While from home has plenty of advantages, it can also get lonely at times. Sometimes we need to be surrounded by like-minded people and have a sense of collaboration that comes from working in a shared space.  In-person coworking sprints could make all the difference.

In-person coworking sprints

There are 1.08 million workers taking advantage of coworking spaces within the U.S. Benefits include:<ul><li>The change in scenery and routine can make you happier. If your workdays at home are blending together, consider changing your workspace for a couple of days.</li><li>You can explore new surroundings and meet new people to find new ideas you might not have received from your own professional network.</li><li>It becomes easier to hold yourself accountable.</li><li>Mundane tasks are no longer an issue.</li><li>Well-designed coworking spaces will result in higher productivity and greater satisfaction.</li></ul>

The benefits of coworking spaces

Coworking spaces are projected to exceed 40,000 by 2024. <ul><li>Location. Choose a coworking space in your vicinity that makes for an easy commute.</li><li>Amenities. Choose a coworking space that offers everything you need, such as easy access to printers, top-speed WiFi, and charging ports for maximum productivity.</li><li>Facilities. Beyond aesthetics, practicality such as a community kitchen, meeting spaces, shared spaces, and booths for taking calls should be your priority.</li><li>Extra perks. A Gym, patios, and complimentary drinks often come as part of the package. Ensure to check these out before you commit.</li><li>Cost.</li></ul>

What to look for in a coworking space

A coworking space is a perfect way to break up the monotony that happens from time to time.

If you’re looking to work somewhere besides your cramped home or structured office, search for these things.


Stashed ideas

5 essentials to look for in a coworking space

Transparency has become nothing but a buzzword thrown around in leadership circles. The word’s meaning has been diminished by its indiscriminate—but seemingly essential—use in boardrooms, interviews, and emails.

A Useless Buzzword

A transparent workplace moves beyond the hierarchical companies of the past that thrived on departmental silos and need-to-know, reactive information sharing. Leading with transparency, managers eliminate murky processes and vague expectations that lead to disconnected, ineffective employees.Some cultivate a culture where employees are invested in their own professional outcomes and devoted to the organization’s overall success. This happens when there is a misalignment of incentives.

The Gap: Transparency Vs Visibility

If leaders aren’t projecting transparency, then what are they projecting? And how can managers lead with the openness and honesty needed to foster an engaged workforce?  When many leaders say “transparency,” they mean “visibility.” Too often, managers want a unidirectional look into employees’ activities, especially in remote or hybrid work models. Instead of providing accountability on both sides of the managerial fence, leaders want a single pane of glass view.

Selective, One Way Accountability

A truly transparent approach must go both (actually, all) ways. That means: no one’s goals, targets or outcomes are shrouded in secrecy.Managers should amplify information, particularly the enterprise’s direction and each employee’s role and responsibilities in advancing it forward. Committing to transparency over visibility requires a high degree of leadership vulnerability. Leaders have to share the good news with the bad, own misguided decisions and force hard conversations. At times, they must be willing to admit failure.

The Real Meaning Of Transparency

There’s a reason why high-performing enterprises put a premium on strategic alignment: it’s the vehicle of authentic transparency.  Aligning a workforce starts with a defined organizational vision and mission and a strategy for how the enterprise will reach those goals. These essential elements provide the framework for every role and responsibility within the enterprise. Indeed, even tasks should track back to the clearly articulated overarching organizational goals.

The Solution: Workforce Alignment

The entire workforce should have insight into the goals of other departments and how each employee supports the other in pursuit of a common organizational goal. Such alignment enables valuable cross-functional collaboration and plain old mutual understanding.

Inter-Department Transparency

But before workforces can deliver on strategic alignment, leaders need to communicate the information and make it readily available to every employee.With an actual picture of what success looks like, employees can work toward goal achievement and better deliver on the organizational strategy. And that creates the employee engagement and investment organizations want and the meaning and impact knowledge workers need.

Strategic Alignment

Instead of dropping “transparency” or any other corporate buzzwords, leaders should focus on workforce alignment as a less abstract way to engender mutual trust, inspire employee buy-in and build high-performing teams. A culture rooted in transparency is necessary, but workforce alignment is the best way to get there.

The Bottom Line

Selective transparency is not transparency.

Gtmhub’s Jenny Herald notes that employees feel the disingenuous use of the word. Just about half of employees don’t believe that their employers are open and upfront.


