to-face contact with their manager.

The Shift

As we have all seen over the past 20 months, the expectation for “butts-in-seats” has been disrupted by the pandemic. Currently, Covid-19 is causing many companies to adjust employee work locations by shifting to hybrid office schedules and limiting in-office activity. This is an ever evolving situation and those companies that require workers to be physically present, are scrambling to mitigate the health risks of current and future Covid variants. We hope that at some future date the current Covid pandemic dilemma will be under control. However, the residual impacts related to the increase in remote and hybrid work location choices, will likely have a more permanent effect on how business operate, their strategy and their culture. But right now let’s consider how the current business changes may become more permanent in a future post-Covid state. The next table provides some thoughts on changes to “how things work about here”.

Current and Future State Scenarios

Organization Elements	Current State Scenario	Future Post-Covid State Scenario
Work Activity	To maintain productivity, employee work location is driven by the company’s ability to arrange work activity from different locations such as satellite, hybrid, contractor and remote facility sites.	Employee work location is based on the type of work (knowledge sharing vs. manual), staffing needs (permanent vs. flexible), skill availability, and the employee’s family, health, safety and financial needs.
Company Policy	Work policies are adjusted to manage health concerns, off-site work costs, work process flow, cyber security, maintain the brand/image, and allow knowledge sharing.	Decentralized work activity increases and policies evolve to address retention, recruiting geographically dispersed talent, promoting company empathic visibility, managing remote performance and improving employee satisfaction.
Business Strategy	On-going changes with staffing needs, supply-chain, customer demands, and improvements in technology require changes to business processes, and customer relationships to apply innovative practices, sustain current business and find new market opportunities.	Accelerated efforts to leverage new technology and flexible staffing create opportunities to reduce location and human resource costs for labor and office space, and allow broader access to more customers and talent.
Company Culture	Values, norms, behaviors, traditions that reflect “how things are done around here” are being disrupted. Concerns regarding employee performance, productivity, training and career advancement arise because of the lack of in-office connections. Difficulties occur for leaders try to manage with a command-and-control approach. Planning for employees to return to in-office attendance reflect the effort to maintain “butts-in-seats” culture values and expectations.	The evolving culture values and expects trust in the leader and employee relationships.  Work outcomes become the key measures to assess performance, career advancement. Leaders are valued for empathic management style and building employee relationships.

When we look at these scenarios, we can begin to see that long-established internal norms and business processes that reinforce the “physical presence” mentality are evolving. Over the past year companies have experimented with new ways to validate employee performance, grow careers, collaborate with co-workers, build leader-employee relationships, and retain and recruit employees. However, because of the business investment in off-site work, and longevity of the current pandemic, the pandemic mitigation changes are likely to become more permanent. This will cause many companies to adjust their business strategies and their culture in order to continue to thrive. But change is hard. A McKinsey study found that a significant number of companies have not yet established plans to adapt to a more work flexible environment. As with many previous business evolutions, adaptation or the lack of it, will determine success or failure.

Final Thoughts

Throughout time there have been major innovations and events that have created changes in business behaviors. For example, in technology we now have AI to reduce manual tasks. We have increased security behaviors to mitigate terrorist attacks. Our manufacturing processes changed dramatically when assembly lines were created. All these have cause organizations to change how they operate and to make cultural shifts to accommodate those changes. Similarly, the pandemic has had such a world-wide impact on employee work activity that it will likely create a permanent shift in work location flexibility. As hybrid and remote work activity options become permanent in the post-pandemic environment, business strategy and company culture will also evolve as companies adapt to maintain a competitive edge for retaining and attracting employees.

Hopefully this blog will help leaders consider options regarding how the pandemic will impact their company policies, business strategies and culture. As always, my goal is to help leaders consider options to lead their companies in the post-pandemic world. For additional discussion, I can be reached at www.leaderimage.com or on my LinkedIn page

 

 

 

 

How to lead in the hybrid office environment - from kitchen table of Michael Legut, PhD

Leaders are starting to understand that work and work relationships in the post-pandemic world will be different. The "at-home" or remote work environment is now a viable option and new work habits and behaviors related to the hybrid office are changing many aspects of leader-employee relationship. 

A hybrid office brings leaders much closer to the employee’s life relationships. In my previous blog, I outlined a few scenarios that leaders need to understand to help develop their work teams as they return to the post-pandemic work place. Today I’ll explore things to consider when developing leaders for this “new normal” hybrid office environment.

