As we find ourselves at the beginning of a talent draught, it is more important than ever to start rethinking the role of a manager.
We cannot control the number of qualified and interested candidates in the job market right now. But what we can control, as managers, is the experience we provide and how that experience will help drive engagement, wellness, retention and ultimately productivity at our organizations.
There is a lot of debate around the demand to work-from-home. Employees want the option to partially or exclusively work-from-home. Many employers are resisting or refusing. Why?
On the surface, working-from-home is a solution to a problem that existed well before the pandemic. For decades researchers have been exploring the impact of autonomy and flexibility on job satisfaction and organizational commitment.
When varying degrees of “job control” and “schedule control” exist, satisfaction and commitment increase. Additionally, individual well-being improves, along with improvements in work-family related conflict.
Is the desire to work-from-home being conflated with the growing need for autonomy and flexibility in the workplace?
When Covid hit and employees were sent home, an unintended benefit was more autonomy and flexibility. Managers lost visibility and control. Employees gained several degrees of freedom.
But are we confusing thirst for hunger? Is working-from-home simply a short-term solution that provides the instant gratification of autonomy, because managers haven’t yet figured out how to regain that control?
As technology races to keep up with trends, surely we will start to see products that allow companies to transcend the virtual workplace, and put eyes and ears on people at their home office. For the companies that HAD a culture of visibility, and control and supervision, they will find a way to maintain that culture.
On the flip side, companies that can prioritize flexibility for employees in creative ways should be able to lure people back to the office. More importantly, whether in the office, hybrid, or remote, companies that embrace flexibility will have stronger retention and production rates.
How can managers create more flexible and autonomous cultures?
In the past, managing truly meant managing. To manage someone, you need to be able to see them in order to monitor their effort and output and maintain your own accountability to the business. When managers lose that visibility, they lose control.
In a work-from-home setting, or more importantly in an autonomous and flexible setting, managers can no longer manage, they must lead. This is a critical point and a critical evolution that needs to take place – managers of people becoming leaders of people.
Leading people means understanding them as individuals. Knowing what motivates them, what gives them energy, what their strengths are, how to help them succeed and what might make things more difficult for them.
Cultural Dimensions That Promote Autonomy
1. Clarity
Leading people in a culture of autonomy and flexibility means being very clear and intentional about how you communicate goals, expectations, and value propositions. Properly describing the impact one can have on a project is creating a call to action (people innately want to answer the call). Setting guidelines and conveying potential landmines help to train someone for their journey. The goal is to be able to give them a map and a destination, but to let them choose how they get there.
2. Structure
Flexibility cannot exist without trust, and trust is a two-way street. Leaders need to be able to trust that employees have the tools and the ability to get the job done without rigid oversight. And employees need to trust that they are being set up for success. All of this is supported by the structure of an organization or a team, and relies on that structure being efficient and functional. This is somewhat of a dichotomy, as there is a yin and yang to the opposing forces of flexibility and structure that help create balance.
3. Respect
Respecting others and having respect for the task at-hand helps to promote accountability. When you respect someone, you don’t want to let them down. You respect the collective efforts of a team and the goal being pursued. Similar to structure, flexibility must be anchored by accountability, which is fueled by mutual and self-respect.
4. Openness
Openness further reinforces trust, as it promotes an environment where it is safe to provide feedback and safe to receive feedback. Feedback is constructive, not punitive. And employees have the freedom to fail, because without failure, we miss opportunities to learn and grow and develop. Being open to growth, or having a growth mind-set, is critical to sustaining a healthy, flexible state.