By Liz Kislik
While a majority of employers believe that their employees will return to their workplaces after Covid-19’s impact diminishes, working from home isn’t going to disappear.
The reality is that a huge number of people were already working from home (almost 10 million workers in the U.S. in 2019); that number is only likely to rise in the post-pandemic world. As the manager of a remote team, you can’t afford to ignore underperformance from workers, whether they’re temporarily at home, working in local branch offices or half a world away.
Although you might assume that managing an underperformer in a remote environment would be more challenging, there’s actually an upside. You may actually be more effective in handling the situation because you have to plan and structure your interactions, rather than catch up in the hallway or wait for your employee to stop by when you’re in the office.
Here are five things you can do to help remote underperformers improve their game:
Revisit your expectations
Take the opportunity to reconsider what you want most from the employee, and why you feel you’re not getting it. Start by reviewing your recent directives, and whether your communications about what’s expected have been clear and consistent from the beginning. This is something you should do under any circumstances, but it’s even more important to ask yourself whether your statements have been ambiguous when you don’t see your employees in person. Part of this process is separating out whether your dissatisfaction is with your workers’ work products, or with the way they deliver.
If your employee’s style or approach is the problem, check to see if you’re expecting that person to work the way you do. If that’s the case, let go of those expectations and dispassionately assess the individual’s real strengths and capacities for contributing to the team’s work. After one of the senior executives I work with came to terms with the fact that he simply didn’t like much one of his subordinates, the remote relationship worked better because he could pay more attention to her output and the praise he heard about her from other leaders, and less to his own biased reactions.
If you suspect the underperformer’s difficulties come from insufficient experience, specific skill deficits, or a lack of business or organizational acumen, consider whether he may need training or the guidance of a more experienced colleague. This may be more challenging to arrange in a remote environment, but it’s too risky to wait until you’re back in the office to provide the support your employee requires.
Learn more about your underperformers
Even if they’ve been on your team for a while, it’s important to ask about their goals and what they care about, as these things change as circumstances evolve. Plus, you don’t have the benefit of casual, in-person contact to pick up details about family, hobbies or past work successes. Then, modify your management approach to match your reports’ needs. For example, you might learn that a person misses working side-by-side with colleagues and would perform better if he were assigned to projects that involved more regular interaction.
If you’re not familiar with your employees’ remote setup and schedule, ask. Some team members may prefer strict deadlines to structure their often-interrupted workdays; others may benefit from more flexible deadlines than usual to help them deal with the additional pressures of working from home. Take home obligations like schooling time or elder care into account.
Level with them, and be specific
You may not be in the same room, but providing feedback is still a requirement. Many people who aren’t doing well have a vague feeling that something is wrong, but don’t really know which of their behaviors aren’t working. For example, telling a team leader that he needs to “be a better listener” doesn’t help him understand specifically what he needs to do differently. It’s much more helpful to explain that when he turns away during videoconferences or change the subject while team members are speaking, the team loses trust and confidence in him. The feedback gives him the opportunity to actively practice in order to modify those behaviors.
Help them learn how to improve their own performance
As much as possible, use questions to encourage your underperformers to self-diagnose and project into their own future. Ask something like: “How will this experience set you up to do better in the future?” Encourage them to reach their own conclusions, rather than telling them what you have observed, which wouldn’t trigger the same kind of “aha” that self-discovery does. This will help you avoid micromanaging, which is a significant temptation when you’re trying to be extremely clear about expectations.
Stay in close enough contact
Keep in mind that a remote underperformer can’t just drop in to check on things or “take your temperature.” It’s on you as a manager to stay in regular touch and keep employees in the loop. Don’t assume that no news is good news. After you’ve given an employee candid feedback and he doesn’t hear from you, he can start to worry that you’re ignoring him because you’ve written him off, and his performance can deteriorate further. Schedule regular meetings to talk about your underperformers’ progress. When a vice president I advised learned that one of her reports thought she was “ghosting” him, we came up with a consistent schedule of one full update and two quick touch-bases each week for a few months until the relationship was on a stronger footing.
If you’ve asked your underperforming employees to keep you up to date on their progress, make clear how you want them to do that. If they tend to use email, but you’re awash in email and respond better to texts or Slack messages, tell them that. And don’t rely only on video meetings, where the lack of true eye contact can make it seem like you’re getting nonverbal clues when you’re not. If you’re concerned that you’re not getting a good read on your team members’ state of mind, plan to have at least some of your interactions by phone and listen carefully. Their tone of voice can give you more clues about what needs intervention.
It’s not easy to work with remote employees who aren’t performing well, particularly when you can’t sit down together and have a conversation. But using specific, road-tested techniques to help them improve will strengthen not only their performance, but their relationship with you as well.
Liz Kislik is the author of How to resolve interpersonal conflicts in the workplace.