Steve Jobs was the ultimate proponent of job fit.
He’s quoted as saying, “I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”
While you might not have the same amount of clout or discretion as the late Steve Jobs, the underlying message is clear. You should regularly take stock of your job and ask yourself—is this really what I want?
Over the last six months, organizations have made all sorts of changes, ranging from compensation reductions, work-from-home policies, and strategic reinventions. These organization-level adjustments will undoubtedly trickle-down to your day-to-day lives at work and at home. The time is right for a job fit reevaluation.
An important first step, however, is acknowledging that work is a multi-faceted creature. To decide the proper next steps, you need a nuanced assessment of your situation. It’s only then that you can properly plan out the next steps.
Continue reading for considerations and recommendations for the most popular dimensions of job-related fit.
Want to learn your strengths that can help you to understand careers that fit you best? Learn how you can find your strengths with Cloverleaf.
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- A comprehensive list of the assessments that Cloverleaf offers
- Summary of each assessment and what insights you get
- Anticipated time commitments for each assessment
Employee engagement directly relates to the emotional commitment your employees have to your company and your business’s goals. This level of engagement often correlates to employee effectiveness and dedication.
Our team at Cloverleaf can help you learn more about employee engagement and how it benefits your company. We believe that no one should dread coming to work. Want to try Cloverleaf with your team? Start using Cloverleaf with your team free for 14 days.
DEFINING EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
What is employee engagement? Some business owners believe this term refers to how happy or satisfied their employees feel. In fact, employee engagement deals more with the emotional commitment employees feel for their employers.
Engaged employees often express higher levels of happiness and job satisfaction. These employees develop a commitment to the goals and values of their organization. They focus on doing their best each day, with the goal of increasing company success.
Download the Cloverleaf Assessment Guide
- A comprehensive list of the assessments that Cloverleaf offers
- Summary of each assessment and what insights you get
- Anticipated time commitments for each assessment
THE FOUNDATION OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
So, how do businesses develop an engaged employee? Employee engagement initiatives often focus on increasing two-way:
Communication
Trust
Commitment
Integrity
Employees feel more engaged when they understand their role in your organization, their duties, and the business’s objectives. You can increase employee engagement in your company by providing information about the purposes and objectives of your company.
Engaged employees feel they have the ability to express their ideas about company decisions. Make sure that you cultivate a company culture that encourages employees to:
Give and accept constructive feedback
Develop new skills
Receive recognition for their achievements
Taking these steps helps employees feel like they’re truly members of your team, which can inspire employees and boost organizational performance. Employees who feel engaged funnel their increased energy into serving your company.
Note that engagement requires employees to understand your company’s goals and desired outcomes. Make sure that you provide this information in a clear and understandable way.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ENGAGEMENT AND SATISFACTION
How does employee engagement differ from employee satisfaction? Employee satisfaction deals specifically with how content employees feel about their job. Employers can measure employee satisfaction based on behavioral, affective, and cognitive components.
Engaged employees often turn out to be satisfied employees, as individuals who feel they have an emotional connection to their work report a higher degree of satisfaction on employee surveys.
Therefore, employee happiness and satisfaction often coincide with a company’s engagement scores.
EXPLORING THE IMPORTANCE OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Developing an engaged workforce offers your company several important benefits. HR professionals recommend that you take steps to keep your employees engaged to improve:
Employee Performance
Engaged employees demonstrate a greater willingness to give their all during the workday. Engaged workers often proactively take steps to go above and beyond, which leads to increased productivity.
Retention Rates
Do you want to facilitate higher employee retention rates for your company? Disengaged employees are more likely to quit. When you engage employees, they:
Take fewer sick days
Experience fewer accidents
File fewer grievances
Develop a workplace culture that values employee engagement to take advantage of these benefits.
Customer Satisfaction
Engaged employees focus more on ensuring business success for your company. They put more effort into performing their jobs to the best of their abilities, which means they provide your customers with better care and service.
Customer loyalty rates often increase in proportion to employee engagement. Keep these factors in mind as you consider ways to improve the employee experience for individuals working for your company.
DEVELOPING MEASUREMENT PROCESSES FOR EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Employee engagement levels impact your business outcomes and the success of your company. Many companies, therefore, want to measure the amount of engagement experienced by their employees. Your company can implement measurement processes such as:
Pulse surveys
1-on-1s
Exit interviews
Pulse surveys (or employee engagement surveys) allow you to quickly assess how employees feel about work. This kind of engagement survey usually only takes a few moments and should not contain more than ten questions to gather employee feedback.
