In the times of the Covid-19 pandemic a lot of us are working from home. The idea sounded fantastic in March, but six months later not so much. I know I am unusual in my feelings because the rest of my co-workers disagree with me, but for me it is difficult and causing more work than if I was sitting in my office on campus. This whole pandemic and working from home has really begun to make my mind really think about leadership and how difficult it must be when you are managing a group of staff members who you never physically see and only occasionally check in with during virtual staff meetings, virtual chat or emails. How does one keep good leadership in this type of environment and how are the employees affected by it?
So working from home gives us freedom to schedule our day as needed and allows us to work and maybe choose the time of day that we are more productive. For me, first thing in the morning is most productive and working from home allows me to start as early as I would like, for others they might be night owls and like to sleep in. The problem with this freedom is it is great for the workers, but what about boss? How do they monitor your work time and productivity (Rupietta & Beckmann, 2018)?
According to this study, Working from Home: What is the Effect on Employees’ Effort?, they found that the more people work from home provided a higher output of their coworkers who worked only a few hours home or work entirely at the office (Rupietta & Beckmann, 2018). Of course let’s think about this, this was before we were forced to work from home and working from home sounded like a great idea. Who knew six months into this pandemic that we would still be required to work from home. The other point they made in this research is that working from home should be voluntary (Rupietta & Beckmann, 2018). It goes on to say that not everyone is suited for working from home, it can actually cause dissatisfaction (Rupietta & Beckmann, 2018). This is what I am talking about. As much as I love the fact and the idea of leggings and t-shirts every day, there is a reason that I choose as a mother to be a working mother. I chose to get a job to help support my family, but at the same time have my own career and job that I could experience and enjoy. I am an extrovert by nature so being in an office and interacting with coworkers, students and visitors is what brings me my purpose and well-being.
So why is this remote working hurting me so much? The truth be told I really like seeing people each day even if it is just to see them and tell them good morning, but at home it is me and my puggle, Pete. I can talk to him, but honestly he doesn’t talk back much. My husband is still going to work each day and his job is physically demanding so when he gets home, honestly he wants to rest, not talk to me about everything and anything. Our daughter is in nursing school so she is very busy with her classes and she doesn’t have much free time to do anything else. The problem is that my leader does not make it a priority to have many staff meetings. Obviously staff meetings are not like they used to be, but just getting together regularly and talking about business, but also catching up on life in general, it is important for our well being. I believe we need this type of interaction to keep people like me sane and feeling like I am still a part of a team.
I really feel that leaders, like mine, really need to focus on the emotional and social intelligence of their staff during these times because we are not all feeling the same and dealing with the situation the same. Emotional intelligence is recognizing their own feelings and those of others (PSU WC, 2020, L.2, pg. 10). This is so important during these times because although our leader is loving this new remote working set up, she has staff like myself who are struggling to stay connected and motivated. Social intelligence is also important because this puts an emphasis on people with their environments (PSU WC, 2020, L.2, pg. 10). Seeing that our environment has drastically changed since March, I find this aspect so very important to our team.
As a leader of a group of staff that has gone through so many changes since March, it is important that she has empathy on us all individually. We are not all the same people and the way we are dealing with these changes are definitely not the same at all. Leaders need to be able to look at not only the situation, but the individuals and see how they can better their staff as a whole to make sure everyone is doing well and still feeling connected even though there is no one-on-one interaction personally. I know this a difficult and changing time for a lot of people and I know that the longer this continues and the more research is actually completed on this particular time in history we will learn more on how to best deal with this type of leadership via remote, at-home working.
References
Rupietta, K., Beckmann, M. Working from Home. Schmalenbach Bus Rev 70, 25–55 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41464-017-0043-x
Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2020). PSYCH 485 Lesson 2: Trait Approach. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/canvas/fa20/22081–15503/content/03_lesson/printlesson.html.
Nurefsan Aydin says
As someone who has been an online student for the last four years, I can relate to many of your concerns. Motivation has been a factor I have been struggling with for quite a long time as well. The points you mentioned about staying connected and motivated to do your job reminded me of some aspects of the skills approach. For example, a leader with social perceptiveness has the experience and knowledge of how others work in an organization (Northouse, 2016). This can be accomplished by noticing what is essential for their subordinates to make them sufficiently motivated. A leader must always be aware of how change influences their followers’ tempo to recognize when help is needed. It seems that your boss is oblivious to how you are feeling about working remotely in your situation.
You mention how emotional intelligence to implicate how you would like your boss to behave. For further elaboration purposes, as part of the skills approach, social judgment skills are a component of effective leadership performance. Social judgment skills are generally the ability to understand individuals and social systems (Northouse, 2016). The first skill would be perspective-taking, which requires acknowledging others’ views about a specific issue or solution (Northouse, 2016). So in your case, your boss should attempt to empathize with his workers to understand their viewpoints when a problem arises. The second skill which I mentioned earlier is social perceptiveness, which is about the knowledge a leader acquires of how their followers would respond to a proposed change in the workplace (Northouse, 2016). In other words, your boss could become a more effective leader by keeping tabs on how workers react to change. The third skill that comes after understanding others is knowing how to respond with flexibility. Behavioral flexibility is the ability to alter and modify one ‘s behavior in recognition of awareness of the viewpoints of those in the organization (Northouse, 2016). In the case of your boss, instead of explicitly stating that being remote is working great for themselves, they can try to attempt changing their behavior to being more actively involved by increasing staff meetings in the hopes of keeping connected and boosting motivation.
I acknowledge that no one was prepared to effectively work in the middle of a pandemic. We are all like babies who are trying to walk and talk without breaking down. Lets just hope things will get better as time passes.
References:
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
swn5169 says
This work from home I believe goes beyond the workforce. Going through college as we are here at the World Campus could also be categorized in the same manner. I agree with you that work from home whether work or school is not for everyone. I have a coworker that his wife worked from home for many years prior to the Covid outbreak and absolutely loved it. Viewing this subject from current times it seems like it is the new way of life and not just temporary. When it first started many people like the change but the temporary has become more ongoing. I think of my daughter who goes to middle school online currently. Just like work some have difficulty. If a person has a schedule to follow it becomes more like normal life not a when I feel like doing it I will. My daughters school is just like a typical school day where she goes from class to class but virtually online. My coworkers wife was the same way in her job that she had set hours and even had a home office set up.
As a leader or even a teacher I can see how this change would be tough to adapt to. You can’t as easily talk to someone face to face to confront an issue or answer a question. Nandakumar (2020) in her article Leadership in the Age of Remote Work stresses the importance of setting clear goals and expectations. Being in a remote work environment what is expected of employees could be vague at best, its not like you can go down the hall or across the plant floor to direct a worker on a task. Set achievable goals that are straight forward and not confusing.
In conclusion communication becomes even more important when working remotely since we are not working side by side our coworkers. We see others via a screen which doesn’t give us the opportunity to read each other such as body language. Just imagine that time when we do go back to work in a normal setting and we will have to readjust once again.
Resources:
Nandakumar, M. (2020, August 24). Leadership in the age of remote work. Retrieved October 05, 2020, from https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/leadership-age-remote-work