REMOTE WORKING: LEADING THE TEAM BACK TO THE OFFICE

Rodney Davis: You know, when remote work started out as something that was becoming a reality, I was concerned about where this would end and where it was heading. I think it’s here to stay in some verticals or some industries. industries and I think that as an employer you’ve got to be willing to take the time just like you would in any other HR challenge or technology challenge – to make sure you put the necessary resources to facilitate this new reality. But you also got to be willing to ensure that your employees understand that it’s not a right or an entitlement you got to lead by example, and you’ve got to lead from the top. It has to be a deliberate management of your team members. 

Today you have to figure out what element of the work requires people to be in office, and what element of the work can function with people outside of office. You also have to consider how people work because I think people went a bit too far in painting the entire staff with the same brush. The reality is there are some people who work really well remotely and some who don’t and you’ve got to manage them according to their strengths. 

The competition for people is the problem. There are many employers who will accommodate the lifestyle choices of employees today. That wasn’t the case three or four years ago. So if you attempt to impose too stringent a policy or too stringent a set of rules, you might find that you have a talent problem; that the talent will migrate to where the working conditions suit their style of work.

DOES REMOTE WORK LOWER PRODUCTIVITY?

Rodney Davis: I have a client in the services space who was very concerned about people working out of office and was very vocal about it. He asked our team to give him some insight on whether or not remote working had affected the productivity of the team. Over the course of a six -month period, we found that for the most part, there wasn’t a tremendous productivity impact at all. The nature of that work was very output-driven. So if you didn’t do those outputs, your work would stop because the flow of work required certain outputs to be hit. But what we also found was there were some people who just weren’t good in a self -governed, work-from -home environment and it stood out. But there are measurements. So we were measuring work productivity per hour. We were measuring billable hours versus unbilled hours. We were measuring total volume over the period of time when they were working in office versus total volume when they were working outside of office. We were able to spot and identify trends and in some cases, isolate were there deviations or exceptions.

WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T

Rodney Davis: I have clients who say all staff in on Tuesdays and Thursdays and at least one other day. I’m not sure that’s the best approach because it’s implying that everybody fits into this same sort of standard of working. They had a lot of resistance. Had they tried to achieve the same thing in a less command and control way, they might have actually gotten

there. It’s actually not a bad idea to say our target is to have people in three days a week. But to  legislate it in a one size fits all, most of the employers who I’ve seen adapt that approach hasn’t worked well. The ones who’ve really made it work are the ones who give people the flexibility. But if they’re not productive or if they’re having challenges with the quality of their work, we have them work in office until they fix what’s failing. And then be true to our word and give them a chance to then try remote remote work again. You’ve got to be flexible.

THE ROLE OF FINANCE: HELP FIND THE BALANCE

Rodney Davis: When you think of the role of a CFO in any organization, they’re the scorekeeper and they’re the results communicator. If there’s a concern about the implications of remote work versus in -office work, there’s a role for your finance team to put together information that allows you to assess and understand it. The longevity of a business requires all of the resources to be doing what needs to be done and not exclusively what folks want to do. But also my message to employers who are trying to figure it out. Does it have to be all in office? Find the balance.