1-on-1s allow you to speak directly with employees. Examples of these meetings include performance reviews as well as regularly scheduled talks throughout the year. During these meetings, you may discuss career development options and have the worker complete an employee engagement survey.
Perform exit interviews with all employees who decide to leave your company. These interviews allow you to determine what led to their decision to leave.
Finally, consider employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) assessments. These engagement surveys ask employees how much they enjoy work and how likely they’d be to recommend your company to someone else.
Use your survey results to assess the overall state of engagement throughout your company. You can even set up an employee engagement platform to make this process easier for members of your HR team.
SOURCES OF ENGAGEMENT
How can you build employee engagement in your company, improving business outcomes and the financial health of your company? Each component of your company can contribute to increased levels of engagement.
Managers
Senior leaders in your company play a pivotal role in generating engagement. Managers who keep the lines of communication open help employees feel like their voices matter. Managers need to be a coach for their employees by helping them set goals and expectations.
Increase Your Engagement – Cloverleaf helps employees bring their whole selves to work.
Maximize Talent – Uncover hidden employee strengths and potential.
Build Trust – Help employees build empathy and trust.
Teams
Cloverleaf helps teams to love working together through personalized insights about each team member which helps employees better understand one another, communicate better, and improve their relationship with the entire team. Employees who work in teams feel a greater sense of belonging. One satisfied employee often encourages a sense of well-being and devotion in other workers.
Interest Groups
Business interest groups represent the desires of multiple businesses in an industry. Allowing employees to work with these groups can boost engagement metrics.
Company-Wide
Developing a culture that values employee contributions helps generate higher levels of employee engagement.
EXAMPLES OF GOOD EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Companies with good levels of employee engagement make decisions based on the results of survey data. They focus on performance management and treating each employee as a valued member of their team.
Southwest Airlines represents an example of a company that focuses on employee engagement. The company allows a lot of employee autonomy, even letting employees design their own uniforms. As a result, employees realize that their voice is heard and the company values their point of view because they listen and take action.
STEPS TO DEVELOP ENGAGED EMPLOYEES
A satisfied employee does far more from your business than an employee who feels disconnected from the values and goals of the company. Encourage engagement by:
Providing information about expectations for new hires during the onboarding process
Offering extensive training opportunities
Setting up safe channels for employee feedback
Giving employees specific congratulations
Promoting a healthy work-life balance
If you complete employee engagement assessments, make sure that you implement the survey results to demonstrate how much you value employee engagement.
IMPLEMENT AN EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY
Want the benefits that come with healthy engagement from your employees? You can set up a strategy to encourage employee engagement by following the guidance in this article and considering employee engagement software.
Employee engagement software provides you with a toolset to measure employee engagement levels. Software systems allow you to set up assessments and surveys for employees to take on a regular basis.
The software records the results of these assessments, providing you with easy-to-understand data about the state of engagement in your company. Keeping your finger on the pulse of employee emotions helps you make adjustments to the policy as needed, keeping engagement levels high.
Our team at Cloverleaf equips you with tools you can use to set up a strategy to boost engagement levels for employees throughout your company. Our tool sets provide you with several assessments you can use.
We also provide personalized insights about your business. We offer services for teams, coaches, and enterprises, allowing you to select the tools that do the most for your company. Our team even provides training for onboarding, enabling you to start connecting with your new employees and engaging them from the start.
PEOPLE ALSO ASK:
What Does Employee Engagement Mean?
Engagement deals with how dedicated your employees are to the success and mission of your business.
What Are Examples of Employee Engagement?
Your employees demonstrate that their engagement with your company when they:
Recommend your business as a place of employment to their friends
Go above and beyond to serve your customers
These actions only reflect examples of engaged behavior that you may see in your employees.
What Is Employee Engagement, and Why Is It Important?
Engagement from your employees reflects employee willingness to put your business first. This form of engagement is vital because it has a direct impact on employee satisfaction and happiness. It also helps improve customer satisfaction, as engaged workers often take extra steps to please your customers.
Why Is Employee Engagement So Important?
Healthy levels of employee engagement help your business grow and thrive.
Learn more about your work team and how to engage each teammate with Cloverleaf.
