April Hicke

Have you ever considered moving your team to a work from home model? How about allowing two or three work from home days per week? I am very blessed to work for a firm which has a flexible work policy, but even more blessed to lead a team of virtual workers. I am often asked many questions in regards to how my employees work virtually, but most often, I am asked " Does working from home work? " My answer? A resounding yes . Home workers are, on average, 13% more productive, happier in their jobs and less likely to leave than their office-bound peers. It's no wonder that more and more workplaces are embracing the work from home model.

There are many benefits to the virtual worker. First, working virtually saves the employee an estimated $7000 annually! These savings come from many sources, including commuting, lunch and snacks, clothing costs, and if you're like me, twice daily starbucks runs can add up too! Virtual workers also report having more work-life balance. I believe that the term 'work-life balance' is not the correct term to be using, as I believe there will never truly be a perfect balance - yet so many burn out trying to find it. However, I do believe in work-life flexibility. With virtual work, an employee is better able to manage their workload around what is most important to them. When you don't have to cram your entire personal life into the hours after 5 PM, you will start to relax - fast. While working from home, I am able to schedule my meetings around school drop offs, flip the laundry when I hear the chime go off, go for a run at lunch, meet a friend for coffee in between conference calls, and best of all - get the slow cooker full of dinner at 10 am. Being able to balance both my job and my family instinctively creates loyalty to my job for letting me do what I need to do and still earn a paycheck.

There are also many obstacles to virtual work, and I often hear the rebuttal that virtual work can be isolating as there is a lack of face to face socializing. This can be a threat to a virtual team as virtual employees who feel isolated are less likely to contribute to the team, which hinders innovation and effectiveness. For the team to be high performing, there needs to be an emphasis on the quantity of communication. My team has shown that leveraging firm technology to continuously keep each other engaged has reduced any feelings of isolation. There is a chat in which team members can interact throughout their day, pose questions, and chat on personal matter. A strong one on one relationship between leaders and virtual team members can also reduce feelings of isolation. Recent research with 40 global teams showed that when the leader-team member relationship was strong and the leader communicated frequently, the team member was more likely to contribute to the team, which increased innovation.

The second obstacle I am most often asked about is trust. "How can you trust that your team are doing their jobs if you can't see them?" First, we need to give our employees the empowerment to do their jobs. Not doing so infantilizes them. If we are hiring them to do the job, we need to trust that they are going to do it. As we all know, trust is built up over time, however, as a leader it's my job to lay out expectations and boundaries early on. Once again. leveraging the tools our firm gives us is a big piece of building trust. I expect my team to greet each other in the morning when they log on, and to participate in the chat as the day progresses. Awareness of each others contributions also helps to build the trust within the team. Virtual leaders should create a strategy to have their teams share their weekly goals and accomplishments. My team refers to this as 'ow's and wows' and once a week they share highlights and low points of their week during a meeting. On top of building trust within the team, this also helps to create a psychological safe space, which is the number one quality of a high performing team (Read up on Google's Project Aristotle for more on psychological safe spaces!). On top of open communication, leaders should be giving constant feedback and showcasing team members achievements to help build the teams beliefs that their colleagues are competent, and that they indeed are also working hard from home. As team members demonstrate accountability over time, they convince others that they can be relied upon to follow through on commitments and be responsible for completing assigned tasks.

Overcoming these obstacles is not just about firm technology or video conferencing. It's about effective leadership that accounts for the nuances of the virtual environment. Research has shown that virtual teams whose leader is supportive (focused on wellbeing and achieving consensus) have greater trust and increased participation than teams with a commanding leader (authoritarian, focused on results). As virtual teams become more and more prevalent, the need to focus on effective virtual leadership needs to grow. A virtual team leader needs to be able to utilize technology, to be proactive about staying in contact with a dispersed team, have great communication skills, and be able to show trust and motivate their employees. Simply put, strategic planning, great leadership, and a tech savvy workforce are a recipe for virtual work success.

If you'd like to discuss virtual work or leading virtual teams, please reach out.

april.hicke@pwc.com

April Hicke

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

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April Hicke

Calgary, Alberta, Canada 6K followers 500+ connections

See your mutual connections View mutual connections with April Sign in Welcome back Email or phone Password Show Forgot password? Sign in or New to LinkedIn? Join now or New to LinkedIn? Join now

About

View April’s full profile

Other similar profiles

Gillian Emerson

Yvette Wu

Danielle Gifford

Jessica Lortie

Caitlin Chua

Brianna Blaney

Becca Thomas

Christa Hill

Mehrsa Raeiszadeh

Alison Balfour

Anjali Dhaliwal

Carlyn Loncaric

Natasha K.

Alyssa McMasters

Nicole Parmar

Diraj Goel

Kelsey Boyd

Anamarija Beslin

Mitch Harrison

Vanessa Shen Wu ,BBA, COPC, Prosci, Lean

Explore collaborative articles

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

6K followers 500+ connections

View mutual connections with April

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