Asynchronicity and Remote Working

Asynchronicity. Fantastic word, and a crucial concept in communication and engagement with a remote workforce.

A great twitter thread (https://twitter.com/chris_herd/status/1313202750818312192) detailed lots of learnings re: remote working. Lots to learn. For me, one key challenge.

We know that synchronous comms, requiring presence/response at fixed times, are grossly inefficient.
There are many channels that can be used asynchronously, allowing more reflection, collaboration and control of when you respond.

But, we have bad habits, reinforced by notifications. We enjoy the notification buzz (I'm needed!); we respond urgently. When we all respond to everything urgently, it keeps coming.

THE CHALLENGE: If you keep responding around the rest of your life, without the structure – physical and temporal – of the office, you suffer.

So, synchronous communication must be used solely for two purposes:
1) For the genuinely urgent – where people must listen and respond
2) For the emotional or social – where people are brought together, and again there’s a new emphasis here
 

Remote working is staying. So, for everything else - that’s a lot of everything - it’s time to break habits, use new channels or old channels differently, with a focus on the written word. We must allow people to respond – better – on their own terms.

2020 - The year I didn't go anywhere

 

 

Loads of thoughts on this chart.
1) It's not surprising Richard Branson has a Caribbean island
2) Liking how I've eliminated driven miles
3) How little I spend on hotels and food - I'm truly a cheap date
4) I saw a lot of the UK in 16-17...

But two things stick out:
Firstly - I'm no longer in front of clients and their people. So, what do I lose in terms of understanding? There's lots of smart ways to gain insight remotely from people - and I've added to that list. But, undoubtedly, a little is missing. You can't read the room in the same way, you can't spot that bit where there was hesitation or vigourous agreement. You can miss the cues that show you where you need to probe again. It calls for harder listening, more ways to make sure you are flushing out all that really matters to employees. That's my challenge.

Secondly - It's a long time spent within these compact and bijou home office walls. Each of those trips away might have meant me leaving domestic chaos behind. But they also represented a change of scene and pace, an opportunity to recharge. Often physically tiring; mentally they were a fillip. Without that option I need to find other ways to be in a different place, while staying right where I am.
Ideas welcome!

Time to Listen Hard

 

Everyone can put up with a temporary imposition. A change to how we do things, just to ride out the storm. Especially if it's for the common good.

But by now things feel a little more permanent. Commitment and understanding naturally falters.
Then layer on the come-back-to-the-office/No! Stay away! hokey-cokey that we've just endured.
Then layer on the fact that many will be in fear of their jobs, their health, their security.

It's a time to be listening to your people. And listening hard, because there will be a complex mix of fears, confusion and fatigue.

So, you might need some help to work out how you're going to listen. You need a hand to devise the most meaningful questions. You might need an independent person to get "out" and listen first hand. You might need help to unpick what comes back. Independent, rigourous and dedicated to simpifying the complex - Reason Why can help.

Survey Design Is Important - Even for chip shop sauces

This is a fun survey - but let me be clear, it is BUNK, BOGUS and BAD.

Here's two of the main problems.

1) Where's the "no sauce" option?
Either there wasn't one in the survey, or it's not reported. Either they've forced a potentially false choice, or we don't have the whole story.
I grew up in the South East, and your options for wet stuff on chips are usually as follows: Vinegar, maybe Ketchup. Or Tartare Sauce - but that's not even an option in this.
In my experience, no southerner has ever considered putting curry on their chips. Rightly, it's just not a thing.

2) What's the threshold?
Look at Northern Ireland. 10 responses, but 5 results are reported. So these "results" are mostly the opinion of 1 or 2 people. Is that valid?
Compare that with the North West - my adopted home - where they've contrived countless ways to contaminate chips with gloopy and/or wet crap. 102 responses. That's more like it. We can have confidence that this represents the wrong-headed decisions of my neighbours.

Surveys must be designed well and analysed well. People think they're easy, because they see them every day. I see them every day too, and there's usually at least one major error that compromises them. Get an expert involved.

Right, now I need to plan my next trip to Edinburgh to get a pudding supper, salt 'n' sauce and a can of Irn Bru...

"Your employer brand IS your brand."

"How you treat your employees NOW is more important than ever.

I heard that a lot at the start of the crisis. I said it.

And yet ... Sports Direct. As COVID-19 took over, Mike Ashley showed characteristic contempt to the people that make his millions. The people that allow him to fill a mansion with as many fireplaces as he could ever wish to vomit in.