The success of any company or business rarely rests on just one team member. Through the collective efforts of the entire team, success is built using communication, emotional intelligence, motivation, and teamwork.
What defines good teamwork?
Good teamwork is the collaboration of diverse talents and perspectives, where team members respect each other’s unique work styles and boundaries. It’s about effective communication and contributing skillsets towards a shared goal. Effective leadership is crucial in guiding the team and providing necessary support in this environment. Good teamwork avoids micromanagement, allowing each individual’s strengths to contribute to the team’s success. This balance between individuality and collective effort ensures that everyone is motivated and productive, leading to innovative solutions and a shared sense of accomplishment.
WHY TEAMWORK IS ESSENTIAL FOR A GOOD WORKPLACE CULTURE
More and more, younger generations are inclined to take a “lone wolf” attitude in the workplace. For tasks that team members must complete alone, this mindset is perfectly practical. However, most modern workplaces require collaboration and soft skills such as communication, teamwork, and critical thinking in order to achieve a common goal. These systems are self-sustaining. Motivation and success are natural byproducts when all team members collaborate, work responsibly, and contribute equally.
Many Hands Make Light Work
Teamwork also increases overall productivity within a workplace. Successful collaboration among multiple team members with unique skill sets accomplishes basic tasks more rapidly and efficiently, meaning the team can move on to the next goal or project.
Planning and adaptability are important during projects involving multiple team members. As teams grow larger, collaboration becomes more of an impressive feat of logistics.
HUMAN SKILL PROGRAMS ARE HITTING LIMITATIONS...
- Close the widening gap between learning and on-the-job application
- Overcome the tension of pausing productivity for development opportunities
- Integrate learning so it is actually in the flow of work
- The evolution of human skill development
- What Automated Coaching™ is and how it works.
9 TIPS FOR IMPROVING TEAMWORK
Successful team collaboration isn’t always easy to establish. If your workplace suffers from productivity issues or other problems, there may be breakdowns in teamwork to blame. Taking steps to improve teamwork can improve productivity, increase job satisfaction, and more.
Below, we cover some of the best ways your company and leadership can help boost teamwork in the workplace.
1. Schedule Team Meetings to Discuss Goals
Sometimes, maintaining team cohesion in a busy work environment is challenging. Remote teammates may not receive as much opportunity to practice open communication or work collaboratively as in-office team members. For this reason, it may be challenging to work toward a common goal effectively and make remote employees feel like they are part of a team.
One way to encourage employees to share ideas and practice effective communication is to schedule regular team meetings. Since most companies have people working remotely, make these meetings digital as much as possible. In this group setting, teams can discuss both team goals and business goals to establish detailed plans to work productively and reach targets.
If you’re looking to spice up regular team meetings, consider utilizing meeting games or team-building activities to encourage discussion during these meetings. Always go into each session with a list of fresh ideas relevant to your organization or team’s current state of affairs.
2. Incorporate Active Listening Training
Active listening is a skill developed by people who engage in emotional intelligence practices. Active listening is a method of turning off internal reactions and truly hearing what another team member is saying. Successful teamwork relies on active listening to establish strong communication, trust, and mutual support.
Leaders and team members should encourage participation in active listening training or utilize team-building activities that promote active listening.
3. Set Up Office Layouts with Clear Goals in Mind
Office layouts should increase natural teamwork by promoting organization, efficiency, and clear guidelines for work. Teams know where and when each task needs to be performed and can work and communicate more effectively.
If your team members suggest changes to an existing office or workplace layout, it may benefit your company to listen to those suggestions. Otherwise, try to think about the goals below when designing your office spaces.
4. Privacy
An essential part of teamwork involves respecting the boundaries of other team members. It’s important to remember that many people work better in quiet, private spaces such as offices or cubicles. This preference may be because these environments generally promote focus and increase productivity. An underrated benefit of teamwork is letting individuals tend to their needs and then coming back to the team refreshed.
5. Collaboration
Even if team members complete a primary portion of their work alone, there will be instances where teamwork is essential for productivity. Create spaces where your team can work together comfortably and effectively. Open spaces or even larger offices transformed into conference spaces make great places for collaboration among teams.
6. Share Insights About Personality Types
Our personalities have a lot of influence over our professional lives. When members of the team appreciate unique personality types, working styles, and communication needs, employee morale increases, productivity improves, and teamwork occurs naturally.
