How to maintain organisational oversight when you can’t see your employees

Gazing out across the sea of cubicles is no way to manage performance. Nor will you be a beloved and respected manager if you constantly hover at people's shoulders, watching them work.

How to maintain organisational oversight when you can’t see your employees

Gazing out across the sea of cubicles is no way to manage performance. Nor will you be a beloved and respected manager if you constantly hover at people’s shoulders, watching them work. 

With more and more employees working remotely, you can’t even see your people, let alone hover over them. I have found two strategies to be effective in overseeing a virtual workforce: performance-based metrics and a great way to empower and motivate your employees. You can use both strategies in a bricks-and-mortar model, but you must use them in a remote one.

Performance-driven workforce

Providing input that drives desirable output is essential ‘ you need a system that rewards performance. This means changing your compensation structure so that some part of it is variable or offering some other sort of prize or reward. It doesn’t have to be much, but it should be enough to be attractive. You don’t need to spend more on compensation. Instead, you could make (for example) 10% of an employee’s pay variable, like sales commissions or bonuses.

Then you need to link the variable pay with specific performance goals. It’s important that you identify and clearly communicate the goals to each employee. If there is extra work to be done, you might throw in incentives for completing one’s regular work and then taking on and completing an extra assignment. The result: while you can’t see how employees achieve their goals, you can monitor whether or not they have. After all, you’re most interested in results, right?

Autonomy, mastery and purpose

A performance-driven workforce is a kind of carrot-and-stick approach, but you can take your leadership approach to the next level by following the advice of Daniel Pink, an author and inspirational speaker named the six most influential management thinker in the world by Thinkers50 (2019). Pink believes that, when it comes to motivating employees, encouraging individual satisfaction is more effective than rewards.

He advocates implementing policies that provide staff with three proven motivators: autonomy, mastery and purpose. Each is something that human beings naturally want and actively seek in life, so their motivational power is strong. Here’s a brief summary.

Autonomy” doesn’t mean doing whatever you want. It means the license to work independently in your own way, or to make certain decisions for yourself. It works when you clearly lay out the boundaries of a position and allow the employee freedom within those boundaries. Those boundaries provide clarity on what to do and how success is defined, but the real motivation comes from being trusted to work in ways that most suit each employee.

Mastery refers to giving people the chance to develop skills and not just perform tasks. Everyone has something at which they want to get better. Whether it’s in the context of work or not, overcoming obstacles and gaining mastery is a rewarding and fulfilling part of being human. Conversely, being unable to move forward in the skills or activities we are learning can be demotivating and unpleasant. As a leader, you should provide people with opportunities to master new work-related skills.

Purpose is also a key driver of motivation. In his book, Start with Why (2011), Simon Sinek argues that money should never be the sole driver behind achieving work objectives. Sinek uses “why” the same way we’re using “purpose.” Your company’s mission statement should have some trickle-down effect for every member of the enterprise.

The whole point of giving your people autonomy, mastery and purpose is to help them become better employees overall, which includes assuming greater accountability for their own performance. You will do less “overseeing” and be able to focus on other strategic tasks.

References

Pink, D H (2010) RSA ANIMATE: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc [last accessed 3 August 2020]

Thinkers50 (2019) Award Winners of 2019. Thinkers50.com (no specific date). Available from https://thinkers50.com/awards/awards-2019 [Last accessed 3 August 2020]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris Dyer
Chris Dyer
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