Their BrandIndex score plummeted. And so - three short months on - in an act of retribution, the British public .... queued for hours to buy his brands.

It's certainly a lesson to me; predictions can bite back.

BUT

I've been running EB focus groups all week. Sharing various messages about an employer with their target audiences.

Time again they have told me "Sounds good. But let me have the evidence, let me hear it from their people."

You'd probably made your mind up about Sports Direct's employer brand already.

For many other - most other - organisations, you have a pretty blank canvas. People don't know with much certainty what it's like inside.

People certainly know how they feel about their employer right now.

So, now's the perfect time to not just tell your audience, but show them. To let your people tell your story through their experiences. That's your best #employerbrand

Examine who you're helping, and who you're not

I've seen a lot of people post a message: "If you’ve recently been made redundant (or are at risk), and we’ve worked together at any time, please get in touch and let me know how I might help you..."

The sentiment is entirely laudable, and only one of helping others less fortunate.

BUT

Young people are going to be hit - again - by the recession. They don't yet have that network. By helping someone that does, getting them access they might not otherwise have, in some way circumventing the system - could you be denying another young person that opportunity?

Likewise, and topically, people with more influence are less likely to be BAME, or female, or in the minority re: most of the other protected characteristics.

Does this kind of informal networking perpetuate that? That's almost certainly not your intention, it may not be the result in your case, but it's hard to argue that any kind of "jobs-for-the-boys" doesn't preserve disadvantage.

If we're really serious about levelling up, we need to get way beyond acts of intentional discrimination. We need to understand what little acts have unintended consequences.

Please continue to help people. But please be mindful of who you might not be helping.

Unknown Territories

Ironically, people might be in one physical place but they're likely to be in many different mental places.

I've been trying to consume as many as discussions, webinars, blogs as my time/sanity will stand. Those that explore what work, employer comms and the relationship with your workforce will look like.

There's a common theme: You can't assume people's thoughts, motivations or concerns.

So how to navigate? How to create messages that are meaningful, that answer questions, that show a positive future?

In normal times, I'm a big fan of the creation of personas/segments/tribes to understand how to communicate. I don't think that's possible right now. People will fluidly move between segments, or even to whole new ones.

So, you need to keep listening, continuously. Assume nothing. Be prepared to adapt fast. Be prepared to stop what people told you they wanted before. Be prepared to tell people things aren't as you thought.

If you press on regardless, if you don't gain the thoughts, assent or understanding of your audience - then you'll confuse, or the message will just pass by.

With a constant dialogue, there will be a lot of forgiveness of change. Listen carefully, then take small steps. And be prepared for that next step to not be forwards.

Bench Marks

Making an external comparisons between your engagement data organisations is a waste of effort.

Let me make three - brief - arguments against. In each case, let's think about an engagement survey.

1) When you recieve the results of your own survey, you'll - immediately - start to contextualise results. What happened that means one score is high, another one low, why another has increased. When you look at others' data, you have none of that context.

2) If you are re-running a survey, for each score there are three scenarious: gone up, gone down, stayed the same. Add in a comparison and now there are nine scenarios: gone up internally and externally, gone up internally/stayed same externally etc
Whatever we might think, humans are just not that good at handling numbers. Add in too many variables and we lose sight of the bigger picture.

3) Look at global engagemnt surveys and what % of people they say are engaged. They all give different numbers. The only reliable benchmark is your own.

I love and truly believe in engagement surveys. They can help define what makes your organisation better, more productive, safer etc. But looking externally is most often a distraction.

If you introduce distraction, you allow people off the hook for their results.

A shift to care

My other hope is a bit more complex. A societal mind-shift, and they don't come easily.

We now know the value of care. For children in schools. For older generations by carers, in residential homes.

I don't wish to keep harking back; my glasses are often dirty, not rose-tinted. But not too far back, in a two-adult household, often only one would work. (Obvs this was usually a heterosexual couple, and usually the woman had less/no choice in their role. I DO NOT advocate this). Consequently, there was the capacity to care for others.

We can now see the importance of this - life and death for older people. For it to happen again, there are 3 changes needed.
1. We need to pay a genuine living wage, not just the minumum we can get away with
2. We need to assess the cost of living. Why does it need two salaries? (Of course, in change 1, we've just made many things more expensive...)
3. We (all) need to review what it is to live. What makes us long-term happy vs what gives us a temporary dopamine buzz

Do I think it'll happen? Probably not.

It requires society to and the economy to change, and that requires new beliefs. That happens slowly.

But I hope it sows a seed. I hope some people or organisations challenge the status quo - and helps us live, not just survive.

