Work From Home Accountability for Employees

Dispirited employees at home. Resentful colleagues in the office. Fractured camaraderie soiled in sterile small-talk and empty smiles. When hybrid working is managed incorrectly, these kinds of symptoms can appear. Work from home accountability is now more important that ever and luckily we're here to help.

Our previous article showed hybrid working excellence is built on trust and accountability. This blog post will explain how to use both components to create a productive hybrid team.

Trust improves employee performance The pandemic has flipped the script. From learning and development to performance management, managers have been forced to trust colleagues to work effectively from home.

And those who trust their teams the most, reap the rewards. Trusted employees experience 76% more engagement, 50% higher productivity, 13% fewer sick days and 40% less burnout, than those working in a low-trust culture.¹

But it is a two-way street. Leaders need to be trustworthy to achieve lower staff turnover, greater employee satisfaction and commitment.²

Why accountability and psychological safety are important

Trust alone isn’t enough. Accountability is necessary.

The best managers give employees clear expectations on what they need to achieve and regular opportunities for both parties to provide feedback on performance. According to Gallup, 26% of employees believe that these feedback sessions improve their performance.

Together, trust and accountability create psychological safety for hybrid workers. Google’s Project Aristotle found that psychological safety is the most important trait in high-performing teams. Without fear of condemnation, people can freely share their ideas, opinions, or questions, and are supported with the clear direction they need to thrive.

How to fix poor trust and accountability

To achieve hybrid working success, high levels of trust and accountability are vital. But many teams fall short, landing in three lower states – indifference, micromanagement, or social loafing.

Indifference – Low trust and accountability

Indifferent employees do the bare minimum to get by, rarely participating in meetings or projects. Demotivated and disengaged, this indifference leads to 60% more errors³ and can cost companies between $450-550billion⁴ a year in lost revenue and staff turnover.

Managers can overcome indifference by building closer relationships with employees – showing that they are valued. Organise casual 1-on-1 meetings, for example, and ask them about their interests, what motivates them and the ideas they would love to work on.

Micromanaging – Low trust and high accountability

Four in every five employees have experienced micromanagement, with 71% of respondents saying it disrupted their performance and 36% changing their job, according to a survey.⁵

Due to a lack of confidence in their own or team’s ability, micromanagers try to dictate how employees work and spend their time. It’s not uncommon for micromanagers to pester remote workers for updates every hour or feel irritated if minor decisions are made without their approval.

Avoid micromanagement by assigning tasks to employees that align with their strengths. Alongside this, ensure to provide clear expectations of the quality of work required and any further tools, checklists and resources that they need.

Social loafing – High trust and low accountability

Did you know that the larger the group size, the less effort each person will put in? ⁶

Social loafers contribute little to the team goal, leaving others to do most of the work. When a Zoom meeting has 15 attendees rather than five, for example, more people will turn their cameras off and refuse to contribute.

An instant way to raise individual accountability is to assign a singular owner for each task and let them know explicitly how their individual performance will be judged. Additionally, remind each person of how their work will contribute to the company’s goals to spark extra motivation.

In a MindGym poll of 500+ managers, 54% said they are at risk of micromanaging their hybrid team, while 27% said social loafing was their biggest concern. If you would like to improve your hybrid workforce’s performance, watch our free webinar Happy with Hybrid

References

1. Zak, Paul J. The Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-performance Companies. New York, NY: American Management Association, 2017.
2. Dirks, K. T., & Ferrin, D. L. (2002). Trust in leadership: Meta-analytic findings and implications for research and practice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(4), 611-628.
3. Seppälä, Emma. 2015. “Proof That Positive Work Cultures Are More Productive”. Blog. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2015/12/proof-that-positive-work-cultures-are-more-productive.
4. The Engagement Institute. 2021. “DNA Of Engagement: How Organizations Can Foster Employee Ownership Of Engagement”. New York: The Conference Board.
5. Chambers, Harry. 2004. My Way Or The Highway: The Micromanagement Survival Guide. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
6. Latané, B., Williams, K., & Harkins, S. (1979). Many hands make light the work: The causes and consequences of social loafing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(6), 822–832. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.37.6.822