One important component of any solution involves a collaborative project management tool to track employee progress on any task, and a clear and consistent system for all team members to use this tool. Each employee should start their day by using this tool to update their progress on each of their tasks, which allows the manager - and fellow team members - to check easily on everyone’s current task status. Doing so replicates, to a significant extent, a manager’s ability to walk up to someone and assess their current task progress. It helps managers gain confidence and reduce anxiety about timely completion. And it empowers managers to ensure alignment, including revising any misaligned tasks.
Setting guidelines and expectations for communication represents another key component of solving the coordination problem. I lost count of the complaints I get from managers about lack of timely communication from hybrid employees. Yet when I ask whether the manager set clear and reasonable expectations in coordination with their team members, I usually hear crickets. A reasonable expectation must account for flexibility - the main benefit of hybrid work. Some people are morning birds and like starting work at 5 AM; others are night owls and wake up a minute before starting their remote work days. To account for both, set accommodating common hours when staff should respond quickly.
For example, set an expectation that from 11 AM to 3 PM, everyone will check for messages in their email and project management software every 30 minutes. If they can’t address a message immediately, they should at least respond with a confirmation and a time by which they’ll respond more fully. Such communication expectations help facilitate quick and easy collaboration and realignment, keeping teams on the same page and reprioritizing quickly as needed, even on projects with tight deadlines.
Finally, managers need to set up regular one-on-one meetings every week with each team member to assess performance and align priorities. Each week, before the scheduled one-on-one meeting, the employee would send a brief report outlining their progress on their tasks for the week, any issues encountered and how they addressed them, along with a self-evaluation. During the one-on-one meeting, the manager and the employee review the report and determine tasks for the coming week, in alignment with existing or revised priorities. The manager also provides coaching on the employee’s problem-solving and reviews and possibly adjusts the self-evaluation, which gets recorded in a continuous performance evaluation system.
