Ricardo Alfaro

The organization of telework in the COVID-19 era

Balance remote work and face-to-face work in a safe environment

Twenty days are missing from the publication of this article for the entry into force of the new law on distance work in Spain (Royal Decree-Law 28/2020). And at this time one of the main concerns of companies is how to organize work from the point of view of the presence-distance binomial. Employee chats burn with the same question: Will they force us to go back to the office every day when the pandemic passes? And most HR departments are trapped in the paradox of having to design what post-COVID telework will be like and the hard day-to-day management of the incidence of COVID itself. A complex and stressful situation.

At what point should you start implementing the post-COVID telework model?

The founder of the Jesuits, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, advised new members of the Society not to move in times of tribulation. Although in another context, this would be my first advice. The teleworking that you have been able to implement responds to an exceptional model that has adapted to an exceptional situation. There are too many unknowns to solve. In the first place, the effects of a pandemic that has not stopped. Second, an ‘express’ change management that has not allowed managers and employees to assume this new reality well prepared. And finally, a royal decree-law on remote work, approved on September 22, which, although it establishes a first regulatory framework, leaves many important decisions to a collective bargaining that has not occurred. For all the above, I believe that it is not the best moment to define what the teleworking model will be like in the future in a specific organization. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do anything. Unlike. Now is the time to experiment and prepare for the future (post-COVID teleworking). But without being too explicit, it is better to be cautious until you see how the unknowns are cleared and your template responds to the changes.

How to organize face-to-face shifts safely? The Alpha, the Bravo and the Charlie

One of the main difficulties that the HR department has had to manage is the actions against COVID-19 infections in workers. This is inevitable, because most of these infections come from interactions in the private sphere and the company is not immune to them. However, from a security point of view, you can prepare so that these infections have the least possible impact in terms of internal transmission.

To do this, below, I explain seven very simple ideas.

• Try to organize the provision of work so that there is as little contact as possible between working people. You must try to produce the same bubble effect within the company that is taking place in schools.
• To achieve this bubble effect, it establishes fixed shifts to provide the service. As an example, you can set two shifts: the first that works in person Monday, Tuesday and alternate Friday, the second that works in person on alternate Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The rest of the days, telecommuting. Make clear the importance of fixed shifts, for safety. Divide the working people into halves, taking the department or organizational unit as the axis of that division.
• Establish a different shift for managers, so that they can have direct supervision over all of their teams, that is, over the two shifts. This means that, in the previous model, managers should work in person, at least Tuesday and Wednesday and two continuous Fridays.
• Try to 'gamify' the system. Assign names to each turn (in this case they could be the Alpha-managers-, the Bravo and the Charlie). This way you will have people assigned to Bravo shift and Charlie shift and Bravo Friday and Charlie Friday. It is easy to understand.
• Before implementing the system, talk to the managers. Make a video conference with all of them and solve their doubts. The HR department should be seen as an internal advisor, a help. Oh, and if you haven't done it yet, train them now in remote team management.
• Don't forget to have a registration system for shift assignments so that you can see who works each day, in advance. There are many applications for this, but if you don't have any you can do it with a simple data sheet in the cloud, accessible to everyone.

The above are ideas that you can implement now, during the pandemic. However, there are things you should start thinking about. For example, start designing a scorecard to help managers set and track individual and group performance goals. Bear in mind that efficient corporate telework requires greater degrees of autonomy and self-management of the workers. But that is not at odds, on the contrary, with having a dashboard for monitoring the objectives set. You should also think about the financial model of teleworking, because the new regulations will lead you to have to pay for the provision and maintenance of the means, equipment and tools. In short, do numbers.

A flexible system that allows you to adapt extraordinary situations.

When you have the model prepared (and written in procedural form), the moment of truth comes: put it into operation. But do not forget that at any time your company may have an infected worker. At that time you must preventively confine all their contacts, until confirmation or not by PCR. That is when the model shows its virtues. If it has been implemented correctly, it should only be activated on the people on duty (Bravo or Charlie) from a specific department. In any case, to fine-tune the previous process, it is highly recommended that you have internal trackers. People who are in charge of talking with infected people and compile their list of contacts in the last days. Once this is done, let them coordinate the isolation of these contacts until confirmation or not of the disease.

by Ricardo Alfaro

The manager and the corporate teleworking

Ten fears that you must overcome to implement in a traditional company

The changes generate fears for those who must implement them and resistance for those who must execute them. It's normal, it's part of human nature. If I want to organize a corporate telework model, it means that I am going to promote a change in the way we work in my company. On the other hand, if I want to do it well, I am going to try to transform a part of what constitutes your corporate culture, which is something very relevant.

