When people work face to face, trust builds naturally.  Casual interactions, body language, and frequent socializing strengthens the bonds between people and therefore builds trust.  Consequently, leaders who were able to manage accountability through casual interactions pre-pandemic, lost this ability when the workforce became remote.  Since remote work is here to stay, this problem of accountability persists in many organizations.

As mentioned in a previous blog, I have been lurking in many on-line forums for leadership as well as Reddit’s (in)famous Antiwork forum.  Lack of clarity around expectations, schedules, and responsibilities is a persistent source of ire among Antiwork commenters.  In one Anitwork post, a remote worker dodged repeated, angry calls from his manager demanding he get online to finish a project, that was not his responsibility.  Likewise, in my work with other startup CEOs, there are recurring complaints about holding remote workers accountable and maintaining deadlines.

Accountability (or a lack thereof) impacts both leaders and employees.  Yet, like many other organizational problems, leaders must embody the behaviors they wish to see in others.  As such, here are ten tips for improving accountability among a remote workforce.  These tips are derived from my own experience as a founder/CEO as well as providing advisory services to other startup CEOs.

Ten Tips for Remote Worker Accountability

1. Doc It

Talk is cheap and easily forgotten.  Whenever a decision is made, an issue discussed, or a plan made, document it.  This ensures everybody is working from a shared, trusted source of information and not memory.  There are numerous collaboration tools, like Atlasian’s Confluence, Microsoft Sharepoint, or Trello which provide tools to capture agreed upon goals and plans.  For lower tech workplaces, pen and paper are equally effective.

2. Make Meetings Matter

It is extremely easy for people to waste time babbling and pontificating in meetings.  This feels like work. It is not.  Silence the babblers, stay on task, and keep meeting short.  Also, document action items from meetings, to prevent repeating the same topics in subsequent meetings.

3. Hope is for the Holidays

One of the more insidious weasel words in corporate speak is “hope.”  As in “I hope to get work done.”  When people say hope, they are avoiding commitment and passing off accountability to the whims of fate.  Stop all use of the word hope.  Require people to use the word “plan” or “intend.”  This may seem trivial, but it makes a significant difference in perception of a commitment.

4. Be Curious

If your team is missing deadlines, rather than blame, be curious. Use exploratory questions such as: “What is holding you back?” “How can I help you?” “What happened to delay the project?”  Avoid “why” questions, as they sound like blame.  Curiosity drives people to hold themselves accountable.

5. Silence Blame

Blame is a potent workplace toxin. Blame is how everybody (managers and employees) side-steps accountability.  It feels satisfying and justified to blame somebody else yet it accomplishes nothing. Shut down blame and refocus everybody to solving problems and accomplishing goals.

6. Pour on the Praise

If blame is a workplace toxin, praise is an effective antitoxin.  When team members meet commitments and accomplish goals, praise them openly and profusely.  Reward the behaviors you want, and you will get more of them.

7. Set and Respect Schedules

Have all team members set and commit to a recurring work schedule.  This not only replicates the cadence of going to a physical office, but it also sets boundaries for when meetings or quick chats are acceptable.  Boundaries that leaders must respect.

8. Open Calendars

Shared calendars are an ideal way for everybody to transparently communicate their availability as well as their work schedule.  This ensures those boundaries mentioned earlier are communicated effectively.  Communicate the importance of this transparency to the team.  Then ask the IT team to open calendars for sharing.  Establish a requirement that everybody, including leadership, is expected to maintain their calendar.  Anybody concerned about privacy issues can block out private meetings or use a personal calendar on a different platform.

9. Beware of the Likability Conundrum

Being clear, resolute, and consistent with expectations are good leadership practices.  Those behaviors will also cause some people to dislike you because they do not like being held accountable.  This is the Likability Conundrum.   You can be an effective leader, yet people will still dislike you. When the team meets goals, produces results, and receives praise for the success, the dislike caused from being held accountable will fade.