Transparency is BS. Ditch the buzzword and align your teams this way

Working a second job is nothing new. Moonlighting is as old as moonlight. Most who moonlight are hovering around federally defined livable wages and are disproportionally women and single parents. These people need the extra funds.  However, remote workers make $66,000 annually on average, far above the livable wage. The WSJ reports that those they interviewed are on track to make $200,000 to $600,000 per year with that extra job. This is fundamentally different from someone who labors in landscaping during the day and in restaurant kitchens in the evening.

Making A Living

There is a reason people working remotely are opting for a second job.Remote is hard to manage, much less lead. Virtual leadership is a mystery. The nature of remote work allows for minimally acceptable performance and weak enforcement means. There is no readily available mechanism for supervisors to insist on excellence or assign ancillary tasks.If people with well-paid remote jobs can pull moonlighting off, why not seek another job? Why not increase income? That’s only rational. Self-interest is a powerful motivator.

Why People Are Moonlighting

Fifty-seven percent of remote employees are only doing their primary job. They’re plenty busy. A fair number, 18%, report some moonlighting that they might have engaged in before working remotely. Maybe those hours come from entrepreneurs who recruited some part-time talent. A strong percentage (13%) admits to working 10 to 20 hours for another company. Perhaps that moonlighting is labors of love. Eight percent say they work 20-30 hours outside their primary job. Four percent reported working two jobs.

Outside The Primary Job: The Findings

It should be that the more one works outside of their primary job, the more one believes their performance is negatively affected. That just makes sense. It turns out that’s only true up to a point. There is just one explanation that captures these results: When double the work is taken on, the less one believes their performance is adversely affected. The explanation here comes from research into <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance">cognitive dissonance</a>, which reasons the harder one works, the more they value the pursuit because they have to justify the effort. It’s a “sunk costs” or “escalation of commitment” phenomenon.

Extra Work Negatively Affecting Performance

This research punctures a widely held myth: <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0249107">that remote workers are using any extra time to better themselves</a>. They aren’t all exercising or planting gardens or painting or digging Koi ponds. They’re working. Often a second job. Not necessarily to benefit their primary employer or their primary colleagues, but to benefit their own pocketbooks.

The Myth Is Busted

Remote work has allowed homers to moonlight. Because all of those informal office dynamics—camaraderie, citizenship, sociability, information exchange, bonding, and others—have been stripped away by late rising and sweat pants and polo shirts.It appears that the day of employee loyalty is long gone. Loyalty has been waning for decades and was always elusive. Leading remote workers is hard enough. Now it means you have to keep your people working for just you, much less jumping ship.

Remote Work: The End Of Loyalty

Reason people want to keep working remotely

When given the choice, the majority of workers would prefer to work remotely. And flexibility is one of the most important benefits when candidates consider a new job. But working from home can have a hidden downside.
Remote workers aren’t getting the same amount of recognition for the work that they are doing. In particular, there’s research that remote workers are working longer hours, actually performing better, but 50% less likely to get promoted.
Managers may not be recognizing the contributions of the remote worker because they don’t see them on a day-to-day basis.

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind

There’s also the implicit idea that remote workers may be seen as making a choice to put work second and family or other responsibilities first.Many CEOs have publicly voiced against remote work, and there are many who may be thinking the same but not expressing it publicly.

Manager Bias

Managers have a responsibility to make sure they’re treating remote workers equally, says Voyles. The first step is to <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90548691/extremely-transparent-and-incredibly-remote-gitlabs-radical-vision-for-the-future-of-work">formalize remote work</a>. At the beginning of the pandemic, many organizations scrambled to set up employees at home, and procedures weren’t well-thought-out or established.

What Managers Need To Do

Companies should make it clear how long employees should work each day. Establish specific hours, expectations, and outcomes. Give employees a guide so that they know exactly what’s expected of them.When there’s ambiguity in-person, employees can walk up to their managers and ask questions. Remotely requires reaching out for a meeting and schedule that. Take away that ambiguity and make everything crystal clear.

Well-Defined Guidelines And Procedures

Managers should also set up regular one-on-one meetings with employees to make sure they’re connecting on a regular basis(with a minimum of once every two weeks). This is where employees can learn the feedback on their work, and managers can give the recognition that the remote workers are contributing.

Regular One-On-Ones

Establish equality during meetings in which some workers are in the office and others are at home. When there are some people in person in the same room and other people who are logging in, they don’t get to hear and participate in those side conversations, and they can feel excluded.If anyone is online, everyone should be online.

Meeting Equality

So many organizations are using the same strategies and methods to evaluate performance when we’re working in a completely different way when we’re remote.Ensure that whatever assessment method they create is equal in terms of its ability to assess in-person performance and remote worker performance.

