Your Career: The Hidden Costs of Working from Home | Part 2 of 5

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How is your work from home transition going? Has your organization been able to re-think and re-route some of its processes and procedures to reflect your new reality? As I mentioned in Part 1 of this blog series, COVID-19 could be your great opportunity to mirror your mission through the better treatment of your employees.

In this five-part series, I’m examining some of the hidden costs of working from home. My goal is to give you – an individual, or a manager, or a leader – the opportunity to recognize and begin to address these hidden costs.

As an individual, as a manager, or as a governing board, crisis is your opportunity to get it right. Now is the time to think it through and be the shining role model you always knew your nonprofit could be!

Protect your Career Aspirations!

Another hidden cost of working from home is the damaging effect it can have on one’s career. According to one study, working from home lowered promotion rates by 50% (Stanford University, 2014). You need only listen to #ChatBytes episode 18 for how this issue plays out in the prospect research field.

The Stanford study did not have any data collected to conclude why or how working from home affected promotions. However, the researchers did speculate, based on comments from participants, that some of the negative effect on promotion rates could be attributed to home-based employees being ‘‘out of sight, out of mind.’’ Another theory was that the call center employees working at home in the study whose performance was high were well compensated, and this might make promotion less attractive.

The panel of prospect research professionals interviewed for the #ChatBytes podcast discussed the importance of communication, but also the challenges of being the only work from home employee or one of very few at home. For example, being able to communicate performance and achievements is related to promotion and positive performance reviews in the office, but has additional challenges or changes when communicating remotely. When no-one else is remote, this challenge is magnified.

As many companies and organizations consider a post-pandemic world where people work from home wholly, routinely, or partly, it presents a fantastic opportunity to re-evaluate your communications – as an individual, manager, and organization.

Decisions have to be made about things such as which software to adopt. The larger you are, the more likely there will be some who are unhappy with those choices, but even that doesn’t preclude your ability to consider how to train and use good communication strategies to help each employee achieve her or his potential.

When we choose software or decide on a process, we rarely consider how we humans will actually perform the tasks specific to our roles. For example, good communication practices are rarely taught as a component of software training. But even if you can’t impact practices organization-wide, you can impact yourself and your team.

Following are some examples of how you might communicate in different scenarios, especially if you are working remotely:

  • Before we get started, could we add to the agenda? I’m wondering how folks are doing with the new login fix that got rolled out last week. (Ensure no-one is left behind or is implementing a DIY workaround that’s not secure.)
  • Could I share a great tip I learned about this week? (Helping everyone get better at a new software or process and letting power-users shine.)
  • Would it be okay if I added a #Friday channel to Slack so we can all share what we accomplished this week? (Encourages a level playing field for sharing accomplishments.)
  • Manager: I’m considering implementing a new video-conferencing practice for all staff meetings. Everyone will login to the staff meeting from their computers, even if they are in the office. Thoughts? (Eliminates the side-lining of remote staff in favor of face-to-face staff.)

And you don’t have to make sudden, sweeping changes all at once. Efforts at better communication – anything really – takes practice and tweaking. Making fewer changes as part of annual strategies or goals will likely yield better results. It also reflects the concept that communication goes two ways.

Here again, crisis can help us step back and identify ways to improve. Recently, I experienced the magnification of intent that crisis can bring. It pushed me to focus on some newly acquired listening tactics that did not require meeting face to face.

I needed to reach out to an intermittent client. It was time. But the news was full of protests against racism and I was genuinely worried about saying or not saying the right thing. I read over my “cheat sheet” on listening techniques and picked up the telephone.

Am I ever glad that I took that online course on negotiation through listening!

I worked really hard at being quiet and following her lead in the conversation. Not only did I learn new and important information about her and her needs, but she inspired me with hope on current issues. After I hung up the phone, I wrote down the exact words she used to describe her needs, so that I could avoid assigning my research jargon to her world.

If you want see movement in your career, hearing and understanding your supervisor’s or other advocate’s needs is critical. If you want to have your employee perform up to potential, hearing and understanding your employee is critical. Doing this without access to body language requires new skills.

Communicating effectively with your team remotely is not likely to happen without deliberate effort. Where will you and your team learn these new skills? There is no shortage of great free and fee opportunities to learn. I’ve included a few of my favorites below.

If you have great ideas and tips on how you have grown your remote communication skills, please share by commenting or emailing me so others can benefit from your experience!

Additional Resources

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  1. Pingback: Your Physical Health: The Hidden Costs of Working from Home | Part 3 of 5 | Jennifer Filla

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