So how do you develop leaders to effectively manage both in-office and remote workers? In the past, many leaders and leadership training programs focused on developing assertive communication, problem solving, business acumen and organizational savvy skills. While these are important leadership skills, leading in a hybrid office environment requires some more advanced leadership skills. As organizations are retooling for the post-pandemic office space, they must also retrain current leaders how to coach and develop future leaders in anticipation of the challenges in the hybrid office environment.

One of the current challenges facing many organizations is something known as “quit rates”. Recent business articles have reported on a surge in employees quitting their current jobs for greener pastures. While some of this is likely due to employees seeking higher wages and better remote opportunities, evidence suggests that most employees leave their jobs because of poor relationships with their managers.

So why do good employees quit?

From my experience, there are three things that have the most impact on the leader / employee relationship and why employees quit. I would categorize these as the following.

1) Inadequate contact and communication between the manager and employee – Communication problems often create more personal distance between the manager and employee. In a hybrid office, this distance can become more pronounced because the direct face time with remote employee is obviously less. When the employee’s personal connection and commitment to the manager is weaker, leaving for a slightly better salary and/or remote work option becomes more attractive.

2) Lack of the manager’s interest in the employee’s development and advancement – This situation is somewhat related to the first issue. If a manager doesn’t take time to help employees learn about opportunities within the company, and help them develop so they can achieve those opportunities, the employee may feel the leader doesn’t care about their future. In this situation, the employee will quit if they see jobs that offer growth and advancement, especially if the advancement includes remote work and educational opportunities.

3) The manager does little to encourage team work between employees – Employees want to feel that they belong. Being a part of a work team that works on projects together or where employees are encourage to learn from each other, goes a long way toward helping employees feel they belong. An employee working remotely may feel more disconnected from their team. The lack of co-worker collaboration or social connections with the team creates more personal distance and this contributes to a decrease commitment to the team. A remote employee is more likely to experience this distance from the team. If the manager doesn’t encourage team work and collaboration, the employee may feel that they don't belong and they will find it easier to leave the team and the company.

What are the advanced skills that future leaders will need?

As you can guess, strong leader and employee relationships play a big role in retaining employees. Leaders who lack relationship building skills are potentially increasing the “quit rate” in the company. For example, it can be very difficult for a leader, who may be leading from a command and control approach, to express some genuine caring, and empathic communication because it not their management style. While many consider these to be “soft” skills, those “soft” skills can be the hardest to learn and apply. Similarly, it can be hard to learn strategic team building skills when you are not connected to the team and don’t have a good understand of each team members skills and development needs. Building team relationships requires dedicated attention to what each team member needs and wants to learn so that they can elevate their contribution to the team. The leader must understand the team’s current capability and connect team members with activities that encourage learning, co-worker collaboration and leadership.

These are just a few skill areas that every leader and training manage will need to pursue to be successful with retaining talented employees and developing future leaders. If you would like some individual consultation on these topics, or to contribute to the discussion, you can connect with me at www.Leaderimage.com or on my LinkedIn page. 

Approaches for Leading a Hybrid Work Team - from kitchen table of Michael Legut, PhD.

The pandemic and remote office experience has changed the way your work team works. Obviously the most significant change is in the way team members engage with each other. To keep your team performing at an optimal level, you need understand those changes and adapt your approach with how you lead your team.

In my previous article I explored collaboration and cooperation between team members.  The focus of this article will be about ways that leaders can address team performance challenges related to a hybrid office environment.

Many news stories have already reported successes and challenges that leaders are experiencing as they manage employees who are working remotely some days and in-office other days. https://www.inaa.org/benefits-of-working-in-an-office-vs-remote-work/. One common theme is related to the changes with co-worker relationships in the hybrid office environment. These changes often impact the level of engagement between team members and how effectively they work together.

So where can leaders begin? The first step is to understand what is different with the team’s work in a hybrid office situation. This is not so much about the specific task but more about how the team connects with each other for project tasks, planning, hand-offs and conflicts. Unfortunately, many HR leaders are setting up standard policies that require employees to be in the office Tuesday through Thursday and allow them to be remote Monday and Friday. These policies may not be the most optimal solution for a team’s work needs and performance.

A simple way to begin is to look at the factors that make up of most work activity. These are the relationship requirements, the degree that the work requires low or high degree of team interaction, and task complexity, the degree to which the work task requires multiple inputs and hand-offs. Once you understand the relationships needed and the task complexity of your team’s work, you can plan for the situations in which remote or in-office experiences can enhance your team’s performance.

We all know that some in-office interactions can be a distraction especially when the team members really need to be very focused on completing a very detailed task. As the leader you should be managing your team’s work activity and development. You can do that by being more intentional about when your team should be remote and when they need to be in the office. Here are four team scenarios you might consider when deciding whether your team needs to be more or less in the office.