10. Cameras On

When you can see a person’s face, you communicate more effectively and build trust more naturally.  Require cameras on for all meetings.

Conclusion

The core concept of holding remote teams accountable is increased formality.  When people work face-to-face, they build informal avenues of accountability.  Remote workforces demand a more formalized approach, especially when it comes to documentation.

Moreover, formalized practices also set clear boundaries.  This allows both leaders and employees to work within established rules and expectations, while also allowing people to leave work behind when the logoff.

Even with the pandemic subsiding, remote work is here to stay.  As such, rather than forcing people back into the office, update your accountability practices to work for both remote and on-site people.

The post How to Improve Remote Workforce Accountability appeared first on Zenaciti.

However, Antiwork is only one side of the story.  Consequently, I also started lurking in a number of other forums focused on leadership, entrepreneurialism, and startup businesses.  These forums tell a profoundly different story.  While some leaders (like myself) are genuinely sympathetic to the struggles of workers, most are not.  These leaders blame everything from weak education, government handouts, and even Hollywood movies for causing workers to revolt.  They are genuinely panicked, but conceal it with rage, arrogance, racism, and many other forms of hatred.

Predictably, these leaders never blame themselves.

In the midst of all my lurking, along comes some new research from the Association for Change Management Professionals (ACMP). This article provides fascinating evidence on how toxic work culture impacts turnover. A core conclusion of this report is that companies with good cultures have lower turnover.

The ACMP research also shows that the Great Resignation defies simplistic answers.  However, among the many insights, there is a loud and clear one for leaders: workers are fed up with the toxic, American work culture. While low pay and weak benefits are undoubtedly significant factors driving resignations, toxic work culture is the real leviathan lurking under the surface.

Fixing corporate culture is equally a complex effort that also defies simplistic answers. However, one of the lessons I learned in my own leadership training was: when there is success, look out the window. When there is failure, look in the mirror. This was a reminder to reflect on my own behaviors when there were problems, rather than jumping to blame everybody else.

While a top ten list of ideas to improve corporate culture is woefully inadequate, there is only so much I can jam into a blog. With that in mind, here are my 10 ideas for leaders who want to improve corporate culture

Ten Ways to Clean Up Corporate Culture

1.       It is Not About You

I am appalled at how tone-deaf many leaders are about their own importance.  They will toss around all the big and important people they know, as if that is some fabulous accomplishment that grants them authority over everybody.  Workers do not care that you met Andy Grove at a really chic party.  Proximity to power is not an accomplishment. Bragging about your own importance only makes sycophants respect you. For everybody else, this makes them feel inferior and resentful.

Talk about the team and their accomplishments. Talk about great ideas. Talk about plans for the future. Talk about anything other than yourself, who you know, and what you did ten years ago – nobody cares.  Which is a good segue to the next item.

2.       Listen

Following from the previous item, nobody likes the blathering blowhard who talks over everybody (boy, did I learn that the hard way.)  There are numerous Antiwork posts from workers fed up with being talked down to, bullied, and ignored from leaders. In one post on Antiwork from a few months back, a young woman said she was talking to her boss about a problem with their computer system. The boss just shut her down and told her she did not understand how it worked.  Fed up with the bullying, she walked out and quit on the spot.

A few years ago, I discovered a great truth about leadership: the more you talk the stupider you sound.  Shut up and listen.  Listen to the workers’ worries, concerns, and complaints.  You might not be able to solve the problems, but listening will show empathy and build connection.

3.       Stop the Hustle Culture Nonsense

Everybody has the exact same number of hours in a day to spend.  If you want spend 14 hours a day working, that is your choice.  You cannot impose that expectation on anybody else.  It is unrealistic.

If there is a lot to do, then focus on prioritizing what must be done with the time you have. It is unhealthy and unsustainable to push people to work more hours. Even the people who freely choose to work long hours should be required to take some time off. It will be good for them and everybody else.

