CAVO Ep. 88: Remote Employee Engagement and Future of Work: What's Next?

Workforce disengagement is a global phenomenon, with only 15% of employees engaged. Overall, people don't feel any emotional connection to their work and mostly do what's expected. At the societal level, the future of remote work is about empowering, upskilling people, and including everyone to promote transparency and fairness. In this episode, CAVO Visiting Virtual Expert and CEO of Good4Work, Geraldine Woloch-Addamine, shares 5 Cs and how HR innovations can align with remote work now and in the future.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Welcome to National University Center for the Advancement of Virtual Organizations Podcast, Remote Employee Engagement, and Future of Work. What's next? I'm Melody Rowlings, Director of Cavo, and today I'm joined by our quarter three visiting virtual expert, Geraldine Wollock Adam, founder and CEO of Good for Work, a total talent recognition software. So today we're going to be discussing strategies for engaging remote workers. Welcome, Geraldine, and thanks for coming and taking the time to chat with me.

SPEAKER_01: 0:36

Absolutely. So exciting to be here and to have that discussion with you, Melody.

SPEAKER_00: 0:42

And you are coming to us from Paris, France, correct?

SPEAKER_01: 0:46

Yes, correct. Living in California, but um originally from France, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 0:52

That's exciting. Um so before we jump into our discussion, please get us started by telling us about yourself, your background, and the inspiration for Founding Good for Work.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03

Yeah, so background in HR, uh leader, leadership, virtual leadership, and uh managing virtual uh teams, hybrid teams, um, and basically learning one thing, one takeaway from uh from my career is that if you want to engage your people, which is something I care a lot about uh as an entrepreneur, you need to play to people's strengths. So basically it's how it started, uh, plus um that idea that uh when you manage remotely, uh you know you learned by mistakes. Um there's uh a lot of learning there, and uh that's how I started creating Good for Work. So basically, it's a total uh talent recognition software, and it's all about uh playing to people's strengths and recognizing uh their um strengths and positive impact. Uh, with Web3. So uh that's another story for another time, uh, but uh we have new innovations in uh in HRTech, and uh Web3 are offering incredible opportunities uh to go beyond uh the company's frontiers uh with uh you know credentials that you can keep uh for your whole career and that don't get lost when you leave your company. So that's a lot to do there in terms of rewards, but that's another story.

SPEAKER_00: 2:38

That's great. Um I know there's been a lot written over decades about engaging employees, but you know, we're just starting to really delve into engagement of remote workers. And uh with the number of people working remotely, it's it's so important for leaders of remote teams to understand how to engage remote workers. So, would you share with us what uh strategies currently have been most effective in promoting remote worker engagement and fostering that emotional connection and sense of belonging within virtual teams?

SPEAKER_01: 3:09

Yes, such a great question. So the pandemic period has been a big uh laboratory for full of experimentation, obviously, and we learned a lot. So it's a total uh fast-forward future of work situation. And I remember having that discussion around the fire pit with my friends about human connections in the virtual world in 2021. And I bet all our listeners had the same discussion. And actually, we keep having that same discussion three years later, to this exception that we have learned a lot in between. So, what did we learn? We learned that high performance in the virtual world is about a high quality standard of management and uh knowing how to lead a network of teams. And we have an today we have a new context. Let me explain. So we have more than a quarter of uh US employees who are fully remote, so up from uh 6% uh in 2019. But a Gallup survey reports that only 12% of employees want to work in the office full-time. So obviously, remote work will grow over time. And what we noticed is that if individual productivity rose by 4% in 2020 and 2% in 2021, unfortunately, now it's over with uh productivity that fell by uh 1% last year in 2022. And for the first time since 1948, the US economy has now experienced five consecutive quarters of declined worker productivity. So why? And uh my take on this, uh, based on uh my experience as a virtual leader and tech entrepreneur is the following: it's a mistake to focus only on productivity without taking into account the human aspect of things. And uh, for instance, the relationships among people and teams, we need to take into account the culture of the workplace, we need to take it into account the social capital. And all this human aspect is called employee engagement. And employee engagement as for productivity is not getting better. So this extra effort, which defines employee engagement, so which means uh you know more involvement and enthusiasm, this engagement um creates high performance. So only 21% of employees worldwide and 33% in the US are feeling engaged today. So it's a huge problem. And what we found is that companies with engaged employees are better in terms of performance. So, for example, they report lower rates of absenteeism, they report lower turnover rates, they report higher rates of customer loyalty, they report higher profitability. So employee engagement is super important. Um, and what makes a difference in terms of uh management to foster that employee engagement is if are a few um very identified and proven things, which are if you want to create employee engagement, you want to foster meaningful work, you want to foster career growth, you want to have empowerment, you want to foster empowerment, you want to foster belonging, which means culture, which means a purpose in your company, you want to have some recognition, you have a high standard of leadership, and you want to have fulfilling work relationships. So, which, you know, it's basically the definition of good leadership or great leadership, and uh which we can call as well the uh, you know, if we want to have a takeaway and memorize these uh five C's to engage employees, uh the five C's could be care, connect, coach, contribute, and congratulate. And this is what leaders uh I think need to learn, and um and it can be summarized in the approach of building a culture of trust, for example. And uh, but um it's also very much about having that coaching posture with continuous feedback, development, and recognition. And you know, with the team approach, it's even better because we are now in a world where um our high performance is based on the team effectiveness.

