No time to read? Listen here. (5 min)
We’ve seen a rash of companies require their employees to come back to the office — gradually by moving up the requirement one day at a time or all at once by setting a deadline for return.
And they’re getting massive pushback. Why is management so focused on getting employees back into the office? Productivity is up, employees are happy they’ve eliminated their commute, and companies are getting more work hours normally spent in a car or train. Most employees understand they might have to come back into the office a few days a week. Still, they also treasure the flexibility of a WFH situation, especially on troublesome commuting days (MON/FRI).
I think management is afraid of people goofing off. Fortunately, I think it’s more of a perception problem than reality. Let me break it down using a bell curve:
Your Top Performers (20%):
You get the maximum productivity and work product from this group.
If they choose to work from home, you get the same or even more productivity from them.
They’ve developed good communication and management practices with their staff.
Your Above-Average Performers (30%):
Their work product and productivity are good-to-great (not a top performer).
They also enjoy WFH benefits, which help them stay above average in their performance.
You might get an outlier issue (missed deadline, disappearing from their home office), but it’s a rare occurrence.
Your Below-Average Performers (30%):
Their work product and productivity are average to poor. They’re not terrible, just below average.
You must keep a close eye on this group — they tend to deliver late, make mistakes and need focused guidance.
They love WFH, but they run into trouble frequently and require regular check-ins with management during the day.
Hopefully, a few will graduate as above-average performers, but most will stay in this group.
Your Problem Children (20%):
This is the group you worry about. This group loves a WFH situation and uses it to buck the system.
You have to spend an inordinate amount of time managing, directing, and supervising each problem child.
A WFH situation only exacerbates the problem. They do shoddy work and disappear for long stretches.
Management groups everyone together and maintains that a WFH structure is unworkable. They are making a broad-brush analysis of the group as a whole.
This frequently happens when I teach leadership development — you can’t manage everyone the same way. Based on our model:
You can reasonably infer that 50% of your staff will highly perform with a WFH/Hybrid work structure.
The below-average performers (30%), do have a bit of trouble, but you’ll have to put accountability management behaviors in place, such as regular check-ins, reporting accomplishments when complete, and total adherence to communication platforms (zoom, email, cell, text).
It’s the Problem Children that might spoil the basket - you have to employ different WFH rules based on behavior, reprimand, PIP, and/or fire them if they consistently cause infractions to your set guidance.
So why impact 100% of your productive force when a few bad apples cause many of your headaches and issues?