Forming

The Forming scenario includes situations where the team is at the start of a project or new members are being added to the team. This is a time when the goals or objectives of the team’s work are established and everyone needs to be aware of the resources and experiences that each team member brings to the table. When a team is Forming it is useful to schedule more in-office opportunities to help team members build relationships, understand their role in the team and how they will need to work with other team members. 

Storming

Another scenario might be called Storming. Every work team effort has some unexpected task or personality problems that hinder work progress or create employee conflicts. In these situations, it is useful to have in-office team meetings because the issue often requires more co-worker communication to clarify roles, responsibilities and accountabilities. Furthermore, in-office meetings can help the team to experience how they can solve problems together and this will encourage employee commitment to the solution.

Norming

Norming would be another type of team scenario. A team that is Norming generally works well together. Team members follow through on their tasks and offer support to each other to get the work done. They understand expected outcomes and acceptable behaviors. When the leader observes these behaviors, in-office meetings can be less frequent. However, it can be useful to plan in-office social events, development activities, celebrations of successes, and re-connect the whole team with company culture.

Performing

Finally let’s explore the scenario where the team is truly performing at a high level. In a high performing team, everyone is working to ensure the best outcomes are achieved. Often a high performing team will have a common approach to problem solving, and they will adjust work and team assignments to achieve success. In a high performing team, the leader’s role is more focused on managing conflicts between their team and other teams. In many ways, a high performing team can self-manage decisions on the need for remote or in-office meetings and the leader only needs to be aware of those decisions.

Hopefully this blog will help leaders consider options regarding when a team can benefit from being more remote and when in-person meetings are more beneficial. As always my goal is to help leaders understand how cope with post-pandemic work issues and to help build effective hybrid work teams. I can be reached at www.leaderimage.com or on my LinkedIn page.

Collaboration and Cooperation in the Hybrid Office - from the kitchen table of Michael Legut, PhD.

Enjoy this first!!! https://youtu.be/YHMtf7lxRdo  

I recently read a blog that does a great job of defining the difference between collaboration and cooperation (link  https://blog.jostle.me/blog/collaboration-vs-cooperation). Basically collaboration is about working with others toward a common goal or vision. Collaboration is when a group of people have a shared ownership of a specific outcome. Cooperation is a bit different. It is about getting help from others with a task that one person owns.

Do leaders need a plan to address the pandemic impact on employee collaboration and cooperation? Yes! A simple analogy to consider would be a competitive rowing team (see the YouTube link). The brief video demonstrates what happens when each team member has a different idea of where the finish line is, and some members are rowing at a different pace and direction. The outcome is a disaster.

Like a rowing team, a work team must be able to collaborate and cooperate to get to the finish line. Each team member must understand the desired common outcome and they must help each other, as needed, to successfully complete their tasks. Unfortunately, when some employees are working remote and some are in-the-office, we can guess that the whole work team may not be in the same “boat”. They may be “rowing” at a different pace and in a slightly different direction.

There are many reasons why a team is not working together. Perhaps it is a lack of role or task clarity, different skill competency, or maybe a misunderstanding of the team’s purpose and goals. One often overlooked reason is that the in-office experience has many subtle influences on employee collaboration and cooperation, and the remote “boat” experience is very different from the in-office experience. "Rowing" on-line is very different from "rowing" in the office.

Think about your own in-office experience. It starts when you get dressed to go to work. Perhaps you wear something that advertises a company slogan. Most likely you have a company ID that is attached to you somewhere. When you arrive and enter your office building, you see the company name on the building. As you walk to your desk, you see posters about the company’s achievements. You greet your co-workers and think about work you are doing together. On your desk you see some awards, knick-knacks that represent your achievements and perhaps some pictures of the work team's events and achievements.

All these experiences reflect pieces of the company culture. The company culture that is experienced in-the-office has a powerful influence on employee attitudes and behaviors, and how well a work team collaborates and cooperates.

So why do leaders need to think about the in-office experience as the “row boat”. With the pandemic, and the shift to remote or hybrid offices, much of that cultural influence has changed. Those in-office experiences that may have enhanced levels of employee collaboration and cooperation have changed.

What can leaders do to help maintain the cultural influence and achieve the right level of collaboration and cooperation between employees? Here are a few ideas to consider to help a hybrid office team keep “rowing” in the right direction

• Determine what parts of the culture can be replicated virtually. For example, perhaps your technical team can create a daily news update of company happenings and achievements that automatically appear on the laptop screen when the employee logs into their work laptop.
• Ask your marketing team come up with a few items to send to remote employees which highlight the key drivers of the company mission and vision. These might be interesting stickers for their laptop or things they often use at their home desks, (hint - company designed post-it notes, coffee mugs).
• Work with your managers to arrange for in-office team building events or team recognition presentations. Having the company president or division leader engage the team by recognizing team achievements or holding discussions about the company progress and vision can help the work team stay connected to the company culture.

