Source: theHRDIRECTOR
Date: February 2007

Currently nearly 2.5 million employees in the UK work from home and this number has doubled in the past eight years.1 Pam Jones and Viki Holton, of Ashridge Business School, look at the growth in remote working and the consequences for HR Directors and the teams and leaders they support.

Remote working is just one aspect of team complexity. Recent research at Ashridge Business School2 focused on the impact of eight elements of team complexity: virtual teaming; geographically dispersed teaming; working across time zones; cross cultural working: teams spread across organisational boundaries; teams working on complex problems; multidisciplinary teams; and teams working in a partnership or joint venture
arrangements outside the boundaries of the traditional organisation. Seventy per cent of the sample were working in geographically dispersed teams and 41% in virtual teams which rarely met up. Many of the teams surveyed were juggling three or more aspects of team complexity and, in addition, faced the pressures of working across multiple teams, with over a third of the sample working in four or more teams. The teams surveyed were also working in environments where they were competing for limited resources, and working with people who they may not have met, and often had no direct line authority over. The failure rate of such teams can be as high as 50%3, and it is the whole package of complex team working which is creating immense challenges for HR departments as they seek ways to support team leaders. Our research focused particularly on the role of the team leader. Over 300 questionnaires were received from leaders and team members working in complex team environments. Twenty in-depth interviews were conducted with team leaders. Through this process we were able to isolate six high performing teams. Their leaders stood out as models of excellence both through the interview and through 180 degree feedback from their teams. In addition, these teams were achieving on their targets. We compared the results from this sample group, which represented 22% of the overall sample, and identified a number of key success factors important for managers leading and working in a complex and remote team environment:

1. Develop Leadership Flexibility and Awareness
The successful leaders in our sample used a range of leadership styles, and knew how to balance a more directive approach with one of facilitating and supporting. They had the ability to flex their approach depending on the maturity of the team, and the stage and complexity of the work in hand, as the quotes below illustrate:
“I have to be clear about what the important non-negotiable issues are and what I expect from their role.”

“It’s important to respect that other people can do things a lot better than me – there is no point in micro managing. All I can do is make sure that everything around them works well.”

“When people are working remotely you need to trust and inspire people rather than pushing things on them.”

2. Share Leadership and Responsibility with the Team
A clear message from team leaders was that you can’t do it all yourself, you need to set up the processes and develop the team to take on a role of shared responsibility. In the most successful teams this was achieved by agreeing the shared vision and purpose of the team, and establishing what was required for each team member in terms of outputs and deliverables. Team members were given responsibility for different aspects of team work (i.e. budget management, client systems etc.) This created new communication pathways, allowing a network of interdependent relationships to develop within the team, thus helping to achieve the overall goal of shared responsibility. In addition, in some teams co-coaching was set up across the team and the team was jointly responsible for the recruitment and development of new team members.

3. Develop a Clear Communications Strategy
Our research indicated that communication took up between 20% – 50% of a leader’s role, and, to be effective, leaders needed to create a clear communication strategy; identifying who needs information, when and in what format. Creating a regular communication pattern was seen as being important in ensuring that everyone was regularly updated and involved. In addition, planning the communication throughout the year, agreeing conference calls, meetings and communication protocol, meant that everyone was aware of what the team was trying to achieve. Appreciation of time zone and location issues were also taken into account so that the burden of out of office working and travel could be shared around.

4. Use Technology to Best Effect
Our high performing teams had a preference for virtual communication over face-to-face communication and used a range of different technologies to meet their needs. These teams also reported significantly lower levels of conflict and had greater clarity around their goals and objectives. However, the message was to use technology with care. Ensure that all team members are able to use the tools effectively and that information management tools are easy to access, allowing people to obtain the right information when they need it. One organisation achieved huge savings by setting up online meetings. The system now hosts 2,000 meetings per year, reducing travel time by 50%. In addition using collaborative online tools has enabled their global team to work 24/7 and greatly reduce the product development time.

5. Develop Agreed Ways of Working
Agreeing ways of working is of particular importance for remote teams who may be juggling responsibilities and working across different time zones. The types of activities which can be agreed are areas such as:
• The frequency and types of meetings
• Feedback and review of individual team performance
• How to handle disagreements
• When and how to celebrate success
• Response times to emails and requests
• Support that team members provide each other
• Training and development requirements.
Whilst taking a fair amount of time, such planning is well worth the effort as it creates a firm foundation for working together in the future.

6. Build an Environment of Trust
The high performing team leaders we spoke to recognised that they needed to spend time building trust. Getting to know team members, posting up and sharing biographical details, hopes and aspirations was seen as important. Some team leaders had developed chatty newsletters, others made a point spending conference call time celebrating team successes. They had used team and psychometric questionnaires to develop a greater understanding of each others’ work preferences. In addition they recognised the importance of building social time into any face-to-face meeting opportunities.

7. Develop Non-Visual Communication Skills
Many team leaders recognised the importance of being available for their team, and had developed good ‘non visual’ communication skills. They were able to listen to the subtext in conversations, pick up on nuances in tone and inflexion and recognise when there were issues which needed to be discussed. In addition, they were aware of crosscultural differences and spent time both individually and as a team to understand how to leverage diversity and avoid misunderstandings.

8. Keep a Clear Focus on Outcomes
Comparing feedback from the general sample and high performing sample in responses associated with performance management, demonstrated that there was a significant difference in the areas of setting outcomes and providing effective feedback. Given the difficulties inherent when teams are dispersed or working in environments where there are multiple reporting lines, clear outputs and deliverables are vital. They not only help team members manage and prioritise their work load, but they also allow them the freedom to deliver quality results.

9. Manage Upwards and Outwards
Often team leaders working in complex and remote teams do not have direct responsibility for their team members and need to be able to influence effectively in order to secure the resources they need, as the
quotes below again illustrate:

“My job is complex for a number of reasons, such as the fact that I’m expected to look at issues concerning clinical trials, suppliers and marketing. Not all of these are within my expertise but I can call on colleagues, and more senior managers, elsewhere in the company. I can also discuss these issues within my team and we often find that sharing the problem this way means we can find the answer.”

“I am responsible for a global sales team. None of the team report directly to me and I am reliant on the sponsorship and support of our chief executive. I spend about 50% of my time travelling to visit the team members and have to influence their line managers to allow them the time to focus on my area of the business.” Our high performing team leaders were rated highly in the areas of managing upwards and managing across boundaries, skills which can ensure the survival and success of the overall team.

10. Support
We were also able to compare the level of HR support between the high performing team and the general sample and found that, overall, the high performing teams had higher levels of organisational support. This was particularly so in the area of team related training where 88% of the high performing sample reported that they had used specific team related training, compared to only 58% of the general sample. Whilst this indicates the need for specific team related support, there was also evidence that coaching and mentoring were used to support individual team managers.

Conclusion

Remote working is not easy and HR directors can play a significant role in helping the organisation improve and excel in this area. Support from HR needs to be ongoing and also needs to recognise the particular challenges these teams face every day. It is no coincidence that those organisations with most success in remote working are those where HR understands the importance of providing support. Too many organisations leave team leaders to sink or swim alone; make sure your organisation helps them to swim!