When a manager is faced with that decision, he cannot move around fashions, trends or conjunctural situations. You must perform a very fine analysis on the fit that this decision will have in the company's strategy. And you will have doubts, for sure. The doubts are accentuated when we talk about implementing teleworking, because it is something that does not have a direct correlation with the development of the business. And I want to highlight the concept of ‘direct correlation’, because indirectly it is clear that it does. On the contrary, it is a change that will modify the way in which working people will carry out their functions. And that does not have, once again, a direct correlation to the income statement. It is clear that motivated employees generate more efficient companies, and more efficient companies, generally end up being more profitable. The risks are not few, and hence the fears arise.

We are going to analyze some of those main fears that can arise and end up becoming pain points. We are going to do it based on the vision of the leader or manager himself. It is about putting emphasis on some of the reflections that any 'normal' manager has raised when facing this type of situation. And we are going to put it in the first person, with a triple approach: those fears that affect staff, management team level and worker level. In each approach we are going to display three main fears. Let's see:

Regarding me.

• Digital transformation is a wave that will overtake me, I don't know if I will be able to digitize, at my age. Perhaps it is better to wait and see and, in any case, for the in-depth approach to be done by the next generation, who will be more prepared.
• I have got to where I am thanks to the many hours I have invested in my company. In fact, in recent years I have spent more time in my office than at home. And I know my people very well because I have spent a lot of time with them. I'm not sure I can run my business without that touch component.
• I worry that the board does not quite understand. It is very difficult for me to transmit actions that are not directly related to direct business results. Although I am very clear that innovation in management is just as important as innovation in product, process or service. In short, it will cost me a lot to "sell" the idea without being certain about the result.

Regarding my management team.

• I don't know if I have the right management team for this new reality. They are very capable people with a lot of knowledge of our business, but it is difficult for them to manage changes and they do not feel comfortable in managing uncertainty.
• My senior management team is used to leading their teams in a very traditional way, assigning tasks and continuously monitoring their performance. Perhaps I am going to meet great resistance on his part to manage that change, and I don't know if it is worth opening that melon.
• It is not clear to me who to assign operational leadership of change management. I am clear that the most important thing has to do with the human factor, but I see that the HR department is very focused on its own processes (and they do it very well). On the other hand, it could be led by the CTO, but he cannot be distracted from his main objectives, and managing the human side is not his greatest strength. The one who has direct responsibility for the workforce is the director of operations, but I am concerned that he will stop focusing on the business. The truth is that I do not want to resort to an external, but ...

Regarding my employees.

• I am aware that one of the priority objectives of all people is to achieve a better reconciliation of personal and professional life, and I agree. But when I bring it to my specific company I am not sure that my workers can maintain the level of performance without direct and personal supervision of middle managers. I'm not saying it's not possible, I'm just not totally sure.
• It takes my employees a long time to come to terms with the small changes that have occurred over time. In this way, I imagine that the management of major changes will need a degree of involvement that I don't know if we are going to achieve. I do not know if the fear of the unknown is going to generate new resistance that may end up diverting us from the final goal.
• To manage change I will need to measure the degree of progress with data. In this sense, I would like to have indicators that allow me to show the Council that with this new way of working we gain efficiency and motivation. But that means measuring something that we haven't done until now and I'm afraid that it could cause labor unrest.

And finally, the big question: will it be worth getting into this mess?

After all, my company has survived many crises and if something has remained unchanged over time, it is the way we work here (obviously, with the adaptations resulting from technological advances).

I do not know if someone who is reading this article and now, after the COVID-19 crisis, has to decide on this issue feels reflected in these reflections. If so, I think it's good news. Why? Because any change must be preceded by a process of strategic reflection and that process cannot exist without taking into account the possible threats, that is, the fears and obstacles that you must overcome if you want to be successful. And because the management of fear is inherent to the management of business organizations.

