As a training company, we are the canary in the coal mine about commercial trends and corporate shortfalls. During a recent Sales Consultants Forum we were discussing client needs and the same theme kept coming up. Companies are asking about leadership skills around better communication between Middle Managers and subordinates. What is driving this, more than say sales training or presentation skills needs? One answer can be Covid-19. A lot of industries were hammered by Covid and companies had to reduce their team sizes. With fewer staff fewer managers were needed. These managers are being replaced now that Covid has been contained or at least the perception is there that it is being contained. It would seem the Japanese Government would like to move forward and are doing whatever they can to achieve a change in the citizenry’s mentality about the pandemic. The borders have been opened up and that nightly map of the case numbers in every prefecture has mysteriously disappeared from the NHK 7.00pm news broadcasts.
Being hired as a new manager or continuing as a manager has been made more difficult by the diaspora to the suburbs, as workers have shunned the office for their own homes as the new workplace. Every company is struggling with what to do next. Do we keep everyone working at home or do we force them back into the office? Do we go for a split shift where some work on certain days of the week and the rest work on the remaining days? Do we have people in one day a week or two days a week or three days a week? What do we do about onboarding new hires and that includes newly hired managers?
Many clients tell us that sending everyone home was like the tide going out and all the defects of the ocean floor, the rocks and flotsam and jetsam were revealed. Leaders who could not lead a dispersed workforce were exposed and outed as incompetent. There is no doubt that leading a remote workforce is considerably more difficult than having everyone under your stern gaze in the office. Are they really working at home? Are they goofing off? How can you tell?
The issue of communication has already been flagged as a problem. Trying to phone anyone at home seems to be very difficult. You call, but they don’t pick up the phone. You leave a message, but they don’t call you back. Why? What are they doing? You have to relay the same piece of information numerous times to different people, because you have limited interaction opportunities with everyone at the same time. In the office, you could just grab people, and hold an impromptu meeting or just yell out to someone across the work floor about what you wanted.
Add to this the poor time management skills of most bosses and the problems balloon in proportion. A disorganised boss is going to have a lot of trouble keeping across what a remote team is up to. Funnily enough, some people are like ninja at exploiting the bosses lack of ability to manage their own time and they find more escape routes than a sieve. They don’t do what they are supposed to do and rely on the fact the boss cannot get sufficiently well organised to keep close track of them. These days the boss has fewer arrows in the quiver too, given the population decline has meant there are more opportunities for people to jump ship and go somewhere else if you try and manage them too closely. The whole discipline of work has been upended and the usually successful supervision techniques are now unworkable.
Staff retention is the new gold standard of boss ability. That means regardless of the many obstacles placed in front of bosses, they have to find ways to keep close communication conduits going with their staff. This is inspite of how much the staff may try to avoid it or how complex the logistics become. Bosses have to better organised around their time usage and are now required a higher degree of remote work micro-management than before. This is a very tricky balance and not easy to get right, but that degree of touch with the staff has to be carefully calculated. Too close a scrutiny becomes suffocating for some and they leave. Too loose and the work isn’t getting done, results fade and the goofing off erodes the culture, discipline and loyalty to the cause.
Boss retraining is definitely a rising topic for us, when talking to clients and we can see why. The really scary thought is what about those companies who fulfill Einstein’s definition of insanity – doing the same old things but expecting a better result? They keep on keeping on and won’t face the new reality.
If companies don’t recognise things have morphed and they need to change how they manage people, then they will be spending a lot of money recruiting hard to come by replacements and losing a lot of corporate knowledge, as experienced people walk out the door to competitors. There is always a lot of strife when replacing people, as you have to train the new hires and also take a hit on results and productivity, until they get up to speed. Stasis is not an option anymore.
