“Wow – who would have thought we could all work from home, think of the money we can save by getting rid of our building lease, let’s make that happen ASAP.” This is an observation I heard many times in 2020. Who would have thought it would be this easy to work virtually? Well, it’s really not that easy to do effectively and there are a few things you need to consider when making plans to go permanently virtual.
Generating optimal performance from diverse teams of individuals is, at its core, absolutely dependent on creating the right work environment and company culture for the business. Environments in which team members can excel, and a culture that causes each person to want to excel, generate optimal results for both the employee and the business. Businesses have been trying to make the virtual workforce work for over a decade, and while technology continues to improve options, technology comes up short when it comes to delivering some of the critical elements needed for top performance.
As businesses learned when the office furniture industry launched the open office / collaboration space spin on office environments, what works for some team members does not work for all. Highly focused, non-distractible workers can work productively in a jammed airport, while others need quiet environments without distractions. Open work environments ultimately reduced the quality of output for many workers, while not changing the collaboration engagement in others, and in some cases reducing the amount of meaningful interaction overall. The thought that physical things would change core human / individual behavior was flawed.
Excellence in performance comes at the hands of people who are located in optimal performance environments (surrounded by an optimal work culture). For some, quiet cubicles or offices where there is little to no interpersonal interaction day to day is optimal. For others, the lack of human interaction is depressing, causing lowered happiness and resulting performance. Some can engage in a team web meeting with optimal results, some cannot stay focused and multi-task during such meetings, and some simply cannot engage in as meaningful a way via digital mediums.
For every team of 100, there will be members who perform optimally in very different working situations. Businesses that adapt to those optimal environments are rewarded with optimal results. To generate optimal results out of a single work environment would require that each team member added was properly screened against that environment. And in this process, the ability to get the most talented people will be negatively impacted.
In 2020, many people were forced to adapt to a remote work environment in which they are not happy and not productive. Many employees accepted it as temporary and are “dealing with it” only. If made permanent, these same people may locate a more optimal employer environment either by choice or by request due to lower performance. Before any business makes a decision to “go totally virtual,” it should take stock in the long-term impact such a decision will create. As digital communication continues to reduce peoples’ need and resulting ability to interact personally, it seems logical that over time we may end up in a fully virtual world. Those who strategically guide such a transition over time based upon the optimal environments and culture for human performance at all times will outperform those that do not.
