Trust, Technology and Building a Better Workplace
By Nina Joshi, an innovation consultant specializing in human-centered healthcare.
This article is about key takeaways from our recent livestream event on Trust, Technology and Building a Better Workplace.
This Covid-19 pandemic has thrust us into an even deeper reliance on virtual communication in the workplace. As we enter this era of innovation, global inclusion expert Michelle King and creative consultant John Rousseau share their perspectives on how Covid-19 is transforming team culture in the workplace.
Against the backdrop of a global pandemic there has been a paradigm shift for leaders. The repercussions of Covid-19 are permeating many facets of our lives and team members are commonly dealing with mental and cognitive strain. Remote work has decentralized physical and social office structures and the onus falls on leaders to stay connected in this asynchronous environment. The command and control leadership style, which is prevalent in many organizations, is quickly becoming old-fashioned and can no longer support their needs. In its place comes a democratic and human-centered approach to leadership. These skills like empathy, compassion, and relational leadership are becoming more important than ever as teams deal with the merging work/life landscape.
Michelle’s recommendation: Start team meetings or huddles with a quick 10-minute round table where teammates can check in and share how they are feeling. Leaders should also participate.
As work from home becomes more commonplace, we will need to rethink how we engage our teams. According to John, current video conferencing technology like Zoom is a “band-aid” solution that is not equipped to replace work meetings. In fact, virtual conferences can compound biases that we already have. Michelle brings up the motherhood penalty to illustrate this point: when a child walks in and interrupts a meeting it can be seen as irresponsible if it happens to a women, yet endearing if it happens to a man. Video conferencing may be providing us a new opportunity to connect with our teammates, but the consequences of opening our homes to one another are still unfolding.
The reliance of technology in the workplace is prompting new discussions around the rules of office norms and etiquette. Michelle and John discuss key considerations when shifting to a more virtual workplace:
In-office etiquette is not always applicable to remote work. Leaders will need to re-define what right and wrong looks like in the virtual setting.
Without in-person context, employees may have a hard time navigating office norms and politics; organizations will need to be very explicit with their guidelines and policies.
Without the typical 9 to 5 workday to set boundaries, it will be up to organizations to implement new ones to protect the team’s time and productivity.
As we move towards a more human-centered work environment, the metrics for success are also shifting. We are seeing an opportunity to move away from time-bound success measures to result-driven ones. Surveillance and tracking tools are common discussion points in the context of remote work and metrics, but Michelle and John assert their key philosophy that trust comes from empowering teams, not from policing them. Michelle suggests that leaders move away from “What are you spending your time on?” to “How are you spending your time and how can I best support you?”
Michelle [King] suggests that leaders move away from “What are you spending your time on?” to “How are you spending your time and how can I best support you?”
Michelle King is a leading global expert in organizational culture and gender. She is a keynote speaker, researcher, writer and advocate. Michelle has significant international experience advancing women in innovation and technology, leading global diversity and inclusion programs and advocating for women at work. Michelle has been featured in The Economist, Harvard Business Review, CNN Business, Fortune, Financial Times, Bloomberg, Time, Business Insider, The Times, Daily Mail and LinkedIn Editors.
Michelle is currently the Director of Inclusion at Netflix, and former head of UN Women’s Global Innovation Coalition for Change, which includes managing over 30 private sector partnerships as well as three key initiatives focused on leveraging innovation and technology to accelerate the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment. These include the Gender Innovation Principles, the She Innovates Global Program and the 4Good Program in South Africa. In 2019 Women Tech Founders, a Chicago-based organization dedicated to advancing women in the tech industry, awarded Michelle with the 2019 Inspiring Innovator Award, for her outstanding achievements in the sector.
In addition, Michelle is an advisory board member for Girl Up, the United Nations Foundation’s adolescent girl campaign and she is also an advocate for Dress for Success an organisation that works to economically empower women worldwide.
As a thought leader, Michelle is the host of the weekly podcast, The Fix, which shares practical ways men and women can advance equality at work. On the show Michelle interviews a range of business leaders, advocates and thought leaders like Abby Wambach, Sarah Jessica Parker, Zoe Saldana, Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, Justin Baldoni, Kate Hudson, Wade Davis and Katty Kay to name a few. Michelle also produces a weekly newsletter, which provides practical ways men and women can take action to advance equality at work.
John Rousseau
John is a philosopher at heart and a designer by practice. Over more than two decades of design consulting he has worked across multiple disciplines with a wide array of clients to bring clarity, meaning and creative expression to products, services, experiences and systems. His clients have included Nike, JP Morgan Chase, Target, Corona, Hyundai, and Madison Square Garden among many others.
At Artefact, John brings hybrid leadership to both our strategy and design teams, and enjoys exploring the boundaries between theory and practice, concept and craft, and business and culture. He thrives amidst ambiguity and possesses the uncanny ability to express complex ideas in simple terms.