Cloverleaf delivers personalized insights for each of your team members. Learn how to work better together with coaching tips delivered to your messaging apps, email and calendar.
7. Use Team Feedback to Choose a Low-Commitment Team Extra-Curricular
A critical part of building effective teams involves encouraging change and fun. Don’t sign your team up for something they won’t enjoy; instead, ask them for feedback about low-impact activities they might like to participate in as part of the work culture.
Some companies choose professional lunches or dinners while others go on trips, attend seminars, play games, or participate in team-building activities. Whatever activity you and your team choose, make sure it promotes good workspace values, pulls on your team’s individual talents, and fosters partnership among team members.
There are many different ways to get team feedback regarding any team activity. Take polls, send chain emails, hold in-person votes during select meetings, and more. As always, allow your team to provide feedback on whichever choice they’ve made. They may choose one activity initially but feel more comfortable selecting another going forward.
8. Discourage Micromanaging
Nothing kills teamwork faster than micromanaging. Micromanaging is when a lead or team member attempts to control every aspect, no matter how small, of a project, task, or activity. In these cases, the lead or team member is trying to achieve results without allowing the talents and skills of other employees to shine. Micromanaging represses talent, stifles collaboration, and discourages teamwork and learning opportunities. After all, if your work is never good enough for a team leader or fellow team member, why participate in teamwork at all?
9. Hire with a Focus on High Performance Team Players
If your business needs a great team that works together and gets the job done, hiring with those goals in mind is a good practice. Make sure each new hire has a talent for working in a team, is willing to engage in team-building activities, and can adapt to the needs of other team members.
PEOPLE ALSO ASK
What Is Good Teamwork in the Workplace?
Good teamwork in the workplace is a collection of collaborative efforts from team members of every level that increases productivity and helps achieve goals.
What Are the 3 Most Important Things Needed for Effective Teamwork in the Workplace?
Effective teamwork requires mutual trust, clear communication, and freedom to be creative and share innovative ideas. In this team environment, people feel capable and ready to engage, helping companies achieve short- and long-term goals.
Teamwork is a skill that manifests over time as teams get to know each other and begin to understand how to work with one another effectively. With emotional intelligence and professional empathy, even struggling teams can find pathways to improved productivity and morale. Utilizing a combination of team-building exercises, discussion groups, and goal-oriented coaching, a group of people can learn to work together more effectively.
At Cloverleaf, our technology helps to build teams that love working together. We specialize in promoting professional development by improving team collaboration, problem-solving, and communication skills.
If you’re ready to boost teamwork in the workplace, Cloverleaf is here to help. We specialize in helping teams of all types work better together. To get started and see how Cloverleaf services might benefit your team, sign your team up for free for 14 days.
WHY BUILDING AN EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT PROGRAM IS VITAL FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS
An engaged employee is more productive, loyal, and willing to work harder than an unmotivated employee. Disengaged employees and disgruntled employees are a threat to the security and the safety of an organization.
Workplace motivation is more than just a paycheck. People so often dedicate years of their lives to projects that offer little or no financial reward. At Cloverleaf we believe no one should dread coming to work every day.
PUTTING TOGETHER EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES
Effective employee engagement has to be more than a slogan or a euphemism for conventional “carrot-and-stick” motivation. Positive reinforcement, or rewards, is important, but employers need to recognize that intangible benefits can be more important than tangible rewards as drivers of employee engagement.
A worker engagement strategy should align the core values of the company with the employees’ identity, self-concept, and deep motivational drives.
The best practices in developing an employee engagement strategy are:
Measuring engagement effectively
Understanding employee needs
Establishing multiple feedback channels
Fostering two-way communication
Making the right changes in the workplace
Employers and managers have to understand what employees want. Marketing researchers invest time and money in modeling consumer behavior to better understand the customer experience and provide customer satisfaction. An employee engagement model requires the same level of investment.
Employees want to do well at a job, but they want more than that. They want to belong to a team that values their contribution, and they want to feel their work has purpose. They want to feel they have paths to personal and career development. If the entire company can demonstrate that it understands employee needs and follow through by meeting them, engagement initiatives are more likely to succeed.
Each employee is different, learning and communicating in unique ways. They have varying needs that might require different accommodations. Consider the following examples of employees.
