How do you organize your organization in the 6 ft. economy?
Irrespective of the long-term vision organizations have on working from home, we all have to face challenges, in the short-term, working as well as possible without physical contact. One thing, however, is for sure: Management now requires trust more than ever before.
As a manager, you don’t know what time your employees begin working; how long they take for lunch; how long their coffee break is or how long they take to walk their dog. They may even be taking afternoon naps without you knowing about it. The challenge for managers is to show more confidence, control less and focus more on output. Because, those KPIs and goals? They’re still important – perhaps, more important now than ever.
Organizing your 6 ft. Organization
Now is a good time for many organizations to take their first steps towards working more flexibly. The temporary measures they’ve put in place for working from home can act as catalysts for lasting change. There’s bound to be a new focus on mutual trust. But, are trust and shared control enough to make remote working a true success?
When teams work remotely and take on more responsibility, team members have to find their motivation within themselves. After all, there is no one checking on whether you’re spending enough time on your work or not. There is a strong connection between the degree of participation and motivation in teams. In other words, employees are more motivated if they’re given the opportunity to actually participate in, at least a part of, the decisions made by the team and organization. If people are allowed to participate in the decision-making process, they also ensure those decisions are carried out.
Especially now, in the time of COVID-19, this difference quickly becomes apparent. When team members are part of the decisions, and can determine which ways of working make the most sense, the work often continues as usual and people find it easier to adapt. In such teams, people are motivated to contribute and, in some cases, have to be slowed down in order to ensure they’re not working too hard.
The role of technology in the 6 ft. Organization
In recent times, organizations have seen a great deal of digital transformation. Today, even those organizations that hadn’t embraced this transformation, to a large extent, have begun meeting and communicating online. For example, schools have switched to teaching remotely and work processes across industries have been digitized in no time. Places where digital working seemed unlikely have made it possible and are, in fact, doing well.
It’s now time to follow-up on these initial steps with measures to ensure conscious and safe cooperation at work. How can we safely optimize cooperation, externally and internally, on complex issues? How do we work with a distance of 6 ft. when people cannot work from home? And, how do we develop best practices for working online and offline; sharing knowledge and working together on achieving KPIs?
In short, now is the time to find a healthy and safe mix between the physical and digital worlds, using the right software and hardware.