Innovation in the company is not an act of conquest, it is an exercise in exploration.

It has to do with moving into the unknown and the unknown generates fear. And it is in the hands of those who are capable of changing the present in which they live to build the future they imagine. It is not the objective of this article to provide answers to these fears. Each manager will have to find them for himself. We will continue to advance on this in future writings, when we address an essential aspect of corporate telework management: its fit into the company's strategy. When we get to that stage, it will be very important to have made progress in managing the manager's fears.

by Ricardo Alfaro

Teleworking as a new management model

The organization of a corporate teleworking system must obey a management model.

From the point of view of working people, teleworking has many advantages. In general, those who prefer this modality present higher levels of motivation towards their functions. They also tend to have higher levels of commitment to the Company. But this is not the case in all cases and a good management model must be able to detect this.

From the point of view of the company, one of the objectives is to ensure that teleworkers perform equal to or better than the rest. Although it seems obvious, not all organizations put all the effort into that goal. Many lack a performance management 'control room', much less when it comes to the performance of remote workers. In any case, the organization of a corporate teleworking system must obey a management model.

Next we are going to give some guidelines to ensure that an organization can say that it knows the performance of its teleworkers. And we will do so by generalizing, perhaps excessively, because in this text we cannot differentiate by activity sectors or company sizes. Some of you may say, with reason, that this analysis is a responsibility that must be the responsibility of each manager. But here we try to lay the foundations of a strategic scorecard that can serve so that Senior Management knows the state of the situation and can make decisions about it. And as always in these cases it is about managing not based on impressions, but based on data.

These are the main levers that we must take into account so that our teleworking model is more efficient:

• Telephone management.

It may seem like a very basic concept in this digital age, but telephone customer service is essential. Every unanswered call is a lost business opportunity. That is why it is essential for a teleworker organization to know the level of overflow of the calls received in each business unit (or even on a personal level). By overflow index we understand those calls missed (not answered) for every hundred incoming calls. To get to know this information it is important that the teleworking system is based on a unified communications model. We must avoid managing by calls via mobile phone (which will also exist, as in the case of face-to-face work). Something similar is happening with email service, which we'll cover in more depth in a future article.

• Meeting management.

As we pointed out in our article 'How to improve the efficiency of your virtual meetings', having video meetings has many advantages. Save time and travel costs, increase digital skills and collaborative work, etc. But it is also important that Senior Management has a direct report on the meetings held, their conclusions and their follow-up. One of the worst things that can happen to an organization is falling into excess of useless meetings. Keep in mind that this is a danger that is accentuated in the virtual world, since there is no expense management component that face-to-face meetings have.

• Process management.

In a somewhat simplistic way we can differentiate between those working people whose job is based more on process management from those that is based more on project management. There is little we can add here about the benefits that process management has brought to business management in the last half century. But it is not enough to define and diagram these processes. In the new digital environment, it is very important to provide ourselves with indicators that allow us to trace each process. In this way, we will be able to know, almost in real time, their levels of progress, as well as assess the performance by business units and possible problems from the organizational point of view. It should also be taken into account that, sometimes, remote work requires a process reengineering exercise that must always be carried out before starting the model.

• Projects management.

It provides the necessary capacity for innovation to be able to keep each organization at the forefront of its market or sector. Working people who, due to their functions, work through projects have used to have greater autonomy than those who work through processes. However, it is important to remember the essential guidelines to follow: a good project manager who assigns tasks and deadlines, project management software that provides traceability to project management, and a project governance system with the corresponding report by KPI's to different internal stakeholders.

• Change management.

Changes in organizations are far from easy, especially those that involve an evolution in the cultural model of the company that has been established throughout its history. It is very important to establish a gantt chart of project implementation, accompanying managers and workers in the process. That means a series of steps will have to be followed:

• • Determination of the necessary tools to telework by job. It will also be important to know if these tools will be the responsibility of the worker (BYOD, bring your own device) or will the company be responsible for it.
  • Management of the different legal requirements, from the contractual novation agreement, if applicable, to the occupational risk assessment aspects of the job.
  • Training for managers. It is very important to develop the skills necessary to lead remote teams. They are not the same as for face-to-face teams.
  • Training for working people. The goal is always to maximize the performance of the teleworker. To do this, it is critical to maximize your training possibilities, to help you adapt as quickly to this new work environment.