A stay-at-home father who wants meaningful work but needs childcare benefits and a clear sense of work-life balance
An aspiring writer who is working to pay her bills while she finishes her first novel
An employee with a poor self-image who works long hours to escape an unhappy marriage
A perfectionist who creates exceptional work but is easily frustrated and demoralized
Managers should encourage employees to express these differences in a constructive way, without fear of judgment. The employee benefits package, including workplace accommodations, schedules, and perks, should be flexible enough to motivate and retain a diverse and varied workforce.
Constructive communication is essential at every stage. The hiring process and onboarding orientation should clearly communicate job expectations. HR professionals should understand the career goals of new employees as well as their needs for personal development, inside and outside of the workplace.
Continue to promote employee development throughout their careers and recognize the value of senior employees. When employees leave the company, don’t brusquely escort them out. Understand their experience and the lessons it can teach for performance management and employee retention in the future.
HOW TO MEASURE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Employees work better as a team; Cloverleaf helps empower your team to do their best work while building better relationships: Engagement encompasses many things, including:
Diligence at work tasks
A feeling of personal connection to the company
A mindset that focuses the employee on shared goals of co-workers, team members, and management
Measuring employee engagement requires attention to employee thoughts, feelings, and actions in different ways. A complete picture of employee engagement requires measurement strategies that target each aspect of employee engagement in different contexts. Employers and HR managers can tailor messages, policy changes, and engagement initiatives to meet specific needs.
Monitoring employee performance allows managers to track behavioral signs of employee disengagement, such as
Using the work computers for entertainment
Failure to comply with workplace rules
Absenteeism
Non-verbal cues of disengagement are equally important. An employee who suddenly seems withdrawn, glum, short-tempered, distracted, or anxious may not be optimally engaged.
Lastly, it is important to know what employees think of the company, its purpose, and their personal stake in its success. If employees believe the company only pays lip service to its mission statement or if they feel personally overlooked or exploited, they will find it difficult to perform effectively at work.
The measurement process should not be focused on judgment but on identifying and solving problems. Disengaged employees might have physical or mental health issues. They might have lost loved ones, or they might be experiencing harassment in the workplace or abuse at home.
Engagement initiatives should focus on job crafting which is the act of understanding employee needs and finding constructive ways to bring them back into alignment with the organization.
Giving the employee time off, letting them relax at their workstation, or providing help outside the workplace could allow the employee to get through a difficult time in their life. Adjusting and being flexible to employees’ needs fosters a deeper engagement in the long term.
HOW MAKING THE RIGHT CHANGES CAN BOOST EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Providing Work Incentives
Keep in mind that incentives can be financial rewards, benefits, and intangible rewards. The incentives should match employee needs.
A pay raise could reduce anxiety and improve engagement for employees facing unexpected costs or saving for a major purchase. However, giving one employee a pay raise without benefiting others could lead to feelings of unfairness.
Building Out Structured Career Paths
For all employees, particularly those motivated by status and ambition, skill development training and other professional development programs give employees access to meaningful work that meets company needs and can justify recognition and pay raises.
Celebrating Wins
Employees who need validation and a sense of belonging could benefit from recognition programs and awards at company events. However, fairness is an issue here as well. An inauthentic pat on the back could make the employee more distrustful and make other employees jealous.
Employee recognition is most effective when it connects to valued incentives and genuine professional development. If you have invested in employee growth, you will be able to engage employees by celebrating that growth.
Try not to frame wins as zero-sum games where one person’s win is another person’s loss.
Conducting Yearly Award Ceremonies
A yearly award ceremony is a good way to build team spirit and recognize star performers. The ceremony could reward productivity but also recognize employees who exemplify the company’s values and contribute to the workplace in intangible ways.
The award ceremony should be accessible to all and provide many opportunities for recognition. Employee surveys should measure whether anybody felt uncomfortable, jealous, or disaffected at the ceremony.
PEOPLE ALSO ASK
What Are Employee Engagement Programs?
Companies worldwide are investing in employee engagement initiatives. They help managers, HR leaders, business leaders, and others with a stake in the workplace environment to:
Foster enduring employee loyalty
Motivate new hires during the onboarding process
Create a workplace culture that engages employees
Ensure that employees remain engaged while doing remote work
Inspire diligence, creativity, and productivity in employees
Turn workplace tasks into passion projects
What Makes a Good Employee Engagement Program?
A good employee engagement program uses multiple methods for engaging employees, including several feedback methods. These include employee engagement survey data, meetings, and anonymous reports to understand employee thoughts, behaviors, and actions. It uses that information to promote employee satisfaction, growth, and development.