Standardize Performance Evaluation Methods

Women, people of colour, and people with disabilities are more likely to be affected by the ‘Zoom ceiling'. Women may be making a choice to work remotely in order to balance their work with home and family responsibilities that are often placed upon them.
For racial minorities, there’s quite a bit of research coming out that they’re experiencing a more pleasant work environment and fewer microaggressions when they’re working remotely. So, they’re likely to pick remote work as an option. People with disabilities may have remote work as accommodation.

The Zoom Ceiling

Don’t be afraid of a little self-promotion. Letting a manager know your recent accomplishments can be really beneficial for remote workers because it’s not something a manager will have readily overheard as they would in the office.

What Employees Can Do: Self Promotion

Consider keeping regular hours, even if they’re not 9 to 5. I think one of the worst things that can happen for remote employees is if their manager reaches out to them and can’t get in touch. That can paint the picture in the manager’s eyes that the remote worker is not on task or is flaking on their job duties. Make sure it’s predictable when people can contact you. It helps with showing that you’re dedicated. In many ways, remote workers have more to prove.

What Employees Can Do: Keep Regular Hours In Remote

Remote workers sometimes miss out on promotions because their contributions aren’t fairly recognized.


How the ‘Zoom ceiling’ might hurt your chance of promotion

Employees who feel connected and have a sense of belonging are more productive and committed to their companies. Leaders should use everything at their disposal, including new technologies, to foster their company culture.
Encourage your managers to do the same. Taking the necessary precautions, host monthly in-person, all-company gatherings for employees to reconnect, as well as special events like team luncheons, wellness discussions, happy hours, or even a yoga health retreat

Fostering Connectedness

The pandemic put corporate communications functions to the test and leaders learned firsthand how being authentic and vulnerable builds trust. Leaders who continue to be transparent with their feelings, both positive and negative, will build stronger connections and loyalty. When people see you being authentic, asking for feedback, or acknowledging difficulties, it shows them it’s ok to do the same, and creates a place where people feel they can voice their opinions and be their true selves.

Authenticity

Employees who<a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/help-your-employees-find-purpose-or-watch-them-leave"> find purpose</a> in their work are more engaged and productive. As many workers reevaluate their priorities during the pandemic, they’re bound to consider how a company’s purpose and values align with their own. Help employees see the connection between the work they do and the organization’s greater purpose. Reinforce the important role they play. If they crave a new challenge, work with them to identify new career development opportunities. Explore pro-bono or low-bono projects with nonprofit partners.

Promote A Sense Of Purpose

It’s common sense to show employees your appreciation, but it might not be felt as deeply in the hybrid workplace. A lack of positive feedback or appreciation can cause workers to feel ineffective or stuck in their jobs. Besides giving feedback and praise during regular interactions, ramp up more formal recognition opportunities. Consider highlighting great work and how employees have lived your corporate values during weekly, monthly or quarterly communication and meetings. Show appreciation in unique ways that also foster connection.

Show Appreciation

Every New Year’s resolution list should include a focus on mental health. We’ve all been through a lot and workers now rely on employers to help them cope. If you’re not already, offer mental health support in your benefits package. This could include access to online resources, providing a wellness-related allowance that supports employees’ external endeavors, or expert guided gatherings or safe spaces where employees can talk, process issues, and learn from each other.

Prioritize Mental Health

In times of uncertainty, it’s easy to stay the course and play it safe. However, people have been wading through the global pandemic for almost two years and are ready to move beyond uncertainty. Experienced leaders know that transparency, a clear vision, ambitious goals, and employee appreciation energize workers. It’s time to be bold and make moves that inspire transformational ideas that help us emerge out of the pandemic.

Think Bold

Employees want to move beyond the uncertainty of the past two years of the pandemic—but keep the flexibility that remote and in-person work allows.


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IDEAS ABOUT #workplaceevolution

5 essentials to look for in a coworking space

Transparency is BS. Ditch the buzzword and align your teams this way

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!

Reason people want to keep working remotely

How the ‘Zoom ceiling’ might hurt your chance of promotion

A 6-point plan to hypermotivate your hybrid teams in 2022

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

#workplaceevolution

IDEAS ABOUT #workplaceevolution

5 essentials to look for in a coworking space

Transparency is BS. Ditch the buzzword and align your teams this way

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!

Reason people want to keep working remotely

How the ‘Zoom ceiling’ might hurt your chance of promotion

A 6-point plan to hypermotivate your hybrid teams in 2022

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career