SPEAKER_00: 8:06

Love those five C's, and you know, you mentioned trust. With that, of course, that can that's a whole topic of its own, but so so important as are all of those things that you mentioned. Um, so important. So that kind of segues into my next question, and that is how can employers use utilize technology in online platforms to encourage regular communication and collaboration among remote workers, and of course, that regular communication and collaboration also goes towards building trust, I think.

SPEAKER_01: 8:37

Yeah, absolutely. And if we start from uh the five C's to give our listeners practical advice uh to encourage uh regular communication and uh collaboration, I would say that we want to have a tech tool that supports that coaching posture to avoid micromanaging people, and also it depends on the workflow processes and culture of the company. So, for instance, it's not a coincidence that all the communication tools like Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zoom, Cisco, and others have exploded during the pandemic, because it's about making communication the most the most accessible and the in the easiest way uh possible. Then it's about a framework to empower managers to do their job through continuous feedback and recognition. So any nudges, recommendations based on AI or workflow optimization are very welcome to make their jobs to grow their people easy or easier. And today, managers and uh employees are more overwhelmed and burned out uh than ever. So, what matters is very much the user experience of uh of the of the tool as well. So, I would recommend easy tools that can be plugged into people's workflow to take them where they are. And starting with, for example, add-ons or add-ins in from the communication tools is a smart way to start as well. Um, then it needs to be to start with a business problem to be solved. You know, um, it's very important to start in a pragmatic way with something uh that needs to be fixed or to be solved, uh, to be able to appreciate the results and to measure uh the effectiveness uh of the tool. So if you want to improve employee engagement, uh of course you want to empower your leader first and help employees to play to their strengths and be proactive as well, uh, because uh that's uh the two directions that come together: uh empowering leaderships and making employees uh being accountable and being proactive as well. So, for example, at Good for Work, we created a tool that does uh that offers that framework to empower managers to play to their people and team strengths. And it's uh it's very much about continuous feedback and recognition, and it's connected with uh Teams and Slack, by the way.

SPEAKER_00: 11:24

Yeah, that framework is so important. And you mentioned a number of things I wish we had time to really delve into. Um micromanagement. Nobody wants to be micromanaging. Uh and uh and then the technology, it's it's it's great, but it also you mentioned stress and burnout. It can also, of course, we know Zoom fatigue is a real thing, and having too many uh meetings can really burn people out, and that really is very demo demotivating for sure. And then uh, of course, the recognition. And then also I've heard from other uh guests and have read about when employers talk about uh reducing trust, and that's using technology to either spy on workers or seeing how much they're actually on their comp on their computers and and doing their, you know, feeling like they're doing their job. So technology is uh both a blessing and a curse, but it absolutely necessary. So I'm glad you mentioned that framework. That's great, and it sounds like uh good for works doing some really uh positive uh work in that area. So uh with the some of the things that you mentioned are challenges, which um kind of goes into my next question. So, what challenges do remote workers commonly face in terms of engagement and what measures can be taken to address those uh in a proactive way?