The program is adaptable so that it can serve the needs of diverse employees but transparent so that employees perceive it as fair and are able to voice their concerns.
The program should also inspire a change in company values and company culture to promote a constructive relationship between employees and the company based on two-way communication and mutual respect.
How Do You Develop an Employee Engagement Program?
One popular approach to the development of employee engagement initiatives is the ADDIE model. ADDIE stands for Assessment, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation.
The first step is identifying employee needs. Are they primarily financial, emotional, or rooted in their identity and personal ambitions? What workplace situations or structures prevent employees from engaging?
Taking into account detailed employee feedback, construct employment engagement initiatives that target specific areas of concern. As you put those initiatives in place, continue collecting feedback and determine whether they have increased engagement, productivity, and loyalty.
What Is an Example of Employee Engagement?
Consider the following examples of employee engagement initiatives.
An employee is given a more flexible schedule so that she can drop her children off at school and pick them up afterward. She values the job opportunity and works proactively with her supervisor to ensure that her work is done on time.
An employee has the ability to choose projects that interest him personally. He knows that the projects will be part of a portfolio that will help his future career advancement. He works long hours and exceeds expectations on these projects even though he does not receive extra pay for that work.
An employee is working abroad and sends money back home to his family. The job pays more than work he could get in his hometown. His employer offers performance bonuses and overtime, so he works diligently on any tasks that his manager assigns to him.
Cloverleaf Inspires People to Achieve Their Highest Potential
The Cloverleaf team provides entrepreneurs, businesses, HR professionals, and coaches with the tools they need to understand their employees and coach them to work to their full potential.
The key to working from home is mastering work-home boundary management tactics.
Struggling to avoid disruptions while working from home? You’re not alone.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 2.5% of American employees worked from home. At the height of the pandemic, this number peaked at 42%. And now, many employers are implementing a permanent work-from-home option. This aligns with a recent study suggesting that 37% of U.S. jobs can easily be done from home. It would appear that remote work options are here to stay.
For some, this is the first time they’ve worked from home. For others, this is the first time they’ve worked from home full-time. Given this backdrop, it’s important to think about how well you’re doing at managing your home work boundaries.
You can take an assessment called “Managing Work-Home Boundaries” to see how you stack up. This 12-question assessment is free, validated, and theoretically grounded. Your assessment will automatically generate your scores and a comparison to your peers.
Integration Versus Segmentation
The first step in managing work-home boundaries is understanding where you fall along the integration-segmentation continuum.
Integrators enjoy the dynamic and fluid nature of going back-and-forth between work and non-work tasks. Integrators are better suited to be remote employees and feel more efficient as they simultaneously make progress in both domains.
Segmenters prefer to keep clear boundaries between work and home domains. Without proactive work-home boundary management, segmenters struggle when working from home and commonly cite feeling frustrated and distracted when work and home domains are intermixed.
Context-Dependent. Note that many will find themselves somewhere between these two extremes. This means that preferences for integration or segmentation for most work arrangements are context-dependent. Those in the middle should pinpoint the domain-specific circumstances where they prefer one approach or the other.
Behavioral Tactics
There are several ways to manage your work-home boundaries to ensure that you maintain your desired amount of segmentation for your workday.
Using Technology. Consider using separate email accounts (or email filtering), scheduling software that blocks off work and family time, Automated Coaching™ responses (via text, social media, email, Slack, or the like), and status messages to retain work-home boundaries.
Disruption Allowance. Decide in advance for which activities in each domain you are and are not welcoming minor disruptions. For example, perhaps Zoom work meetings are the only time you won’t allow home-related interruptions. During family time, perhaps you’ll only field calls from your supervisor, but everything else gets screened for urgency and importance.
Physical Boundaries. Where we sit matters. To the extent possible, create spaces like a home office that are off-limits to family and, in the longer term, seek several locations outside of the home where you can comfortably get work done. For example, coworking spaces are becoming ubiquitous, and it might be worth the investment.
Temporal Tactics
There are two time-related tactics that can help maintain WFH segmentation preferences.
Blocking Off Time. Experiment with blocking off days and timeframes where a specific type of work or home domain activity will be completed. Make it clear to colleagues at work, and family and friends at home, that those timeframes are non-negotiable.
