The "new normal" seems to last significantly longer - Google recently announced that their employees should continue working from home until July next year - but how will that work? What is Google doing differently from other companies? What can you learn from Google? How was your experience in the home office? Some say they could work very productively without major distractions, while others were distracted by family, children, or pets and complained of lower productivity. Some maintained a very disciplined daily routine - suddenly without commutes between home and workplace, they could work even more, while others enjoyed the new freedoms and increasingly mixed work with leisure - the work-life blending.
Corona - the turbo for digitalization
The Corona crisis has proven to be an accelerator for the digitalization of many companies. For us, DigitalWinners, as digital experts, it was not a big change. Consultations - we advise companies on strategy, digital transformation, and innovation - that we partly already conducted as video calls before Corona, were now completely switched to video calls - even with larger groups. Also, my lecture "Digital Innovation," which I held weekly as an external lecturer at the Fresenius University of Applied Sciences in Munich, was quickly switched to video transmission. And I took the opportunity to document our knowledge in online courses together with my business partner André Daiyû Steiner. Many others have also reacted to the new situation in this way. Webcams, microphones, and lighting sets were temporarily sold out. However, not every activity can be digitalized, and not everyone copes well in the home office.
Home office can make you sick - burden instead of freedom
The boundaries between work and private life blur in the home office. Every third person working from home often shifts work hours to the evening or weekend. This also poses health risks, as shown by a study by the AOK health insurance. Lack of motivation, despondency, concentration problems, sleep disturbances, increased alcohol consumption, and doubts about one's own abilities are more common in the home office. But why?
What is missing in many companies - especially in the home office
Why do people working in home offices feel more exhausted and unmotivated? The AOK study did not answer this question. Perhaps they simply miss chatting with colleagues at the coffee machine - the feeling of connection? Or they feel "left out" instead of "in the loop." Perhaps they lack the focus on what they should be doing and the alignment with their supervisor, colleague, or team? Perhaps they find it difficult to demand or receive commitment from colleagues or team members via video calls. Or maybe they lack the transparency about what their colleagues or team members are working on. Or do leaders feel like they have no "control" over what their employees are doing in the home office? Perhaps they miss the team spirit, the space for creativity, and ambitious thinking in the team to develop new solutions - for example, at a whiteboard with post-its that suddenly turned into a sterile digital whiteboard?
What Google does differently from other companies and why it is more successful
Why is Google managing the crisis so well and able to send their employees to work from home until July 2021? Well, Google uses OKR - Objectives and Key Results, the goal management method from Silicon Valley, introduced at Google in 1999 and still in use there, as in many other companies. OKR is also an excellent tool for remote leadership. With OKR, clear qualitative goals (Objectives) are defined at all levels, as well as measurable criteria (Key Results) to determine where departments, teams, and employees currently stand and whether the set goal has been achieved.
OKR stands for F.A.C.T.S. - Focus, Alignment, Commitment, Transparency, and Stretch-Goals
OKR helps bring focus to the company, ensuring alignment and coordination of leaders, teams, and employees ("Alignment"), demanding and achieving commitment, implementing and utilizing transparency, and thus pursuing ambitious and creative paths (so-called "Stretch Goals") to become even more successful. Therefore, OKR is a brilliant goal management method.
What OKR brings - for your company and for leading remotely
With OKR, employees focus on the essential and right things - everyone pulls in the same direction. All departments and teams work together, not against each other. All employees are motivated and do not feel stressed and overwhelmed - everyone is satisfied and optimistic. Employees have room for innovation and peak performance - for precision but also for experiments. This allows companies to be sustainably profitable and successful. OKR is the ideal remote leadership tool - with OKR, leading remotely succeeds.
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For those who want to know more: the e-book "Remote Leadership - Succeeding in Leading Remotely" with practical tips on communication and collaboration, as well as other e-books on OKR are available for free at https://www.weloveokr.com/ebooks
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