Hybrid working and performance review. How can we deal with this?

Hybrid working is now the new norm in most organisations, and consequently most managers are finding that they have less insight into their employees’ well-being and performance. How are goals set, managed and assessed if work is done without managers being physically present? How can managers fairly evaluate an employee’s performance if they are not in the same location as their employees? How can managers and teams deal with this?

Hybrid working is evolving from an obligation to work from home to a permanent type of working that some 90% of employees actually prefer (CNV, 2022). However, with the Covid-related recommendation that people work from home now lifted, employers are asking one in every three hybrid workers to come into the office. More than a third of managers say that it is ‘difficult’ to provide leadership when hybrid working. More than half of employers do not have a long-term teleworking policies in place. Employers should have better responses to lasting changes, and this also applies to the remote monitoring of how employees and teams function and perform.

Many organisations have abandoned the traditional performance cycle, switching instead to a continuous dialogue. But even then, managers, or sometimes the teams themselves, are asked to monitor how employees perform and function, and to periodically issue a qualification. How do you approach this when hybrid working?

Clarifying the foundations of organisational culture

Working remotely requires clear frameworks, and it’s precisely this that gives you autonomy: you know what’s expected of you. In order to offer employees the right frameworks within which they can act, it is crucial to clarify the foundations of your organisational culture – purpose, vision, core values, customer promise – and translate them into actionable behavior. The top of an organisation often thinks that the various keywords contained in lengthy strategic documents are enough to allow employees to understand what is expected of them. This is not the case, however, and therefore you must check whether these foundations are already active. ‘Putting the action to the word’ starts at the top of the organisation, and when hybrid working is involved, communicating this can require additional actions:

• Repeat the foundations of the organisational culture even more frequently in communications, job adverts, messages from the CEO and during onboarding.
• Actively use the core values as a test when making choices.
• Facilitate growth by setting goals and action plans based on the core values, both for customers and employees.
• Provide future-focused advice to one another about behavior that is part of the core values.
• Ask if employees can give examples that reveal what special actions they take for their customers, for example. Employees who can show good examples earn extra praise from their colleagues. This helps inspire employees and keep them on the right track.

Reach practical agreements with the team

When hybrid working, many shared irritations can arise due to certain unspoken expectations. Such expectations can relate to questions like:

• How do we work collaboratively when hybrid working?
• Do we keep our cameras on during online discussions?
• How do we run meetings when some colleagues are physically at the workplace and others joining online?
• Must we be reachable at all times during working hours?
• Must employees immediately respond to emails after working hours?
• Is joining an online drinks party mandatory?
• Who does what in the digital performance management system?

Reach clear agreements about this. Do not let irritations fester, nor ambiguity to persist. Managers and employees are jointly responsible for making their expectations and desires known. Ensure that you’re not surprised when such irritations arise when discussing each other’s work performance. Talk to each other about such issues in a timely manner.

Plan more alignment occasions

Hybrid working requires that we plan more alignment occasions, which is understandable given that people have fewer opportunities to meet one another casually. Such planned occasions can be consultative meetings or bilateral consultations, but also collective occasions at the start of a day or week and catch-up lunches. To learn more about the current status of certain work assignments, you can monitor the situation in digital systems that the entire team can access. Ensure that managers discuss with their teams exactly how and how often this should occur. If not all team members want the same thing, or one person desires more personal contact than another, offer customization, but set a minimum level. Moreover, to achieve a good balance, make agreements with one another about how frequently conversations should be held online and face-to-face. Regularly evaluate this approach with the team.

Check-in questions

During alignment occasions, many managers and employees tend to focus on function, performance and results. However, if you see each other less often in person, more work must be done to improve personal connectivity, such as by asking check-in questions during alignment occasions, for example. Check-in questions not only invite deeper personal interaction, they also help you discover why employees stay with the organization, what keeps them engaged and what they need in order to remain with the organization and be the best versions of themselves. Check-in questions focus on the employees’ well-being and needs. Check-in interviews allow you to learn more about the employee’s perspective: what works, what doesn’t, and how does he/she remain happy at work. Questions can include:

