Managing hybrid workers

Sridhar Iyengar at  Zoho Corporation explains how business leaders can avoid the pitfalls of micromanagement during the era of hybrid working

 

Micromanagement is still rife across businesses. In a lot of cases, this unwelcome administration style has evolved in new, often worse ways, under hybrid working conditions.

 

Flexible working, such as ‘choose your own hours’ structures, combined with ‘always on’ communication and surveillance technology, means employees are always reachable, and always observable, and many business leaders can fall into the pitfall of micromanagement without even realising it.

 

Employees then end up losing their ability to work independently, grow, or be creative, and this drives them away from the organisation. This is one aspect we have seen during the ‘Great Resignation’ over the last year.

 

As well as a dangerously constant turnover of staff, the absenteeism and employee disengagement that micromanagement causes can cost a 10,000-person company $600,000 annually in lost salary.

 

The signs of a micromanager are similar to what they always have been: keeping high-level tasks to themselves; resistance to employee ideas; demanding approval over every decision; or insisting on unnecessary meetings and updates. However, doing so over virtual tools and messaging platforms can catalyse the situation.

 

Traditionally, the motivation for micromanaging came from insecurity in a new role, lack of faith in a team, or just an inability to relinquish control. It can also be born from and exacerbated by a prevailing culture of mistrust that is inherent to a company’s operational style; that is, some micromanagers only micromanage because they don’t know any better.

 

It can also result from a lack of trust that remote workers are actually working, without keeping constant tabs on them. This can be understood considering many middle-managers and company seniors have spent their career working in a physical office environment, where work is passively controlled and observed.

 

Now they have been thrown into a completely new method of working, which demands adjustment. As a result, a whole new generation of micromanagers have been born out of the pandemic.

 

However, while the behaviours of individual managers may vary, the outcome is always the same: lost opportunities, derailed schedules, and under-performance as valuable managerial time gets wasted on tasks that shouldn’t need high-level supervision.

 

This can be a problem of individual teams rather than a whole organisation, but senior leadership intervention can make a significant impact. Managers who are struggling due to breakdowns in communication can be supported with the right cultural guidance, plus a combination of data and tools to drive employee accountability while giving managers visibility and confidence.

 

By providing access to centralised analytics and customised dashboards, executives can supply anxious managers with the deep insights into productivity and progress that they’re craving, without alienating and frustrating employees.

 

Better reporting through Unified Data and Analytics

Custom dashboards are one way of helping managers, especially those that prefer step-by-step status updates, to keep their eyes in the right place. Managerial time is precious and expensive, so by prioritising KPIs and metrics worth watching, executives can guide managers towards the types of oversight they are expecting.

 

Additionally, by creating a centralised, synced source of data, leaders can give managers insights into employee progress that don’t involve looking over anyone’s shoulder. Data drawn from a Unified Data and Analytics Platforms (UDAP) means fewer reports and updates to get the same level of insight, and the accuracy and speed of that insight can help alleviate managers’ anxiety about whether projects are still moving in the right direction.

 

Create a culture of communication

Sometimes, what a manager thinks is good communication feels like over-communication to their employees. If this is the case, the afflicted organisation must overhaul their culture of communication.

 

If they have not done so already, implementing purpose-built enterprise-grade communication and collaboration tools and platforms are key to opening channels for open and honest discussions between managers and their staff. They can also enable open communication between colleagues, via channels that are not monitored or managed by their superiors.

 

The business then needs to establish certain standards and expectations for communication practices, and enforce it from the top-down. By establishing guidelines about how different spaces should be used, and modelling useful updates at a reasonable frequency, top leaders can show micromanagers that staying in the loop doesn’t have to mean being present for every conversation.

 

Create systems of accountability

One motivation behind micromanagement is a desire for more accountability. This is an area where tiny changes in company culture can create a big impact. By introducing standard practices around goal setting, project planning, and status updates, it’s easy to build accountability into daily processes in ways that don’t feel overbearing or critical.

 

This will reduce friction among teams, even if a manager is hesitant to change. When the practice of checking in is formalised, it doesn’t have to feel judgmental to employees. Instead, it just becomes another step in the workflow.

 

Providing audit tools that enable people to assess their own performance can also give managers more insight into their teams’ day-to-day work. They help managers better understand individuals’ skill sets, the needs of specific roles, and employees’ development on the job. They also help identify skills gaps and enable managers to align work assignments in a way that fosters employee success.

 

Perhaps most importantly, it provides a channel for two-way communication between managers and their reports, giving employees a concrete way to have their voices heard.

 

Staying on the right track

Regardless of its cause, poor management, especially in the era of hybrid working, always creates the risk of lost productivity, lower morale, and higher turnover.

 

Great management, enabled by the right tech and the right leadership, creates the opposite: more employee growth and autonomy; higher employee satisfaction and productivity; better collaboration and faster results.

 

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Sridhar Iyengar is MD for Zoho Corporation

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com