A Future Like The Past?

My hope - once we emerge from this - is that employees are seen less through the lens of bottom-line cost, and more as part of what any organisation can offer to society.

Somewhere in Britain's not-too-distant past, we've lost the idea of providing employement as an end in itself. The idea that offering more-than-the-minumum number of jobs is an essential part of the social reponsibility of an employer.

Britain is psychologically stuck in two eras: the Victorian and the Second World War. And we're happy to be highly selective about which bits we remember and celebrate.

I'd like us to get back to the principles of some of the Victorian philanthropists, people like Joseph Rowntree or Robert Owen. Now, there was plenty wrong with philanthropy and charity in the 19th Century (or Dickens wouldn't have had much of a career). But we can - we do - cherry-pick our ideas and ideals.

To provide a job is to provide someone with a steady income. That means certainty, self-esteem, purpose, dignity, status. It means employers can grant people health and wellbeing.

Because I hope more people come to realise that there's little more important than that.

THE DEAL

What is “the deal”? It’s what your people understand is expected of them, and what they can expect from you. It’s at the heart of the psychological contract, and your EVP. So, how confident are you that this is all understood – in the same way, by everybody?

 

I mean, until a while ago you provided them with things like: an office, a desk, colleagues, a manager they could see. If that’s gone, doesn’t everything else come into question?

On top of this, you may be much busier, you might be much quieter, you might be furloughing, you might be pivoting. In any event, there’s room for ambiguity and different interpretations on what’s needed, wanted, demanded.

On the flip side, you used to offer all or some of: a personal experience to employees, recognition, chances to learn and develop, challenging tasks, inspiring leaders, understood work-life balance arrangements. Some or all of these are different. Some of these are up in the air, and some might not come back down for some time.

So, what IS the deal now? Your people might very well know and understand it, and be able to work effectively. But they might not. You won’t know until you ask them.

So, ask them. Now.

How do your people feel right now?

Do your people still understand "the deal" between you and them?

Do they understand what safety means now?

We've had a while to adjust, people are in new rhythms. You have ironed out creases, got people connected, allowed them to function. But is that enough?

They might still have qualms or issues - and it's likely that on this "war-footing", they don't want to be the one to complain. You need to grant permission, show you understand your duty to help them be as effective as possible.

And there are two issues in particular that you need to explore, if you want to fully enable them.

1) They need to continue to understand "the deal". What do you stand for now? How can people be confident in your future? What do you expect and what treatment and reward do people get in return?

2) They need to know how they are made safe. In the most basic terms of keeping people alive, jobs safe. But also continuing to ensure they feel comfortable, connected, able to keep challenging.

These topics might feel off-the-table now - but the effectiveness of your organisation and the engagement and wellbeing of your people are as interlinked as ever.

Listening will find the gaps... and the ways to fill them.

Furlough ... or farewell?

By now many employers will have furloughed their employees - or be in the process of doing so.

To those not affected, and perhaps to those who still have many (maybe even more) demands, it might seem like a cushy option.

Sit at home, on 80% of wages. Not allowed to work, nothing to spend money on. Happy days?

Not so much. The human brain likes certainty. And our work very often gives us meaning. Take both of those away, and people aren't going to be able to break the back of their first novel, or work towards their Grade 3 Basoon. They'll be discombobulated at best, struggling to adapt at worst.

And - given the pretty dire economic forecasts - they will be aware that not all of them are coming back. What might seem like a holiday to you, may just feel like a stay of execution to them.

You may still have people on the frontline, but you've got a duty to the people at home to talk to them, hear how they're feeling and work to help them.

And you've a responsibility to be honest. When things are unknown, say so. And update them as they become more known.

Even when they're not working for you, give your people certainty and respect.

Tip 5: You have a duty to keep listening

There’s a lot of goodwill about at the moment.

We know that some people are struggling and we go out of way for them, or we give them generous latitude. We recognise the contribution of lots of people that, frankly, society didn’t use to have much time for. 

As citizens and consumers we’re putting up with things that would have seemed extraordinary just days ago. “I can’t go to the shop when I want, and when I do, I have to queue?!”

And that means your people will – gladly – put up with a lot. But that doesn’t mean they’re not anxious, distracted or just confused. Their wellbeing may be really suffering.

So, please, don’t ask once, keep asking. Few things are certain right now. Make sure one of them is that people know their employer cares.

I’m offering free advice or tips to employers, HR or Internal Comms teams to help them understand their employees’ needs in this new world. Get in touch if I can help.