• What makes for a pleasant workday?
• What do you miss the most right now? And what least?
• What is the main thing you would like to change about your job?
• Do you feel part of a greater vision and mission?
• Do you feel that your work has meaning? What is needed to make your work more meaningful?
• Do you feel that you have influence over your work? What is needed to enhance your influence?
• Is the feedback you receive useful? What kind of feedback or recognition would you like about your achievements that you’re not currently receiving?
• What resources can we provide to keep your work-life balance under control?
• What future opportunities would you like to have beyond your current position?
• Why do you stay with this team/organization?
• Do you feel appreciated at work?
• Do your colleagues treat you with respect?
• How can the fun and connection with colleagues be improved for you?
• What would you like me as manager/team member to continuing doing? What would you like me as manager/team member to do less of?
• As manager/team member, how can I better support you?

When in the familiar office environment, you as manager may be more likely to approach a colleague who does not seem to be doing well, but when working remotely it is much more difficult to pick up certain signals. Most managers find it difficult to assess remotely whether employees are feeling well mentally and physically, and this particularly applies to any problems relating to stress, work-life balance, mental and physical health and happiness at work (Zilveren Kruis, 2021). Hybrid working causes only a relatively small group of people to feel genuinely unhappy or more stressed. The greater the degree of trust in relationships between managers and employees and within teams, the more latitude employees feel they have to raise important matters in a timely manner. Openness and perceived empathy are greatly important when it comes to problems and pitfalls, mental and physical issues and social safety. If employees do not feel that they have that latitude, they will not dare discuss certain issues, resulting in absenteeism, higher turnover rates and poorer work performance.

More of less feedback?

In order to improve on what you do and how you do it, it’s essential that you receive feedback about your work. Do employees want feedback? Yes, according to various studies. Employees who feel that they benefit from feedback or consequently grow as a person are happier at work than their colleagues who experience this less often or never. Employees who receive daily feedback from their supervisors are more likely to say that they benefit from feedback and feel more valued than those who receive feedback less frequently. Unfortunately, nearly half of all employees receive feedback from their supervisor less than 1 to 3 times per month, according to employee surveys. However, they do receive more feedback from their colleagues. It’s crucial that feedback is given and received in a constructive, positive manner. E-learning for example can help support managers and employees in this respect.

Multiple sources

In order to maintain a good overview of employee performance, it is important to no longer rely solely on the supervisor’s view of said performance. To gain a more complete overview, add additional sources of information, which can be determined together with the employee. Examples of this include input and evaluations from (project) team members, customers and collaborative partners. Include KPIs in the evaluations. Conduct skills audits and include the results in the employee discussions. Ensure that this information is transparent for the employees themselves. Allow the employees to also provide input on the performance of their supervisors or project leaders and discuss this together, while drawing from this agreements on how to develop further.

Also, be aware of certain biases. The colleagues we see and interact with most often are also those who we bond the most with. These employees are more likely to receive positive feedback. There’s a good chance that we also appreciate them more and feel more compassion for them when things go wrong. Some studies show that employees who spend more time in the office are more likely to be assessed positively. It is therefore important to pay attention to biases in hybrid working, for example by using data analysis

Need for other management styles

Nearly three-quarters of all managers (Zilveren Kruis, 2021) believe that remote management requires a different skill set. Remote management requires a fundamental attitude of trust in employees, a coaching-like style of leadership, and a greater focus on maintaining shared connections and the organisational culture. More than one-third of managers would therefore like to receive more guidance when dealing with hybrid working. Half of all managers find it difficult to make personal connections with the people in their teams when working remotely. Moreover, 39% of employees find it difficult to remain engaged with colleagues or to understand what is actually occurring within the organisation. Organisations will have to rethink the desired management profile and facilitation of managers.

Measure and adjust

Hybrid working, and all the (digital) changes this entails in the workplace, will enter a new phase in the coming years, a phase of experimentation and learning, of empathically listening to one another and exploring each other’s ideas. It is imperative to recognize that often no ‘one size fits all’ solutions exist, and drawing distinctions is beneficial for achieving the same end result. By maintaining a dialogue, measuring and analyzing data, you can map developments, and choices can be made for making certain adjustments. Currently, 13% of employees say their ‘organization ensures that I can get the best out of myself’ (Integron 2021). This is as disappointingly low percentage, and consequently, you must continue measuring whether the method of performance management really contributes to the employees’ performance and well-being.