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Developing Employees
5Underperformer
Tips for Managing
an
—
Remotely
by Liz Kislik
July 22, 2020
pidjoe/Getty Images
Summary. As teams all around the world shift to remote work, many managers
may struggle to manage underperforming employees without the benefits of inperson meetings. However, you can’t afford to ignore poor performance from your
people, whether they’re temporarily at home, working in local branch offices, or
half the world away. The author offers five practical suggestions to help managers
support underperformers to improve while working from home: revisit your
expectations, learn more about them, level with them about your specific concerns,
help them learn, and stay in close contact. close
In these difficult times, we’ve made a number of our coronavirus articles free for
all readers. To get all of HBR’s content delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Daily
Alert newsletter.
While a majority of employers believe that that their employees
will return to their workplaces after Covid-19’s impact diminishes,
working from home isn’t going to disappear. The reality is that a
huge number of people were already working from home (almost
10 million workers in the U.S. in 2019); that number is only likely
to rise post-pandemic. As the manager of a remote team, you can’t
afford to ignore underperformance from remote workers, whether
they’re temporarily at home, working in local branch offices, or
half a world away.
Although you might assume that managing an underperformer in
a remote environment would be more challenging (who wants to
have a series of difficult conversations over Zoom?), there’s
actually an upside. You may actually be more effective in
handling the situation because you have to plan and structure
your interactions, rather than catching up in the hallway or
waiting for them to stop by when you’re in the office. Here are five
things you can do to help remote underperformers improve their
game.
Revisit your expectations. Take the opportunity to reconsider
what you want most from the employee, and why you feel you’re
not getting it. Start by reviewing your recent directives, and
whether your communications about what’s expected have been
clear and consistent from the beginning. This is something you do
with underperformers in any context, but when you don’t see the
employee in person, it’s even more important to ask yourself
whether your statements have been ambiguous. Part of this
process is separating out whether your dissatisfaction is with their
work products, or with the way they deliver.
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If their style or approach is the
problem, check to see if you’re
expecting them to work the way
you do. If that’s the case, let go of
those expectations and
dispassionately assess their real
strengths and capacities for
contributing to the team’s work.
When one of the senior executives I work with came to terms with
the fact that he didn’t care for one of his subordinates, it turned
out that the remote relationship worked better because he could
pay more attention to her output and the praise he heard about
her from other leaders, and less to his own biased reactions.
If you suspect the underperformer’s difficulties come from
insufficient experience, specific skill deficits, or a lack of business
or organizational acumen, consider whether they need training,
or to partner with a more experienced colleague. This may be
more challenging in a remote environment, but it’s too risky to
wait until you’re back in the office to provide the support they
need.
Learn more about them. Even if they’ve been on your team for a
while, it’s important to ask about their goals and what they care
about, as these things change as circumstances evolve. Plus, you
don’t have the benefit of casual, in-person contact to pick up
details about family, hobbies, or past work successes. Then,
modify your management approach to match their needs. For
example, you might learn that they miss working side-by-side
with colleagues and would perform better if they were assigned to
projects that involved more regular interaction.
If you’re not familiar with their remote set-up and schedule, ask.
Some team members may prefer strict deadlines to structure their
often-interrupted workdays; others may benefit from more
flexible deadlines than usual to help them deal with the
additional pressures of working from home. Take their home
obligations like schooling time or elder care into account,
according them the same respect you would regular work
meetings.
Level with them and be specific. You may not be in the same
room, but providing feedback is still a requirement. Many people
who aren’t doing well have a vague feeling that something is
wrong, but don’t really know which of their behaviors aren’t
working. For example, telling a team leader that they need to “be
a better listener” doesn’t help them understand specifically what
they need to do differently. It’s much more helpful to explain that
when they turn away during video conferences or change the
subject while team members are speaking, the team loses trust
and confidence in them. The feedback gives them the opportunity
to actively practice modifying those behaviors.
Help them learn how to improve their own performance. As
much as possible, use questions to encourage them to selfdiagnose and to project into their own future: “How will this
experience set you up to do better in the future?” I often ask
coaching clients “Why do you think I’m asking you this?” to
encourage them to reach their own conclusions, rather than
telling them what I have observed, which doesn’t trigger the same
kind of “aha” that self-discovery does. This will help you avoid
micromanaging, which is a significant temptation when you’re
trying to be extremely clear about expectations.
Stay in close enough contact. Keep in mind that a remote
underperformer can’t just drop in to check on things or “take your
temperature.” It’s on you as their manager to stay in regular touch
and to keep them in the loop. Don’t assume that no news is good
news. After you’ve given an employee candid feedback and they
don’t hear from you, they can start to worry that you’re ignoring
them because you’ve written them off, and their performance can
deteriorate further. Schedule regular meetings to talk about their
progress. When a VP learned that one of her reports thought she
was “ghosting” him, we came up with a consistent schedule of one
full update and two quick touch-bases each week for a few
months until the relationship was on a stronger footing.