• Connection management.

It is undoubtedly the least relevant lever when measuring the performance of a teleworker organization. But it is no less necessary for that. Teleworkers have the same obligation to register their schedule (something highly debatable in the 21st century) as other working people. Likewise, the company has the same obligation to measure that working and connection time to guarantee that the working time contractually agreed with each worker is not exceeded. Nor that there are grievances from those people who meet their schedule compared to those who do not. But make no mistake, these are hygienic data that do not measure performance and therefore have a relative value. Be careful not to focus on that value, we can fall into ‘telepresentism’.

The importance of control and monitoring of the model.

The aforementioned indicators can constitute a dashboard for Senior Management to monitor the work model. Beyond the fact that someone may value it as an excess in the power of organization and control of the company, well applied it can be a very valuable tool for this new business culture to consolidate, which will end up benefiting both the company and the workers.
In any case, any telework management model must be accompanied by a systemic corporate project. In this way, it is important to plan, design and unify its implementation. And also hope that the regulation (at the moment there is a draft bill on remote work) does not represent an inconvenience for companies to decide to move forward on that path.

In any case, remember: the success of a corporate telework model is due to a management model. Not to an improvisational model.

by Ricardo Alfaro

Five tips for leading hybrid teams

Great leaders are not responsible for the work, they are responsible for the people who are responsible for the work.

Become the leader that you would like to have.

Leading a team is not an easy task. Many people suffer daily from leaders who fail to make their teams work. Why it happens? It has to do with the way professional development is managed in organizations.

When you are a junior your main responsibility is to do your job well. You get paid and valued for how well you do. And your company invests a lot in your training, precisely so that you can do it even better. Over time someone proposes you to promote to a position in which you become responsible for people who do the work that until then you did. But no one has taught you how to do that. You become a boss, but you are not a leader yet. You have not made the transition and you tend to get involved in what you feel strong in, which is nothing other than what has made you promote. And right at that moment you start to practice micromanagement. Many HR managers must be familiar with this script ...

The most important challenge in becoming a good leader is to start assuming that you are no longer responsible for the work, you are now responsible for the people who are responsible for the work. The focus should be on taking care of those in your charge. It is a transition that can take more or less time. Some never get to do it, and inevitably fall into the so-called Peter Principle.

So far the difficulties of assuming the role of leader. But if the teams do not share physical spaces, the quantitative possibilities of maintaining contact with them is reduced. And the difficulty increases.

Here are some tips, from my experience, to lead high performance teams remotely:

FIRST.- It transmits the purpose of the team and clarifies its objectives.

Many leaders are very good at telling their teams what to do and how to do it. It's about assigning tasks and following established procedures. It is logical, but if you stay in that part of the management of your responsibility as a leader, it will be very difficult for your team to connect with something greater. Something that transcends your day to day. One of the most important responsibilities is that, as a leader, you explain very well what is the purpose of your team and of each of the people that make it up. When I speak of purpose, I mean the answer to a single question: Why do we do what we do?

Therefore, start by sharing with your team the purpose of what you do and leave the details of the procedures and tasks for later. If you do it like this you will achieve higher levels of 'engagement'. You will go from connecting with your limbic brain instead of your neocortex. You will go on to connect with their emotional side instead of their rational side. If you believe in that purpose (because it makes sense to you), your team will probably believe in what you believe.

Once your purpose is communicated, be sure to set very clear goals that everyone understands in the initial stage. An essential characteristic of remote or hybrid teams is that the levels of supervision decline over time, so it is important that they understand the objective at the beginning of the journey. You put the gas, and let them drive ...

SECOND.- Build interpersonal trust.

Trust is the foundation of all team management, and hybrid work environments make you have to build it by providing an extra proactivity. You need people to maintain personal connections in the distance, the basis for maintaining trust. Without personal connection there is no trust. The distance between people does not help them connect. You must serve as a catalyst for those connections. Become the synapses of those neurons that are the members of your team.