These suggestions may seem trivial, but the intent here is to get you thinking. Remember if you want to help employees “row” together in the right direction and toward the right goals, you need to create a hybrid office that effectively promotes the company’s culture and encourages collaboration and cooperation.

As always, my goal is to help leaders understand how cope with post-pandemic work issues and to build effective hybrid work teams. I can be reached at www.leaderimage.com or on my LinkedIn page.

 Thoughts on the new normal office environment

- from kitchen table of Michael Legut, PhD. March 30, 2021

Many leaders think that once the pandemic is officially under control, things in the office will get back to normal. But what is the new normal? Those brief hallway interactions may be less frequent, “meetings for coffee” may be virtual, and the lunch brainstorming sessions will be harder to arrange. While many office tasks will be the same, there will be changes in how work gets done and when it gets done.

 As many office workers work remotely from their kitchen tables, a new office protocol has taken hold. In meetings you hear dogs barking, birds chirping, and see children photo bombing. The boundaries between the office and home have become very flexible. In many ways this is refreshing because your co-workers are more than just co-workers. You see pictures on walls, books and knick-knacks. On a Zoom call, you are in their home and so the relationships become more personal. Many employees have enjoyed the flexibility of this new office environment and personal comfort it provides. The office is literally a home and this creates a deeper connection to employees and leader’s lives.

Recognizing this change in employee and leader relationships is important if we want to understand what the new work environment means for leading and working with others. Why? The boundaries of the company culture (norms, values and beliefs) now include more of the “at-home” culture. As we all know, people are different at home compared to when they are in the office. So while the office tasks may be the same, the social milieu, leader/employee interactions, and actual work time may be very different.

For example, the impromptu in-office meetings that were helpful to guide work on a task may no longer happen   in the post-pandemic office environment. In a hybrid office which is partially remote and partially in-office, there will be limited face-to-face interaction and the interpretation of task assignments is more independent. The “remote” employee work is more self-managed. A quick answer about a task could be delayed by a day. Furthermore, leaders who micro-manage employees will likely be uncomfortable with a hybrid office where some employees are remote and some are in-office. Given that micro-managing leaders tend to constantly tweak a task, or not provide all the information needed for the task, you can guess that there will be some problems. The hybrid office environment will limit a manager’s ability to constantly look over the shoulders of employees. Employees will need to depend on their own decisions and managers will need to learn how to give employees enough guidance, outline expected outcomes and allow the employee ownership and creativity to complete a task. Leaders must also learn to trust that the employee will follow through and ask for feedback if they are having difficulty with a task. The employee and leader relationships will be very different from the pre-pandemic office relationships, so leaders will need to think about their personal style and make adjustments to the social challenges of the post-pandemic more hybrid office set up.

As employees work more independently, the task priority and hand-offs to co-workers are also more likely to be misinterpreted. To understand this better, leaders will need to consider how the social aspects of collaboration and cooperation will be different in the post-pandemic world. To put it simply, less face-to-face interaction in a hybrid office may reduce collaborative and cooperative team behaviors. As employees self-manage the flexibility with when they work, more problems may occur when the work requires multiple hand-offs to other employees. Creating fewer hand-offs can resolve some of this problem. Still the lack of collaboration and cooperation between workers who are remote and in-office will likely cause challenges. Factors such as, employee response time and feedback to co-workers regarding the task completion are likely to cause delays and create less than optimal outcomes.

While there are many automated systems that can help prioritize and organize task management, the actual task output may require leaders to engage the team in a quality check and provide feedback to help improve the situation. One approach may be to include an after project review that is designed so that the work team comes into the office to socialize, do some team building activity and also conduct the project review. The leader can use the in-office time to provide team feedback and improve the collaboration needed for the next project.

To be effective in the post-pandemic world, leaders will need to look for solutions to address collaboration and cooperation issues before they happen. This will include more emphasis on how to promote collaboration, cooperation, creativity and competence within their work teams. In my upcoming blog I’ll explore ways that leaders can recognize and reward employees who model the 4-C behaviors - collaboration, cooperation, creativity and competency.

 

Leading Others In A Post-Pandemic World

 Great leaders understand that work and relationships in the post-pandemic world will be different. The "at-home" or remote work environment is now a permanent option and there are now new work habits and behaviors that have changed the boundaries of the leader-employee relationship. What do leaders need to know about how they lead others in the post-pandemic work place?

