Remote employee policies, does that sound familiar? People these days are jumping on this bandwagon of remote work policies so fast. Everyone has read about trends of remote employee engagements. It is a precise fact nowadays that people prefer more balance between their work and life. Telecommuting and flexible work hours are waves of the coming era. There are palpable advantages of remote employee policies for employers, which are the amount of time saved on substitutes, employee flexibility, and availability of larger suitors for remote employee engagements. It almost manifests a no-brainer, but looks can be deceptive, and in many aspects, the epidemic acceptance of remote employee policies and remote work engagements has been driving more curse than a boon. All remote employee policies sound good in discussions and debates, but when it is actually poured into practice; remote work engagement conjectures don’t always eventuate. There are so many things, which an employer can learn from these much hyped and trend setting mistakes over employee engagements.
TALKING ABOUT SHALLOW CONNECTIONS
Networking technologies often have the capability of driving people apart rather than binding them all together despite appearances. The digital communications and the internet, despite being superficially connected, in general, develop impersonal and cold environments. This can be well elaborated by a fact that internet connection is not the same thing as that of a real bond. The tools, which we have been using for our connectivity, cultivate everything except nurturing the work and life engagements. The burgeoning amount of rise in percentage level of employees working under remote work policies is indeed a sign of deepening solitude rather than a hike in efficiency. The issues with remote work policies are based on two different phenomena. The seclusion arises through the means of digital communication and the aspects on how it can mold an employee’s self-sense along with work schedule. This in a result, turns constant connectivity in availability, and seclusion into flexibility.
TALKING ABOUT THE BALANCING PART
An equal balance between work and life with respect to employee engagements sounds great and fun. Every working professional tries too hard to achieve this “special” mystical state of balance in their life with remote work policies. How do we know if we have achieved it or not? How do we trace our progress?In a research done on Workplace Flexibility in 2015 by Workplace Trends and CareerArc, 67% of human resource professionals conjecture their employees have a healthy balance between professional and personal schedules while 47% of employees in a workforce crave for more amount of time every week for their own activities. Additionally, every 1 out of 5 employees works for over 20 hours per week during their personal time-offs. The difference between the HR professional and an employee’s perception is because work-life advantages like telecommuting and flexible hours often arrive with trade-offs, which is expecting an employee to be on duty while they are on a time off. The virtual lines between work and life are getting blurry day-by-day all thanks to remote employee policies. Balance to measure the counterpart for various employee engagements lies in the eye of the beholder, and it solely depends on the amount of importance you offer to each aspect of your personal and professional life. The perception of employees differs when it comes to secluding or converging family and work together. The balance between work and life can easily backfire when you do not consider the perception of an individual and don’t check up with your employees while surrounded by remote employee policies. Offering telecommuting and flextime in your remote work policies doesn’t mean that you are helping your employees with maintaining a healthy work-life balance. In order to have a routine check-in, you as an employer need to leverage performance conversations and worker feedback tools. Find out the reasons why your employees have to work during their personal time, and if something needs to be reset, do not hesitate to fix it up your policies and protocols regarding remote employee engagements.
TALKING ABOUT THE MORNING WORK-LIFE BIAS
Flexible hours of work in remote work policies are equally harmful to employees as much as it assists them. The employees who arrive late form an unhealthy reputation, changing the rules and drafting them according to your own convenience does not alter an employer’s perceptions. A study from Applied Psychology shows that employers tend to have a bias, which leads to employees with late commence timings being rated with a lower performance index during evaluations for remote employee engagements. Despite the position suggesting work hours flexibility, the “late- starter” group of employees are always rated low. Another similar research suggests that when an executive is in the “late-starter” category, the morning bias reportedly vanishes. The way for keeping morning bias from affecting easy and flexible work time is to educate and train your managers and executives, especially the ones who are an early bird. Train them effectively that they should not let their morning bias nature effect during the period of evaluating an employee’s performance. So the future of advanced working habits is here. Flexible work hours, telecommuting, and easy & manageable work-life balance are here to stay. The trickiest part though for navigating this brand new world of work is that there are no longer black and white scary policies. As the world keeps on initiating new strategies for work in order to optimize engagement, retention, and performance, we eventually are beginning to consider the importance of an individual’s personal life, and the aspects that would probably work on one while it won’t work on another. Realizing these crucial elements as an employer and depending on these facts will establish a strong and reliable foundation for success while you place your new engagements strategies into practice. Read more on THE HR DIGEST: I am busy, I don’t want to start, and I won’t start… yet!