Creating High Performance Culture for Remote/Hybrid Teams

From lack of face-to-face and efficient collaboration and decreased productivity due to isolation to the struggle to maintain a connection through technology, business got affected during remote working.

Now if you look around, you find that remote work, or at least hybrid work, is not going anywhere.

Today, 66% of HR leaders report that their organizations have a hybrid work model, while 30% plan to implement one. (Gartner, 2023)

About the experts

1. Atish Bhattacharya – Head of Human Resources & Administration at Okaya Power Group
2. Neha Puri – Director HR at Innova Solutions
3. Swayam Jaiswal – Senior HR Manager at Boodmo
4. Ravi Verma (Moderator) – VP of Growth, Joy of Performing

Key takeaways from the webinar

1. Challenges faced by organizations in handling remote employee performance
2. How remote work changed the way you measure employee performance
3. How has the HR Department been handling remote employee performance
4. How technology is helping to manage performance effectively
5. How is remote working affecting individual performance and well-being

How did remote work change performance management?

1. Change in the way we measure performance“Organizations started measuring the output (and outcomes) of employees compared to the number of hours before the remote work,” says Neha Puri.Clear SMART goals were established to help them work cohesively, set clear expectations, and work productively despite the distance.
2. How do employees see the shift in culture and performance management?Employees see these three main aspects of remote work as affecting their performance:
   1. Flexibility and Autonomy.“Structuring your day according to your rhythm is pretty empowering. This translates into better performance,” says Swayam Jaiswal.
   2. Work-life balanceEmployees saved the time they used to commute earlier. They are channelizing this extra time to concentrate on goals, their well-being, business goals, and job satisfaction.
   3. Results-focused approach to workEmployees find outcomes-driven work a better approach to improve their performance while working from home. They can stay aligned with the business and other team members.
3. How do CHROs find performance management in remote working environments?
   1. “One of the major jobs of the HR Leaders in the remote work environment is to manage the expectations of management and employees,” says Atish Bhattacharya

      Management wants to keep their business growing and get things done efficiently, while employees want to adapt to this new work environment and maintain their work-life balance.

   2. Driving the elements of culture in remote workIt is a big task for the HR department. They have to facilitate trust between team members and ensure they collaborate efficiently.
   3. Fostering ownership and accountabilityWe adopted an effective way of enabling high performance among remote employees by using the SMART goals and teaching the employees how to collaborate effectively

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Challenges and Opportunities of managing performance in remote teams

Challenges

1. Lack of face-to-face meaningful interactions and messed up work schedule“We, as humans, crave interacting in person with people. The remote work environment offers a virtual way to connect, but it’s not as impactful as the face-to-face.” says Atish Bhattacharya
2. Maintaining team alignment“Lack of meaningful interactions and more chances of miscommunication in remote working can make employees more disorganized,” says Swayam Jaiswal
3. Going into silos“Initially, the situation was quite stressful as people had no immediate contact with their colleagues and could not finish their work efficiently.” says Neha Puri.

Opportunities

1. More flexibilityPeople working from home save commuting time to work according to their schedule and preferences making their way of working more flexible. This helped them to focus on the bigger picture i.e. key business goals and take the initiatives to collaborate and improve their work.
2. Diverse talent acquisition“Companies can hire suitable employees without any geographical boundaries now. This unlocks another opportunity for the business to drive performance with the help of more talented and driven employees,” says Swayam Jaiswal.
3. Building resilience by adopting new technologies“As the way of working changed, employees had the chance to either adapt to the new technologies or let their work be inefficient by denying the change,” says Neha Puri

Has technology made managing remote performance easy?

“Of course, yes, without technology, as I mentioned, having a scoreboard in front of you during your review meetings is very helpful to gauge performance and make smart decisions,” says Neha Puri

It’s updated regularly and helps the team make decisions based on data. Plus, it’s a great way to reward team members based on their performance without any bias.

