Working in an Asynchronous World
What tools are needed in today’s workplace, which is often totally or partially remote, to help both managers and employees manage performance? The pandemic taught us that high-tech was critical, but so was high touch.
Lessons from companies with distributed workforces were shared by Danielle Abril in her column How to Promote Culture in a Remote Workplace for the Washington Post. Many of those lessons dealt with the use of technology.
To help employees and managers succeed, Abril stressed the importance of assessing the changes that are necessary.
What processes have to change or be adjusted?
How will employees connect?
What additional resources, if any, are needed?
How will employees be advised on changes and brought up to speed?
It is important to recognize that many employees are now working in an asynchronous work model, that is working on their own time with the flexibility to complete their work and answer colleagues in a convenient and reasonable time frame. Everything is not happening at the same time. Team members can set tasks and deadlines, or hand-off tasks, for their peers without the expectation to respond right away. The only expectation is that the work be completed in a timely manner.
For this model to be successful, there are tools and apps, including messaging and taskmaster apps that are available. The mix of tools has become more familiar, Microsoft Teams, Google, Zoom, WebEx, shared documents on the cloud, and whiteboarding tools. Their use will depend on the work and the job, and it’s important to communicate which tools should be use when, and how they should be used.
Ensure workers and leaders document all progress on projects, meeting notes, announcements, policies and decisions. This will allow employees to see the progress their peers are making. More importantly, it will allow supervisors and managers to manage the workflow see the scope of the overall project. They can quickly respond to issues and provide feedback.
That is precisely where regular check-ins and over-communicating plans and expectations in a new era of performance management happens. There will and should be more focus on output, results and meeting goals. This is exactly how we were rethinking how to manage performance. Now, we’ve got more tools to do so—tools that will keep employees and supervisors engaged and productive without demands to perform extra work that often leads to the so-called quiet quitting.
In The Big Book of HR 10th Anniversary edition, which was published earlier this year, there is a chapter on performance management. Recognizing the changes that were taking place, we devoted a section of that chapter to performance feedback and conversations.
And since we’re celebrating managers and Boss’s Day in October, The Manager’s Answer Book provides more guidance. See page 102 for tips on effective feedback.