Implementation projects have almost always been done in-person by the implementer. Lockdown has completely changed established practices.
Despite the difficult year for many industries, the need for digital transformation has not gone anywhere, on the contrary, it is gaining momentum. At the same time, in 2020, we, like many other companies, completely switched to a remote format of work, and this peculiarity of business life cannot be ignored now. Being one of the largest consulting companies and having a wide portfolio of active projects, we have gained a unique experience, which we are ready to share.
In this article we will try to touch upon two aspects of remote work: the organization of interaction with our own employees and with the client.
Interaction with employees
Before the pandemic, employees predominantly worked either from our office or from the client’s office. Remote work was practiced, but those were isolated cases. The following factors held back the full transition:
- Fear of loss of project efficiency by the employees;
- Fear of losing team spirit.
Let’s talk about efficiency
Even before the pandemic, we developed an employee performance evaluation system. Its essence lies in the fact that each task performed by a specialist is evaluated by labor intensity, i.e. the amount of time required to complete this work. The motivation of an employee directly depends on the amount of work performed. For example, if he closed tasks with a total agreed labor intensity of 100 hours within a month, his motivation will be derived from this volume, even if the actual labor was 80 or 120 hours.
At the same time, employees, at least once a week, keep an accounting of their time sheets, where they allocate all of their work hours to the tasks they were engaged in. As a result, we can see the efficiency of the specialist in the context of each task. At the same time the employee is motivated to work effectively, because his bonus directly depends on it. But in order for the final performer and the project manager to act as a team, the latter, in addition to other KPIs, must have a system of motivation aimed at the effective completion of the tasks assigned to his team.
Nevertheless, having such a system of motivation and control, we feared that the employee, being out of the office, would not be able to discipline himself, and this would affect the effectiveness of his work. But almost a year has passed since we switched to telecommuting, and we have detailed statistics for that period of time:
The average employee efficiency has not changed, meaning there is no negative financial effect of switching to telecommuting at the end of the year.
A significant portion of employees note that their efficiency has improved because:
- no longer having to spend time commuting, but using it to complete tasks and getting an extra bonus for doing so;
- the boundaries of the working day are blurred: some employees focus not on time limits, but on the volume of closed tasks.
It must be said, however, that we have begun to notice some burnout in some employees. That is why we should send colleagues on vacations, even though they work at home.
There are a number of employees who have not shown high efficiency in the office. But remote work with its task-tracking system and regular status meetings has changed the situation for the better. Certainly, there is a share of employees whose efficiency drops due to their personal characteristics – it is important for them to work in the office. But they are few – about 5-10%.
Let’s summarize the criteria that allow you to effectively build a remote employee:
- motivation to achieve results, with clear and transparent criteria (e.g. deadlines, efficiency, number of returns);
- a system that allows an employee to see a list of his/her tasks and control the indicators that affect his/her motivation;
- a unified motivation system between the management and the employees for productive teamwork.
Now let’s talk about maintaining team spirit.
If an employee does not feel part of a unified team, it will have negative consequences in the long run. Strictly speaking, one year spent at a remote location does not allow us to speak unequivocally about all the long-term effects of switching to such a format. But we can talk about the current results and the actions being taken.