Innovative ways to monitor and enhance performance in remote setting

1. Identify those widely important goals

   “What are those 20 percent of the goals that create 80 percent of impact in the organization? Rest are, of course, your BAUs. Key goals that will make a major difference and contribution to the organization’s goals,” says Neha Puri.

2. Virtual scoreboard

   There has to be a team and an individual scoreboard because it is said that something visible right in front of you is easily achievable.

3. Build suitable cadences to effectively measure progress and boost accountability

   “You have weekly cadence calls in the teams, making each other accountable. What is it that you did? Do you need any support? Is there anything that I can help you with? If you can, set that cadence and accountability. I think it helps a lot,” says Neha Puri.

How to boost engagement within remote/hybrid teams?

“Constantly having meaningful conversations, recognizing their efforts, and giving them constructive feedback are the main ways to motivate and help your employees perform better. That’s why it is important to engage your remote employees,” says Swayam Jaiswal.

1. Employee-goal alignment

   People must be aware of their individual goals all the time. This will help them understand how their work contributes to the key business goals. We must regularly revisit and realign these goals to keep everyone motivated and on track.

2. Setting clear expectations

   Clear outlining of roles, responsibilities, and expectations is critical. So when an employer understands what is expected of them and they’re equipped with high-quality tools and all the resources to deliver, that is when they are more engaged with the organization’s goals.

3. Regular check-ins

   Conducting regular 1:1s or team meetings or video calls, or just to maintain that sense of connection and to check progress on goals, is very important. These interactions can be best utilized to discuss progress, alignment, address concerns, and, most importantly, guide to deter disengagement.

Questions from the audience

1. What are some of the best ways to ensure effective collaboration across departments that often work together on various aspects of overall delivery?

   Have your communication channels up, and your goals focus on the company’s Mission and Objectives.

   “When we continue to maintain this and positively and proactively communicate how to achieve this, we can engage everybody as a part of the organization to be cross-collaborative and keep moving toward what the business desires,” says Swayam Jaiswal.

2. How do we convince the management that remote work is here to stay?

   “When performance levels and expectations were clearly defined, we easily convinced management of the remote working part. Everybody had a clear understanding of what results are expected out of teams,” says Atish Bhattacharya.

   The HR teams also worked around the cost efficiencies, so there were clear cost benefits while having people remotely working.

   “HR has played a role in convincing the management and helped them identify which roles can effectively work remotely and which roles need to be in the office. But at the same time, you have to request people to come to the office, collaborate and see each other because F2F interaction helps build a real connection between the team members,” says Neha Puri.

3. Technology usage has two sides – one is helpful automation, and the other is the risk of privacy reveal. It has its pros and cons. How to maintain a balance to avoid burnout?

   You can plan your remote work better, say, define the number of hours you work on a particular task. Communicate that these are my working hours.

   “There has to be a smooth collaboration among the team. The work that one team member is doing is passed on to the other team member before they log in and ensure that there is efficient collaboration and work is not compromised at the end of the day,” says Neha Puri.

4. How can AI help HR to manage performance effectively?
   1. Atish

      AI is helping us to make decisions based on data and analyze data in real-time. As the entire shift of HR has now shifted toward analytics. It can also tell us, early predictors of attrition or red flags when people are disengaged.

   2. Swayam

      Now, with the integration of AI, we can track if any part of your objectives or key results requires you to pay more attention or how you could do better with any particular key result.

      This AI tool also continuously checks with employees, and it’s integrated with one of the instant messaging tools.

   3. Neha

      AI is important but Empathy comes with a human touch. If you can empathize with your employees, you can help them improve. There has to be a blend of AI and Human intelligence. For example, HR can’t reach out to everyone simultaneously to understand the pulse, so AI enables HR to be more effective.

Conclusion

We hope you found the insights from this webinar blog useful.

If you want to learn more about building high-performance culture, you can talk to our experts. We’re happy to help.

We host webinars on various topics related to business and team performance. Stay tuned with us and we hope to see you in our future webinars!