The post-pandemic business activity will create a "new normal" for your work place. Because many work teams will be partially remote and partially in-house, leaders will need to be more focused on how their daily interactions and leadership influence will be different. Impromptu meetings, hallway conversations, and coffee break brainstorming will occur less often, and so leading employees and influencing peers will require some alternative approaches. At the core of all effective leadership relationships, leaders need to know how to influence and reward behaviors like collaboration, cooperation, creativity as well as competency. While the 4 "C's" are not really new to those who understand how to build high performing teams, the approach is new when it comes to how leaders manage their teams in the post-pandemic, "new normal" work place.

During the pandemic, the office environment has become an on-line office. "At-home" and remote work has become standard operating procedure. Employees working from home have grown accustom to new types of office protocol and daily work behavior. For example, many employees now have self-managed work schedules, zoom call meetings may be at the kitchen table, and they may be wearing business attire on top but dressed in pajamas below the waist. The new office environment and habits have introduced more flexibility, more self-management and less in-person interactions, and this has changed what was considered the normal for in-office pre-pandemic work environment. 

While some employees long to return to the "good old days" and can't wait to get back to the office, others may never want to go back to long commutes, cramped cubicles and hovering managers.

In this "new", more hybrid, office environment, how will leaders lead their teams so ensure collaboration on the right work needed to achieve the business objectives? How do you get commitment and cooperation from team members who have not been in the office for over a year? How do you keep employees engage with other team members so that the important tasks get done? How do you retain talented employees who don't want ever come to the office again?

In my next few blogs, I will propose ways in which leaders can adjust their approach to leading and influencing employees in the post-pandemic work place. My goal is to help leaders understand how to build effective hybrid teams (partially remote and partially in-office) that are productive and high performing. 

Some of the topics that we will explore in future blogs will be;

• Understanding what the new work environment means to remote and in-office employees
• Recognizing and rewarding the 4 -C's - collaboration, cooperation, creativity and competency
• Approaches for leading a hybrid work team
• How leaders can adjusts their leadership to help shape a post-pandemic company culture.

If you would like some individual consultation on these topics, or to contribute to the discussion, you can connect with me at www.Leaderimage.com or on my LinkedIn page.

Understand Disruptors That Help You Lead In a Post-Pandemic World

As a leader you must understand the characteristics of disruptors. Here are some important thought- leader ideas from Deliberate Disruption for Transformational Growth by Michael E. Raynor.

....three general principles separate real disruptors from apparent ones. First, real
disruptors offer “a new business model that defines a different frontier.” Second, usually
even when a company defines a “new frontier,” it isn’t doing anything disruptive, since
that would call for some new “technology or set of processes” to set it apart. Third, to
force their new frontiers to grow, disruptors must offer equal or better performance at
prices incumbents can’t match.

When established firms try to innovate, they often borrow practices that work for startup
firms. They hold “idea hunts,” generate lots of concepts and fund the promising ones.
And they often fail to innovate because they miss a crucial point: No matter how you
apply disruption (to one idea, to a portfolio), it forces you to abandon your existing ways
of thinking about innovation. Applying disruption in an incumbent industry is like trying
to go back to gills after your species develops lungs. It doesn’t work.
Emerging firms often articulate their development processes in adaptive terms. They test
various permutations, pick one that works and keep it, following the “variation-selection -retention
model.” When venture capitalists invest in an emerging firm, they want to build
a business profitable enough to sell. Their criterion is “will this make money?” In an
established firm, the criteria are more complex. Such firms aren’t just economic entities;
they are “political, social organisms.” Instead of evaluating ideas based only on finances,
people invest their reputations and status, so incumbents are much more risk averse.

Don’t flood your firm with new ideas; just pursue new concepts
within the context of a defined, profitable future. Often ideas have been circulating in your
firm, unexplored, for years. Shape them into more specific, focused possibilities. Instead
of trying to “fail fast,” try to “learn fast” and apply the lessons to your business. Instead
of testing new ideas at random, articulate your model clearly so you develop innovations
in a framework where they can succeed.

Leadership Development Assignments

Great ideas on leadership development. My opinion is that all leadership development should have a real-time activity tied to the development assignments.

Leadership Development

Your Leader Image - Learning Leadership Presence

Your leader image is about how others perceive your presence.Your physical, emotional and spiritual presence is about your actions in the company of others.

Here is a great quote about the act of spiritual leadership.

“Speak less, listen deeply.”
― Radhe Maa