You will need to exercise your leadership so that people feel safe to raise their hands and acknowledge when they make a mistake. Or feel confident to tell you that they have a problem at home and that it is affecting their work. Or that they need more training for a new responsibility, of which they do not have enough knowledge. If you don't build trustworthy teams, you could end up with a group of people who show up for work every day lying, hiding, and pretending. They will hide mistakes for fear of getting into trouble. They will not admit that they do not know what they are doing for fear of being humiliated. Remember: The most important question you can ask yourself as a leader is not whether you trust your team, but whether your team trusts you.

THIRD.- Communicate with predictability.

Poorly managed remote computers tend to have unpredictable communication patterns. Often just one or two people account for the majority of communications. The rest remain crouched, waiting for news. In well-managed teams, communications are regular and predictable. It is a rule that you must take into account, because, I repeat once again, distance makes spontaneous communication difficult. This is not to say that it is more difficult to communicate in these types of environments. It simply has to be planned, and the leader is primarily responsible for that planning. It is not too difficult to plan a meeting agenda six months ahead, and stick to it. Do it!

Another cause of this necessary predictability is that team members have to be aware that everyone has to know when to be accessible and when to be inaccessible. Encourage digital disconnection and make sure no one wonders why someone had not responded to a message.

FOURTH.- Develop based on strengths, not weaknesses.

Just think about how performance appraisal normally works: Gaps between ideal and actual behaviors are identified, and feedback is given from time to time. Thanks to the feedback, the employee gets an idea of ​​where he is failing and then begins to think about making improvements. It's true that feedback sometimes covers strengths, but none of us escapes negative bias, or fidgeting with negative information, thoughts, emotions, and experiences tend to leave a more lasting impression on us. But the truth is that we almost always improve faster in those areas where we are strong than in those where we are weak.

Do not turn your team into a school classroom where the requirement is set according to the students less willing to learn. Because the most talented will get bored and end up looking for another school that better meets their expectations.

FIFTH.- Share and rotate power

I know this sounds strange. Pronounced hierarchies have been linked to lower job satisfaction and motivation. Also with the reduction of loyalty and an increase in stress and anxiety. In a hybrid work environment this is accentuated. And it is costly and ineffective ...

Not long ago I asked a person about the main difference between traditional work and the hybrid, distributed and project work we had created. And his answer was very illustrative: 'Before I managed teams where all the components depended hierarchically on me. She attended meetings where everyone depended on who called them. Now, less than 20% of the people on my project teams hierarchically depend on me and I attend meetings where the person calling them is not my boss, nor the boss of most of those who attend. Before I did few things many times, now I do many things rarely. ' I couldn't explain it better.

In a traditional workplace, teams are usually led by one person. But in a virtual environment, a centralized power structure is actually less effective. The power of high-trust teams actually changes between members depending on the stage of the project. Again it is a question of trust. Thus, you must assign responsibilities based on the specialty of the aspects to be managed, beyond the hierarchy. Don't forget to allow decisions to be made at the lowest possible level and above all, don't meddle. Remember that at the end of the day great leaders are not responsible for the work, they are responsible for the people who are responsible for the work.

Become Edward Teach.

Better known as Blackbeard. We generally associate pirates with violence, theft, and mayhem. Despite the legend, pirate ships during their golden age (17th century) managed their teams in surprising ways. They practiced a revolutionary form of democracy. To keep the ship running smoothly and discourage revolt, they elected their captain democratically. They limited their power and guaranteed crew members a voice in ship's affairs. The captain and the crew voted on all relevant aspects, where to go, who to rob, the fate of the prisoners... With enough votes, the crew could demote or even fire the captain.

Any pirate could make complaints or proposals without fear of retaliation, as the crew members were protected by the 'articles' - a kind of constitution drawn up for each ship. These ‘articles’ were formed democratically and required unanimous agreement. Saving the distances, it is not that far from what we advise now for the management of remote teams.

Relax and enjoy.

Remember: you are no longer responsible for the work, now you are responsible for the people who are responsible for the work. That means that when everything is good you have to give all the prominence to your team, but when everything goes wrong you have to take full responsibility. Is not easy. The trick is to practice every moment, every day. Leadership is a skill like any other. If you practice it every day, you will be a strong leader. If you stop practicing it, you become a weak leader.

by Ricardo Alfaro