SPEAKER_01: 12:45

So, yes, the challenges faced uh by remote workers in terms of uh engagement are basically all the blockers and adverse effects of what drives employee engagement. So, if we know what are the drivers of employee engagement, we and we take the opposite, we we do know what are the blockers and we do know how we create disengagement in the workplace. So, for instance, the opposite of meaningful work is lack of motivation, the opposite of career growth is lack of opportunities, a lack of transparency, or only accessible to people who meet uh you know in person. Um so the uh the opposite of empowerment is micromanagement, as you mentioned, Melody, and a lack of autonomy. The opposite of uh belonging is isolation. The opposite of recognition is the feeling that has been much reported in many surveys, this feeling of not feeling valued, appreciated, or respected. And uh of course, a poor leadership uh is often linked to a lack of communication. So, and at the end, uh, if you don't have any fulfilling work relationships, you are you are feeling that you are not being in a supportive environment. So that's it. That's why it's so important to uh create meaningful work, and that's why it's about company culture, but also the individual impact that we can have on our work and how much we can contribute to the company goals and performance or positive impact. So, for example, traditionally in employee service service, uh, people who have a direct relationship with customers are often more motivated and engaged than those who work in administrative roles and back operations. So, this is exactly the reason why it's important uh to link the company goals and values to individual roles, jobs, and tasks. You want to know why you work, what is the big picture, and how, at your modest level, you can contribute to the company vision. So that's why healthcare jobs are highly meaningful jobs and nurses are highly engaged employees for the direct positive impact that they can have on their patients. Uh so giving enough autonomy uh is very important. And when you can assess your performance based on results, it's uh it's a way as well to improve employee engagement. And salespeople know it well, you know, it's based on uh mostly based on results, and they do have this autonomy most of the time. So the more people do have uh flexibility to craft their job based on their strengths, and also the more motivated they will be. But uh true, we are not all equals in this perspective. Knowledge workers can have more autonomy in their task than uh execution roles that uh have to uh unroll processes. But it's why it's super important to uh compensate for the potential lack of autonomy with career opportunities, growth opportunities, or by motivating and creating new tasks on the side. Um and I have an example for that. It could be working as a team on creating a new process or brainstorming on a solution to a problem. In the past, um uh I was very surprised uh in one of my past experiences to uh I had to work on the process of performance management improvement, which uh which is super dry, and um and in a workshop uh with leaders uh can be expected to be boring. But uh at the end of this workshop, um we had an amazing uh team-building operation because uh only the fact that people would work together on improving the process and uh really help to uh foster productive communication and to unveil as well critical taboo topics at the end. So that really created engagement and it was very much a surprise. And it was far from a waste of time, and always organizing a workshop for processive improvement is really much far from a waste of time. And of course, uh yes, and I I will just finish uh with that. Um uh, and of course, you know you know, Melodia, how how important it can be to put clear intention behind any virtual meeting. And uh we don't want to mix, for example, uh work meetings with uh what could be more connection or getting to know people meetings, which are very different intentions. And it's very important to create a specific space uh where with one single intention to get the result uh of uh of that intention. So connecting people, you only can do that through virtual coffee or lunch uh or you know other ideas, uh but um shouldn't be mixed up with uh any, you know, any uh uh performance follow-up task, for example.

SPEAKER_00: 18:33

It's so true, and that was a great example, isn't it? Just like that, though, some them sometimes the best results come from a time when it's so unexpected.

SPEAKER_01: 18:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:44

Uh and that's great when that happens. And then the autonomy that you talked about really resonates with me, and I'm sure it does with uh um many, if not most of our listeners as well. And just to be trusted to do your job and having that autonomy is so motivating. And then when you add recognition to it, uh just it's just really a win-win all the way around. And a lot of what I'm hearing you say makes me think of the uh HR department, HR leaders. And so, how can they become agents of change in the world of remote work?

SPEAKER_01: 19:16

Yes, it's it's very hard to change the culture at the company level. So it's easier to start uh at the team level and to build that way an agile organization. And definitely we need change agents. We can be leaders or HR people, uh, we can be critical facilitators. So we know the steps of change management. The first step is very much about awareness and vision, and this phase can last, obviously. And I really like the analogy and the image, uh, the image. Um, I don't know, you you I'm sure that you you know about that melody of the rider and the elephant. Uh, so it's something to address the change. So you need to direct uh the rider, but you also need to motivate the elephant to stay on the path. And you need to shape uh the path as well. And what it means as well is that we need to address uh the rational mind with statistics and vision. So, for example, uh creating a high-performing workplace environment to tackle employee disengagement, that uh definitely should be aligned uh with the new world expectations, uh which is uh a flexible workplace, global talents, and any kind of teams. And uh addressing this new world should be the vision and make key people understand that there is no high-performing culture that lasts without the intention of engaging people and improving employee engagement. Long-term, uh so it's all about strategies and long-term models, right, uh, versus short-term results. Uh, so if you if we could go on high performance, we definitely need to work on employee engagement. So that was the vision, the statistics. And but we need to talk as well to the emotional brand. And uh and for the change agents, the leaders or HR people, it's about finding the emotional connection, what talks best to people, and uh and for instance, for employees, it's uh all about autonomy, flexibility, and opportunity for professional growth. And the third um piece of it is the path, uh, how to shape the path. So it's all about the mission and how, and how uh we can put in place uh new processes and through HRTEC, why not, to support engagement drivers. So, what we described above uh, uh, which is the coaching posture for managers with continuous feedback and recognition and encouraging autonomy and proactivity for employees, should definitely be the how uh for uh for going through the path.