If you’ve asked them to keep you up to date on their progress,
make clear how you want them to do that. If they tend to use
email, but you’re awash in email and respond better to texts or
Slack messages, tell told them that. And don’t rely only on video
meetings, where the lack of true eye contact can make it seem like
you’re getting nonverbal clues when you’re not. If you’re
concerned that you’re not getting a good read on your team
member’s state of mind, plan to have at least some of your
interactions by phone and listen carefully. The tone of their voice
may give you more clues about what needs intervention.
It’s not easy to work with a remote employee who isn’t performing
well, particularly when you can’t sit down together and have a
conversation. But using specific, road-tested techniques to help
them improve will strengthen not only their performance, but
their relationship with you as well.
If our content helps you to contend with coronavirus and other challenges,
please consider subscribing to HBR. A subscription purchase is the best way to
support the creation of these resources.
Liz Kislik helps organizations from the Fortune
500 to national nonprofits and family-run
businesses solve their thorniest problems. She
has taught at NYU and Hofstra University, and
recently spoke at TEDxBaylorSchool. You can
receive her free guide, How to Resolve
Interpersonal Conflicts in the Workplace, on
her website.
The following pages contain materials you requested from Interlibrary Loan via ILLiad.
As these are typically delivered without staff intervention, please report any problems
with the copy to the Interlibrary Loan department as soon as possible. You may reply to
the delivery email ([email protected]) or call us at 765-494-2800. In these cases, there is
no need to re-request the article.
Need assistance with your research? Ask a Librarian
Copyright Statement
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of
photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted materials. Under certain conditions specified
in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction.
One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be “used for
any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research”.
Virtual Teams
Making
Virtual
Teams
Work:
Ten
Basic
Principles
by Michael D. Watkins
June 27, 2013
Consider this now familiar view from the field:
“I’ve run a virtual team for the past 18 months in the development
and launch of [a website.] I am located in Toronto, Canada. The
website was designed in Zagreb, Croatia. The software was
developed in St. John’s, Newfoundland; Zagreb, Croatia; Delhi,
India; and Los Angeles, USA. Most of the communication was via
email with periodic discussions via Skype. I had one face-to-face
meeting with the team lead for the technology development this
past December.”
Could this be you? Virtual teams have become a fact of business
life, so what does it take to make them work effectively? On June
10, 2013, I launched a discussion around this question on
LinkedIn. The result was an outpouring of experience and advice
for making virtual teams work. (I define “virtual teams” as work
groups which (1) have some core members who interact primarily
through electronic means, and (2) are engaged in interdependent
tasks — i.e. are truly teams and not just groups of independent
workers). I distilled the results and combined them with my own
work, which focuses on how new leaders should assess and align
their teams in their first 90 days. Because that’s really when it’s
most important to lay the foundation for superior performance in
teams — virtual or otherwise. Here are ten basic principles for
making this happen:
1. Get the team together physically early-on. It may seem
paradoxical to say in a post on virtual teams, but face-to-face
communication is still better than virtual when it comes to
building relationships and fostering trust, an essential foundation
for effective team work. If you can’t do it, it’s not the end of the
world (focus on doing some virtual team building). But if you can
get the team together, use the time to help team members get to
know each other better, personally and professionally, as well to
create a shared vision and a set of guiding principles for how the
team will work. Schedule the in-person meeting early on, and
reconnect regularly (semi-annually or annually) if possible.
2. Clarify tasks and processes, not just goals and roles. All new
leaders need to align their team on goals, roles and
responsibilities in the first 90 days. With virtual teams, however,
coordination is inherently more of a challenge because people are
not co-located. So it’s important to focus more attention on the
details of task design and the processes that will be used to
complete them. Simplify the work to the greatest extent possible,
ideally so tasks are assigned to sub-groups of two or three team
members. And make sure that there is clarity about work process,
with specifics about who does what and when. Then periodically
do “after-action reviews” to evaluate how things are going and
identify process adjustments and training needs.
3. Commit to a communication charter. Communication on
virtual teams is often less frequent, and always is less rich than
face-to-face interaction, which provides more contextual cues
and information about emotional states — such as engagement or
lack thereof. The only way to avoid the pitfalls is to be extremely
clear and disciplined about how the team will communicate.
Create a charter that establishes norms of behavior when
participating in virtual meetings, such as limiting background
noise and side conversations, talking clearly and at a reasonable
pace, listening attentively and not dominating the conversation,
and so on. The charter also should include guidelines on which
communication modes to use in which circumstances, for
example when to reply via email versus picking up the phone
versus taking the time to create and share a document.
