By Debbie Clifford, Head of People and Talent at Olive

During this pandemic, organisations across all sectors have witnessed a dramatic change in workplace structure, and as such have had to undergo huge changes themselves to adapt and pivot to the needs of their organisations and new, remote workforces.

With many finance organisations continuing in the main to operate remotely or operating a hybrid office model, senior leaders in finance have been required to adapt their leadership approach, shifting from the traditional ‘boardroom culture’ to a more approachable and inclusive management style.

 The key characteristics of the new virtual leader 

Prior to the pandemic, leadership, in general, was starting to move towards a more open and trusting relationship between leaders and teams. Yet there hadn’t quite been the evolution towards a more emotionally intelligent and involved leader.

While challenges or issues relating to staff were easier to pick up on in the office; previously, managers could take cues from certain behaviours and attitudes witnessed during the working day. Now, that’s almost impossible, and leaders are having to invest more of their time in people management, which presents both a challenge and an opportunity.

The shift in emphasis on the management of people will continue to grow in the remote workplace. Yet leaders have to accommodate this while still having to meet their own ongoing commercial and operational targets. It’s tough, but ultimately the more you invest your time in your people the more likely you and your team will succeed.   Managing true performance, giving feedback regularly, interacting, and ensuring regular check-ins will stand you in good stead to achieve your goals with the support of an engaged team.

Build Trust. Communicate.

With everyone working from different locations, it’s hugely important to instil trust in your people and become more output focused. There are various performance tools that can help you to achieve that, such as goal setting (using your HR system or Performance platform), ticketing systems such as JIRA or CSAT data that comes back from Voice of Customer surveys, as examples. It’s also equally important to have open and honest conversations with your people about how the world of work has changed. The changing nature of our day to day work may mean that your team may feel that they are being questioned more, possibly even micromanaged – due to the increase in internal meetings and catch up’s. It’s really important to communicate the reason for this, due to less ‘in person’ interaction.

Employees not used to home working have found themselves without the face to face guidance they are used to, thus the reciprocal trust between team member and manager becomes even more important to hone, alongside measuring productivity and output of work. Also remember that everyone will be struggling at times and many are suffering from the shift to permanent home working. Microsoft  reported how the move to homeworking has impacted the global workforce.  People are working longer hours, starting and finishing later, are overworked and stressed.

As a leader, and an emotionally intelligent one, it’s important to be mindful of the effect of home working and that there’s no separation between work and home anymore.

Trust is one of the most important traits you want to cultivate and build in your team, being authentic, open and honest will take you to performance you never thought you could achieve. Your behaviour as a trusting leader will enable you to drive performance and loyalty from your team that will exceed all expectations. It is key to driving empowerment, accountability and ultimately, productivity.

The importance of HR

 Look to your HR team for more guidance, as the disciplines of HR have and will continue to change during this time. Previously, HR in the main was the recruitment arm for the business or for discipline or exit purposes. Now HR is central to driving team engagement and development.

This period, viewed positively, should allow for your employees to have more capacity to bring on their personal development (no long commute for example) and many will be actively seeking this. See it as an opportunity, as in turn it will be valuable to your organisation. HR is key to fostering team environment and collaboration; Encourage your HR team to drive an engaging personal development programme for your employees to make them feel valued and valuable.

Appraisals will also need to change and be more agile. What you set today as a performance goal could easily change tomorrow due to the current market dynamics. By focusing on people, the more time efficient you become, and the more interactions you have, the more you get buy in. Your team will understand more about your objectives and intent and feel more bought into the overall vision and goal.

Get involved and show recognition

Be visible on the team internal and external socials. Break the barrier. Work has changed so much that we’ve all had to change. Prior to Covid some leaders and senior management may have felt that being visible on the company social channels may not have been appropriate. This is not the case now. And it doesn’t have to be all about company business. Make it personal and be human.

Thank and show your team that you have noticed them. Find somewhere where you can share recognition, such as the company Teams channels or intranet which are great for peer to peer feedback and help keep people engaged in the company activity.  Reward good effort with the offer of a few hours off or send some flowers. It will make your employees day and show them they are valued. Small gestures of kindness go a long way in this virtual working world.

 Create a management and development pathway  

Shared learning is a great way to engage the senior team members as part of a learning and development pathway that cascades through the business. Examples of this include small bitesize pieces of learning, such as packaged business leadership content, a TED talk, white paper or video that senior leaders can absorb, and coach to their managers, which in turn then cascades through to employees.

Done on a regular basis, this practice helps your finance firm move your management teams forward. It’s a structured way of learning and sharing with a consistency of language and approach – with everyone seeing and learning the same things.

The importance of self-discipline

It’s never been more important for leader’s to not burnout and be a positive role model to the organisation.

Be disciplined – don’t be ‘always on’ and responsive all the time. Be aware that leading by example will have a positive impact on your organisation.  Think about what works best for you as a leader and make time to move away and have some space – your team will respect this and follow your lead.

It’s important to remember and acknowledge that we are all learning all of the time – and that often we don’t have all the answers. Showing a level of vulnerability, humility and honesty to your team will go a long way towards connecting with them in a deeper and meaningful way, and more than ‘being the boss’ and getting tasks done. High performance is gained because of the way you trust and believe in people, not because of your status in the hierarchy.

Ultimately, successful leaders are ones who create their culture, who are liked and respected by employees. Post pandemic the new workplace could and should be a much better place, with much better leadership. If we don’t use this time as a catalyst for change, we’ve potentially missed an opportunity to make something bad something much, much better.