SPEAKER_00: 22:19

That's great. You really, in that last part of your response to that question, kind of started to get into my next question. That was how can performance feedback and recognition be effectively delivered to remote uh workers to make sure their efforts are acknowledged and appreciated? Um, because we know that that can boost their engagement and their motivation, right?

SPEAKER_01: 22:41

Yeah, this is such a great question. So uh for continuous feedback, first, uh we have a lot of tools in HRTech that can ease the process of providing feedback, and that's good. Uh, but what we want to be effective is a tool that promotes uh that coaching posture for the manager where feedback can help people grow. And a tool that can save the face of everyone while boosting productivity. And we know we have a lot of, you know, performance management is a hot topic, and we're and it's kind of broken. Um, so what's broken in performance management? So many experts agree on the complete overhaul of the process. So the discussion has been around for for a long time. Uh, but I I read an article, I think two months ago, uh, in the HR executive review, and they said that performance reviews are stagnant, templated, myopic, and inherently biased. And instead, the performance evaluations should look forward and motivate rather than looking backward and reprimanding. So people would rather be coached than reviewed, and with positive reinforcement and in the moment learning. So there's a lot to do in terms of uh continuous feedback for that. Um, so and this is why um at Guthrie Work we believe uh in uh in algorithm feedback that keeps growth and the future in mind, and uh that guidance can replace control by realigning with the goals in the moment, and the continuous process should promote uh a system rather than a one-time huge effort. Um, you know, it's very painful to have only a yearly review or even quarterly review, it's much more comfortable for everyone and less stressful uh to have uh continuous feedback. And um, yeah, so that's for continuous feedback. For continuous recognition, uh my take on this is that an effective recognition and rewards program is about two things. The first one is transparency to help people uh uh uh to boost collective productivity. Uh it's uh as simple as that. Uh transparency boosts collective productivity because we know when performance is rewarded. But and it's also not only about uh rewarding the top performers, the top performers. Uh that's very important to have fairness in the recognition and reward process. And fairness is about uh removing the carrier and or cognitive biases, and we can address that by promoting a 360 degrees overview of the recognition process. And it's very important as well to make it credible with tangible data and a context explanation about how the person made a difference for better performance or impact. And in this case, everyone, uh, if it's transparent and fair, everyone wins, the employee, the manager, and uh the organization. So this is uh why we we offer multi-directional recognition program uh at Good for Work with a codo badge that you can send from your team communication tool. And then after receiving enough recognition, uh and each company has its own uh rules to define what uh uh recognition, what is uh good enough recognition, it can then trigger a reward system based on the obtention of a badge uh for proof of recognition that becomes an NFT. And you can keep that uh that badge um in your career wallet. So this is uh how it works. So that's but that's pretty much uh uh a fresh and uh innovative uh approach to traditional HR. Take tools, and uh and uh each company uh should look after what are the best tools for their culture, of course.

SPEAKER_00: 26:57

Great insight, great recommendations uh that were really resonating with me and thinking about how uh I've been recognized or my work and um and how it could be even better. So thank you for that, for sharing that. Um it's been a great conversation. Do you have any closing thoughts you have to you'd like to share with our listeners? And also how can they connect with you?

SPEAKER_01: 27:20

Yeah, I really very much enjoyed this conversation. Thank you, Milady. So I would say that virtual leadership is the most difficult job, and it's a gym that needs practice and equipment and tools. But I I'm if you are a good virtual manager, you are the best leader because you are definitely future of work ready to navigate everywhere. So I think it's uh it's yeah, that's my my uh my take on uh how much we can have positive impact as a virtual leaders. And yes, to connect with me, very simple. Um I I think I am the only one with this uh name on LinkedIn, so people can find me on LinkedIn and uh or they can send me an email at uh Geraldine at goodforw.com.

SPEAKER_00: 28:06

Awesome. I have learned so much about engaging remote workers, and I wanted to say thank you for being our third quarter visiting virtual expert, and I'm looking forward to learning more from you as we uh do a webinar and uh and a blog. So thank you so much, and I'm sure our listeners have learned a lot from uh today's podcast as well.

SPEAKER_01: 28:28

Thank you very much, and I'm looking very much forward to the next uh webinar. Thank you, Melody.

SPEAKER_00: 28:35

Awesome. Well, thank you for joining us in support of the Center for the Advancement of Virtual Organizations. We greatly appreciate your insights, and we know our listeners will also benefit from your expertise.