Maintaining Equilibrium. This tactic entails balancing out the amount of time you spend in the work and home domains across a longer period of time than the traditional 24-hour timeframe. Many remote workers, for example, accommodate for early morning or late afternoon childcare transitions by working during designated times on the weekends. Relatedly, may employees take extended vacations after dolling out extra hours during a spike in seasonal work demands.
Communicative Tactics
All of the tactics discussed thus far are dependent on how well you communicate the rationale behind your decisions.
Managing Expectations. Don’t assume that colleagues or family members will know your work-home boundary intentions. You don’t have to broadcast your personal situation to colleagues. Keep it clear and simple. When managing expectations at home, explain why you’re employing certain tactics. Make sure they understand that you’re managing boundaries so that you can be present and fully available during non-work hours.
Discussing Violations. It’s inevitable that your work-home boundary preferences will be violated. It’s in these moments where you ultimately determine whether your tactics will flourish or flop. This is the hardest part of the process. Stick up for yourself, but be sure to be empathetic and reasonable while doing so.
In many ways working in an office around your co-workers is easier when it comes to work-home boundary management. The physical distance and commute does much of the work for us. But now, as we transition towards more opportunities to work from home, it’s our responsibility to figure out how to do it right.
Start by thinking through your integration-segmentation preferences, and then start experimenting with the aforementioned tactics. Keep in mind that it’s likely to be an ongoing experiment, not a black-and-white, one-time solution. Continue to take ownership of your time and space. You deserve it.
Visit www.scottdust.com for more free resources for human capital enthusiasts, including a free e-book titled “A Field Guide to Human Capital Assessments.”
Commonly overlooked, evidence-based recommendations for virtual leaders.
For managers now working from home, leading a team virtually presents new challenges. And because the pandemic changed the work environment so drastically and so quickly, our advice for managers is yet to catch up.
The virtual leadership reminders currently floating around the infosphere are straightforward. Leaders should touch-up on their technical skills, focus on building trust, and encourage social cohesion through regular team check-ins.
These are accurate and helpful, but virtual work is here to stay and moving quickly. It’s time to go deeper.
Below are five overlooked, evidence-based recommendations for leading in today’s virtual work environment.
1. Pay Attention to Emergent Leadership
Ideally, everyone on the team steps up as a leader when their knowledge or skills are needed. However, this tendency to emerge as a leader changes in virtual work environments.
Communication apprehension—anxiety due to anticipated communication with others—is more common in real-time virtual communication.
This isn’t the same thing as introversion. In fact, it’s more strongly associated with neuroticism, which means that some of the most critical, perfection-oriented employees aren’t speaking up.
Leaders should nudge these employees to contribute, clear the floor to give them the spotlight, or consider alternative outlets for them to voice their suggestions and concerns.
2. Establish Virtual Communication Norms
Moving to virtual-only work disrupts preexisting face-to-face or hybrid communication norms. Embrace the change by thinking through four questions: What medium? How often? What tone? What level of detail?
In new or uncertain environments, employees mimic the behaviors of their leader. Choose wisely.
3. Stop Overloading Your Employees With Information
We’re getting comfortable with communication in a remote work environment. Too comfortable. We post or send messages about everything.
Just because it’s easier to communicate electronically doesn’t mean it needs to be communicated. Employees are overwhelmed. Be judicious.
4. Use Asynchronous Video
Employees log more overall hours when working remotely compared to face-to-face. Partly because the days are filled with Zoom meetings that disrupt employees’ flow and deep thinking.
Help your employees be more productive by recording videos with key information that they can watch whenever is convenient for them. They’ll likely watch them during the transition time between meetings or when their energy is low and they need a break.
5. Practice Balanced Monitoring
Over-monitoring employees is common when leading virtually. Leaders tend to overcompensate when they can no longer pick up on subtle signals during face-to-face interaction.
Although some degree of monitoring ensures stability in productivity, too much will annoy subordinates and degrade trust.
An Eye Towards The Future
Just like preexisting virtual leadership listicles, these recommendations will soon become outdated and overly straightforward. The foundations of leadership don’t change in virtual environments, they just make the need for high-quality leadership more pronounced. What will change, however, is the nature of the virtual work environment.
History clearly illustrates that technology changes quickly. The best virtual leaders will continue to think deeply about what’s new or different as virtual work environments evolve, and how they can go deeper to meet the needs of their team members.
A version of this article is also published at Business Insider.
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