Hybrid work situations and working from home is at the order of the day now. With that comes challenges for employers and teammates. In the recent past, it has come to light that remote working is creating trust issues for employers and colleagues. When you have to depend on your team in situations that can be challenging, you want to be able to trust them in the same way a parachutist trusts his equipment. Is it possible? Read our blog to find out how you can.
Distrust and remote workers
It seems that working from home is creating a culture of distrust in our workplaces. What we mean by that is you can't see what your colleague or employee is doing so there is a sense of unease. Are they sitting on a beach somewhere or gardening or baking banana bread, yet still billing you for hours worked? If they don't respond to a chat or email right away, are you envisioning them with their feet up watching a Netflix marathon? While we all know these are challenging times, it's hard to think someone is giving their best when we have no idea what is going on at the other end of the line when someone doesn't respond in what we perceive as a timely manner.
According to research done by IT Pro Portal, 60% of respondents said they didn't know what their co-workers were working on, and how their work fits into the bigger picture. The report said that employees are suspicious of both bosses and co-workers. They believed that while they were more productive working remotely, their colleagues and bosses weren't. They also were suspicious of those who took time off, even for sick leave. It's clear that respondents considered themselves more trustworthy than they considered those they work with.
In another study, it was found that it's possible that your company is already monitoring you while you work from home. (MIC). Software company VMWare reports that 70% of employers surveyed were either already using or were planning on using monitoring technology to track their employees on company-owned devices. The same report found that 24% of employees didn’t know whether their employers were using tracking software or not. Again, trusting employees to do what they are entrusted to do seems to be a factor.
There is a better way
Transparency and accountability are important when employees are required to work from home as the current worldwide circumstances require from a lot of us. We understand that tools are needed for communication and good relationships, and to foster trust in a team. While we are aware that certain things need to be monitored, a better way of doing this is to be open about what is being monitored.
PIQNIC can help you do just that. By giving you a way to track the work that is being performed, the tasks that need doing, assigning responsibility and tracking progress, PIQNIC will help your team to work better together. Not only does your productivity increase, but you also can see how productive your team are at any given moment. This is good for employers as well as employees. With PIQNIC, you are in a position to manage team collaboration and communication, secure document management and project manage your tasks in one super-intelligent platform.
Team members can see the task owners, tasks assigned, they can delegate and get approvals in one area. Here you can send messages, get notified of task activities, trigger workflows and assign tasks. You can see each task's status and priority. Due dates are clear, and messages related to a specific task are attached to it. You can even attach documents to a task, and track the latest version of each document. Your tasks and documents are organised, secure and usable by each team member, even when working remotely. Certain tasks can be automated, and workflows can be created within PIQNIC, which further simplifies your work for you.
With PIQNIC, each team member is aware of what their team is doing and who is responsible for each task. In other words, you can see if your colleagues are doing the work they've been assigned. Thus you can feel at ease knowing that each team member is productive and active. It's an easy and effective way to foster trust in a team, improve team collaboration and create a positive work environment for all. Whether you are all working from home, working in the office or a little bit of both, PIQNIC can help!
What's your experience of working in this area? Let us know in the comments below: