AGENCY OPERATIONS
BRINGING COMMUNICATION HOME Imagine an office without distractions, without the meetings-about-meetings loop, and where creativity to stretch its legs. The collective workforce surely would be more productive at home, where distractions were minimal.
If companies don’t address the changes brought on by remote work, that could be a problem going forward, especially since 84% of companies surveyed in 2020 anticipate broader, more permanent remote work arrangements.
That might have been the impetus for an extensive study conducted by Microsoft recently. Examining over 60,000 of their employees during a six-month period from December 2019 to June 2020, the study reveals that collaboration took a significant hit, as did communication.
Fortunately, establishing an effective communication plan is not difficult. It takes reimagining how your employees are working, and what they need from your management team in order to be their most productive.
The result: long-term innovation and creativity were adversely impacted. The data suggests that remote work caused a siloed effect when it came to collaboration, and employees that were once easily connected were quickly feeling isolated. Any organization that had to implement remote work on the fly – which was a large majority of organizations – discovered the disconnect the hard way. The lack of preparedness had far too many companies scrambling to equip employees for home office work, and many were dealing with a companywide communication disconnect for the first time, even if some of their employees worked remotely in the past. Without a strong communication process, many organizations were piecing one together while trying to conduct business. 18 | MAY 2022 |
wisconsin INDEPENDENT AGENT
At WAHVE, we’ve put a feedback and communication process in place that keeps employees connected to managers, different departments, and each other. Each step is essential to making employees feel like an integral, necessary part of the organization. One-on-one Meetings It starts with manager-to-employee conversations. Managers talk with employees every day, even if it’s to say hello. Employees and managers meet regularly to go over assignments, benchmarks, progress, and to let the employee air any concerns. This time is also used to set goals, identify issues and assign a mentor or additional training to help the employee improve, if need be.