4.       Home Invasion

Working from home and being on-line 24×7 is now the default arrangement for many workers.  There are a lot of benefits to work from home, but there are also some huge drawbacks. One of those is that people’s work is now inside their home and invading more of their time. Going into a workplace imposes a natural barrier between work and life.  Those barriers are disappearing.

If working 14 hours a day is unreasonable, so too is expecting people to be available 24×7. Work must respect people’s time off. If you need people working at odd hours or on call, then you must hire enough to balance those demands, otherwise do not offer it.

5.       PTO is Sacred

Speaking of time off, it is precious. There are a multitude of studies that overwhelmingly prove that taking a healthy amount of time off makes people more effective as employees.

However, unlimited PTO is a lie.  Make PTO simple and sacred.

6.       It is Inflation, Stupid

People are asking for raises not because they are lazy entitled communists who hate America, but because milk, bread, and cat food cost a lot more than they did a year ago.  Blame whoever you want for this, it is a serious problem that impacts the lowest paid people the most. Ranting and raving about lazy Millennials, government hand outs and the decimation of American exceptionalism only makes you sound like an idiot.

7.       COVID is not a Hoax

900,000 people are dead in the USA from COVID. That is twice the number of US citizens who died in World War II. Protecting your team’s health is a top priority of any leader.  If you are unclear on this concept, read Simon Sinek’s Leaders Eat Last.

It is completely unacceptable and irresponsible to demand people to come to work if they feel ill.

8.       Get the Jerks Out

Nothing kills corporate culture faster than enabling or supporting bad behaviors.  A jerk employee can obliterate productivity and loyalty in mere moments. However, there is a fine line between being a jerk that destroys culture and a rockstar that defines it.  Both jerks and rockstars can have a lot of energy and ambition. Both may work hard and produce results. From a leadership position, it is easy to confuse these two.

The simplest way to tell the difference is what they talk about.  Rockstars talk about great ideas and praise others.  Jerks talk about themselves and praise those in power.  Jerks drive away good employees, rockstars drive away bad employees.

Do not hesitate. Fire the jerks. Keep an eye on the rockstars and make sure they do not devolve into jerks.

9.       Compassionate Curiosity

You want to build a healthier, happier, more engaged workplace?  Be compassionately curious.  Ask questions, seek out new ideas, and encourage people to share. Compassion builds connection with people, while curiosity drives the company’s interests forward.

We all learned this in kindergarten, and it works.

10.   People Need Purpose

One of the most common complaints from workers on Antiwork is how they feel like their job is meaningless.  Once again, I am routinely amazed at how dismissive leaders are to communicating any kind of organizational vision, mission, and values. I have observed leaders dismiss these ideas as stupid, New Age touchy-feely nonsense.

A company without vision, mission, or values may make money, but it will never make a difference.

Defining vision, mission, and values is well beyond the scope of this blog. However, the Society of Human Resource Professionals has a good primer on these concepts. The best way to build a healthier corporate culture is to define core values, mission, and vision and then strive to achieve them every day. It can provide meaning to work that may feel meaningless.

Conclusion

That last item is, in my opinion the most significant deficiency in many workplaces: a lack of meaning.  Few people work because they love what they do.  People work to feed themselves and their families.  If you look at companies which are weathering the Great Resignation well, there are some consistent themes. Obviously, good pay and benefits are part of that.  However, as the ACMP article shows, company culture has an even significant impact on employee engagement.

Corporate culture is not a pizza party, a birthday celebration, or a hoodie with the company logo.  It is the values on your wall, the mission you share, and the vision of your leaders.  If you truly want to improve culture, then:

• Stop talking about yourself or all the money the company makes
• Start talking about the mission, values, and vison of the organization, and how that solves problems and helps people.
• Keep listening to those around you and show compassionate curiosity.

The Great Resignation is many different things.  Ultimately, it might be the best thing to happen to American workplaces.

The post Toxic Corporate Cultures are Driving the Great Resignation appeared first on Zenaciti.