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Engaging With Your Remote Teams

Diana Cano, SVP, Enterprise Technology PMO, and DevOps, Audacy

As technology leaders, we are in the best position to develop our managers to lead change for their teams and across the organization. Current dynamics around managing change and employee engagement are not new.

● Change management has always been in our “other duties as assigned” – it’s not new!

● "Quiet quitters" make up at least 50% of the U.S. workforce -- probably more, Gallup finds. Many argue employee disengagement is not new – just a new generation seeking work-life balance, says Cal Newport at The New Yorker.

Our technical managers earned engineering degrees where very little time was spent learning the soft skills of managing people.

● From the Washington Post, “Thirty-four of the top 100 CEOs in 2018, according to the HBR report had an engineering degree, compared with 32 who had an MBA.”

● From Forbes, “A Bachelor of Science (BS) degree is held by 47% of the CEOs who received an under graduate degree.”

Online, remote video meetings lack the structures we used to have in the office – this significantly impacts our ability to manage our teams. There are definite advantages to working at home along with the challenges of managing workers at home.

Employee (dis)engagement and quiet quitting

Team members who are disengaged from the organization are demonstrating signs of quiet quitting. Team members get quiet or even silent, are unenthusiastic, distracted, late for meetings or with deliverables, and they feel unappreciated. What are some ways we see this behavior?

● Changes in social behavior. Team members that get quiet who before had been active contributors are disengaging from their teams. Silence in meetings – both in-person and online – can be a leading indicator of workers who are reducing their relationships with their co-workers. It may go as far as being non-responsive 1:1 but more likely demonstrations of inactivity are in group chats, video often being off, and silence in group settings.

● Low enthusiasm and minimum performance. Team members may be doing just enough to get by with no passion for new assignments without a push from management. They do not follow up on open items or don’t react quickly to their manager’s feedback. Some indications may include increased mobile phone usage at work or being late to meetings. Performance problems might arise with late deliverables or simply hitting the minimal metrics. They lack initiative on new projects and documenting procedures. Finding no joy in working with the team reduces the team member’s excitement and participation in team building activities like virtual or in-person lunches and social events.

"As managers we need to be conscious of the power of our compliments and give them often!"

● Feeling unappreciated for their efforts, quiet quitters will remark they are not being heard and their opinions don’t really matter. These feelings can lead to a drop in productivity for the team. As managers we need to be conscious of the power of our compliments and give them often!

Managers need to look for changes in behavior and not make assumptions. We have many personalities and work styles on our teams and we should make room for all – introverts through extroverts. It is the change in behavior that is important to notice.

Managing teams working from home

Gone are the pandemic online happy hours… thankfully! In this new phase of managing remote teams, leaders find themselves learning new skills in facilitating formal and informal online meetings.

● For all online meetings, improve engagement by asking questions. Leaders are mixed on whether cameras should be mandated to be on or off – establishing working agreements with your team is important. Meetings can start socially – leaders can either log in 5 minutes before the meeting start time or begin the agenda at 5 minutes after the hour to build in a few minutes of conversation that normally occurred as folks filed into the conference room.

● Formal online meetings should have agendas and end early when everything is accomplished, using breakout rooms to increase the voices heard in sessions. Other tools such as chat and visual collaboration spaces should be better utilized asynchronously to rescue meeting time. Closed caption and transcription should be activated for inclusivity.

● Informal online opportunities to socialize and get to know each other include encouraging personalized backgrounds for meetings, adding optional 15-min water cooler daily online meetings, having weekly team sessions without an agenda.

In-person collaboration and social activities can still be scheduled at varying times, sizes and days so that people can participate in what best suits them. Ask what your team wants!

Preventing disengagement

Leaders can give their team a well-defined purpose, empower them to make decisions and organize themselves and their work, and support choices for work-life balance. In a recent CIO conference, we shared what was working. One CIO created a pillar award around culture and nominated team members by pillar: ownership; teamwork; continuous improvement; attitude – this helped team members feel appreciated for their contributions. Another CIO created a task board for brilliant ideas where team members generate ideas and assign actions to managers and sponsors. Encouraging increased and empathetic communications in all forms can be a mighty sword in combating quiet quitting.

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