Our new remote and agile workforce. How do we embed and effectively support this shift?

Our new remote and agile workforce. How do we embed and effectively support this shift?

Our new remote and agile workforce. How do we embed and effectively support this shift?

When we hear ‘new construct’, we often think of the opportunities to improve assets through smart technologies, modular design and innovative construction methods to name a few popular terms. However, in light of ongoing COVID-19 impacts on all workplaces, we should also be thinking of the environment that people in our industry are working in to deliver these innovative projects.

While some may have a sense that things will return back to normal in a post-pandemic world, a common view is the experience has, and will, accelerate the shift towards a remote and agile operating environment. Even purely from a talent management perspective, this makes sense – how can a business attract and retain talent if they too are not following this broader shift to an operating environment that features and effectively supports remote work options?

What we have learnt over recent months is that a shift to an operating model that fully

While some may have a sense that things will return back to normal in a post-pandemic world, a common view is the experience has, and will, accelerate the shift towards a remote and agile operating environment.

integrates and effectively supports remote working, or ‘location agnostic’ arrangements,1 is challenging. The job design, working procedures, internal policies and other influences on how we work are not directly transferable from a face-to-face office environment to remote working. This also extends to the leadership and management approach, and the company’s culture.

While many employees have enjoyed the benefits of remote working, many challenges have also been experienced – particularly as businesses were on the backfoot when sudden arrangements were implemented, and from the added strain of a pandemic. Social isolation has been a common concern about remote working, with employees missing the informal interaction of an office. Others have noted concerns about reduced access to managerial support and communication, and the lack of direct access to information.2

To help support our members with embedding the shift at scale to remote working, Consult Australia has prepared a guide summarising guidance on the topic and providing tips for individuals and managers.

So, it is clear that we should not see our implementation of remote working over the past few months as ‘done’, or that the problems arising from the change will soon go away. Instead, it is critical that businesses use the experience over recent months to now embed this work practice, and look at how it can be effectively supported on an ongoing basis.

To help support our members with embedding the shift at scale to remote working, Consult Australia has prepared a guide summarising guidance on the topic and providing tips for individuals and managers. Through our Mental Health Working Group, we have also prepared related member guides on supporting ourselves and our colleagues in this type of work environment.

Some tips from these member guides to help with the shift to remote working include:

• ‘Overcommunicate’ probably has a negative connotation, but this is important because it compensates for the peripheral communication that happens incidentally in the office and making this intentional communication in a remote environment;

• Keeping employees in mind and adding a human aspect to how businesses are managed – COVID-19 and remote working have created an environment where an empathetic style of leadership is increasing being sought by employees;

• Reviewing job design, working procedures, management processes and internal policies to consider if these are still appropriate or if they can be improved for remote workers – for example, documentation processes may be more critical as a simple question over the shoulder in a workplace could take hours to resolve remotely;

• Creating better ways to trust and measure the performance of employees. Remote working has exposed shortcomings to a traditional ‘bottoms-on-seats’ approach, and managers and leaders should look at ways to measure outputs and value-adds as part of the performance framework. Being clear about expected outcomes will also help mitigate trust concerns in a working environment with decreased visibility; and

• Having the structures in place to help you operate effectively in a remote work environment – this could include scheduling daily catch-ups with colleagues, and establishing rules of engagement on how and when to use communication tools.

Finally, we should recognise that productivity and employee impacts from remote working, both positive and negative, are circumstantial. Remote working is productive with the right arrangements in place, and unproductive if not. These factors, rather than the model itself, are what determines the productivity and employee benefits of remote working – and of course, our ability to embrace innovation to deliver better assets in the future.

Consult Australia’s remote work member guides are available with our briefing notes on our new website here (members only).

James Robertson Consult Australia

1 HR Magazine (UK), Making a location-agnostic model work (2018) 2 Harvard Business Review, A guide to managing your newly remote workers (2020)