An international organisation working from home
From an international organisation that has more than 200 employees in Mexico, we interviewed three people: the CEO/country manager, another manager and an employee. The headquarter of the organisation is in Germany and all interviewees are German by nationality but have been working in Mexico for several years. Since March 2020, the whole Mexican division has been working remotely from home.
As an international organisation, remote work processes have been widely used before COVID in order to collaborate with the headquarters or other international divisions. In addition, luckily just before the pandemic, a digital workflow, the necessary HR rules and the technical infrastructure had been introduced in Mexico in order to facilitate the work from home offices. When the pandemic started, it was not possible to return to the (different) office buildings and the whole workforce continued working in a mobile mode (either from home or wherever in the world they would be), accelerating the digitisation process that had already begun.
How to jolly the people
Still, even with all the preparation well established, many challenges arose. What has emerged as the driving factor influencing the motivation of the employees was not so much the remote work itself (although it is lasting eight month now), but the fear of getting infected with the coronavirus. Therefore, much of the leadership efforts have been targeted at “managing the rollercoaster ride of emotions”: to assure the employees to feel safe, to help them with their personal situation and to constantly check on them. For example, the CEO mentioned that after a while, employees would come to a limit of what they can bear and “fall into a tunnel”, from which it is difficult to return alone.
The management team particularly paid attention to the individual circumstances of the employees. As the CEO put it, while some may have “too much family” at home, getting constantly distracted, others have “too little”, feeling alone. The company therefore offered additional support by providing assistance for home-schooling kids and offering psychological help.
Both the managers and the employee interviewed emphasised the importance of having a cooperative, empowering leadership style. Fortunately, in this organisation empowerment was already the preferred leadership style and it was part of the institutionalised leadership development programme. To be a highly decentral organisation also proved as an advantage.
The story of Ronaldo, who is missing the vibrant conversations
To illustrate a contrasting example, we would like to share the experience of a manager from Venezuela, Rolando, who also has been working from home since March now. Although his organization adapted well to this new dynamic, Rolando longs for the day to return to the office. He is working in the finance industry, and even though this sector does not require physical embodiment to do his job, he is worried of how innovation might be tampered. For him, the day-by-day encounters between him and his associates were like brainstorming sessions from which each one of them brought up new business ideas all the time.
Now he feels the conversations by Zoom or by phone have a beginning and an end, without spontaneous clashes of creativity. In addition, many tools he used in order to improve the workspace environment relied on having a physical exchange with the employees. This included bowling events, cocktail parties once a month in the office, having lunch with employees, etc. During the pandemic his relationships have not dwindled, nor his closeness with the employees, but he knows things could be better, be it motivation, productivity or the atmosphere within the organization. As for now he is hoping that this is only a temporary situation, and that someday a new normal will emerge; one that is closer to what he was used to.
Comic Strip: "Too much family"
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