4. Leverage the best communication technologies.
Developments in collaborative technologies — ranging from
shared workspaces to multi-point video conferencing —
unquestionably are making virtual teaming easier. However,
selecting the “best” technologies does not necessarily mean going
with the newest or most feature-laden. It’s essential not to
sacrifice reliability in a quest to be on the cutting edge. If the team
has to struggle to get connected or wastes time making elements
of the collaboration suite work, it undermines the whole
endeavor. So err on the side of robustness. Also be willing to
sacrifice some features in the name of having everyone on the
same systems. Otherwise, you risk creating second-class team
members and undermining effectiveness.
5. Build a team with rhythm. When some or all the members of a
team are working separately, it’s all-too-easy to get disconnected
from the normal rhythms of work life. One antidote is to be
disciplined in creating and enforcing rhythms in virtual team
work. This means, for example, having regular meetings, ideally
same day and time each week. It also means establishing and
sharing meeting agenda in advance, having clear agreements on
communication protocols, and starting and finishing on time. If
you have team members working in different time zones, don’t
place all the time-zone burden on some team members; rather,
establish a regular rotation of meeting times to spread the load
equitably.
6. Agree on a shared language. Virtual teams often also are
cross-cultural teams, and this magnifies the communication
challenges — especially when members think they are speaking
the same language, but actually are not. The playwright George
Bernard Shaw famously described Americans and the British as
“two nations divided by a common language.” His quip captures
the challenge of sustaining shared understanding across cultures.
When the domain of team work is technical, then the languages of
science and engineering often provide a solid foundation for
effective communication. However, when teams work on tasks
involving more ambiguity, for example generating ideas or
solving problems, the potential for divergent interpretations is a
real danger (see for example this Anglo-Dutch translation guide).
Take the time to explicitly negotiate agreement on shared
interpretations of important words and phrases, for example,
when we say “yes,” we mean… and when we say “no” we mean…
and post this in the shared workspace.
7. Create a “virtual water cooler.” The image of co-workers
gathering around a water cooler is a metaphor for informal
interactions that share information and reinforce social bonds.
Absent explicit efforts to create a “virtual water cooler,” team
meetings tend to become very task-focused; this means important
information may not be shared and team cohesion may weaken.
One simple way to avoid this: start each meeting with a check-in,
having each member take a couple of minutes to discuss what
they are doing, what’s going well and what’s challenging. Regular
virtual team-building exercises are another way to inject a bit
more fun into the proceedings. Also enterprise collaboration
platforms increasingly are combining shared workspaces with
social networking features that can help team members to feel
more connected.
8. Clarify and track commitments. In a classic HBR article
“Management Time, Who’s got the Monkey?” William Oncken and
Donald L. Wass use the who-has-the-monkey-on-their-back
metaphor to exhort leaders to push accountability down to their
teams. When teams work remotely, however, it’s inherently more
difficult to do this, because there is no easy way to observe
engagement and productivity. As above, this can be partly
addressed by carefully designing tasks and having regular status
meetings. Beyond that, it helps to be explicit in getting team
members to commit to define intermediate milestones and track
their progress. One useful tool: a “deliverables dashboard” that is
visible to all team members on whatever collaborative hub they
are using. If you create this, though, take care not to end up
practicing virtual micro-management. There is a fine line
between appropriate tracking of commitments and overbearing
(and demotivating) oversight.
9. Foster shared leadership. Defining deliverables and tracking
commitments provides “push” to keep team members focused
and productive; shared leadership provides crucial “pull.” Find
ways to involve others in leading the team. Examples include:
assigning responsibility for special projects, such as identifying
and sharing best practices; or getting members to coach others in
their areas of expertise; or assigning them as mentors to help onboard new team members; or asking them to run a virtual teambuilding exercise. By sharing leadership, you will not only
increase engagement, but will also take some of the burden off
your shoulders.
10. Don’t forget the 1:1s. Leaders’ one-to-one performance
management and coaching interactions with their team members
are a fundamental part of making any team work. Make these
interactions a regular part of the virtual team rhythm, using them
not only to check status and provide feedback, but to keep
members connected to the vision and to highlight their part of
“the story” of what you are doing together.
Finally, if you are inheriting a team, take the time to understand
how your predecessor led it. It’s essential that newly appointed
leaders do this, whether their teams are virtual or not. Because, as
Confucius put it, you must “study the past if you would define the
future.” It’s even more important to do this homework when you
inherit a virtual team, because the structures and processes usedto manage communication and coordinate work have such an inordinate impact on team performance. You can use these ten
principles as a checklist for diagnosing how the previous leader
ran the team, and help identify and prioritize what you need to do
in the first 90 days.
Michael D. Watkins is a cofounder of Genesis
Advisers, a professor at IMD Business School,and the author of The First 90 Days and Master
Your Next Move (Harvard Business Review
Press).