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Thinking About Better.com

By John Gannon

 

A few weeks ago, about 900 employees working at Better.com were asked to simultaneously attend a virtual Zoom meeting. They were probably expecting information about updated company policies or perhaps some sort of holiday bonus. Instead, Better.com CEO Vishal Garg notified all attendees during the three-minute video call that their employment was terminated “effective immediately.”

Apparently, Better.com, which is a popular online mortgage-lending service, claimed that hundreds of the employees who were let go had been “stealing” from the company by working remotely only a few hours a day. After videos of the termination meeting surfaced on social media, Garg faced significant criticism for his seemingly crass and heartless actions during the holiday season. He subsequently apologized, saying he “failed to show the appropriate amount of respect and appreciation for the individuals who were affected and for their contributions to Better.” He then took a leave of absence from work.

John S. Gannon

John S. Gannon

“The bigger issue here seems to be that Better.com was not doing an effective job monitoring and motivating their remote workforce. This can certainly be a challenge when employees are home in their pajamas instead of in the office.”

There is a lot to unpack here from an employment-law perspective. For starters, was there anything unlawful about Better.com’s actions? Coldness aside, the answer is no, assuming none of the more than 900 employees were let go for discriminatory reasons, such as age, race, or taking medical leave (just to name a few). However, given the media spotlight on Better.com right now, I would not be surprised if at least a few of those fired employees brought lawsuits contending they were let go for unlawful reasons.

Let’s move on to the suspected stealing — can you fire employees who steal from you? That’s an easy one. Of course you can. But were these folks stealing by working less than an expected eight-hour day while at home? I don’t think they were. Employees often fail to work their expected hours in a day, week, or month, while being paid their full salaries at the same time. This is not stealing. Instead, it sounds more like a performance and time-management problem that should be addressed by managers and supervisors. If there is a significant gap between expected and actual hours worked, this could be a problem that warrants discipline or even termination from employment if particularly severe. But it should not be labeled or viewed as company theft.

The bigger issue here seems to be that Better.com was not doing an effective job monitoring and motivating their remote workforce. This can certainly be a challenge when employees are home in their pajamas instead of in the office. I have talked to executives who feel strongly that people simply are not going to get as much done at home because the temptation to slack off is too great. That may be so, but there are tools that businesses can implement to track and monitor employee work habits and productivity while at home.

For starters, daily Zoom meetings, or at least a few video calls per week, put people in the mindset of being at work while giving colleagues a chance to see and interact with their peers, even if it is through a video screen. Second, if a business has real concerns about employees slacking off at home, there are all sorts of employee-monitoring software products out there that do everything from tracking keystrokes to measuring time away from the computer. Just be sure these tracking tools do not run afoul of workplace privacy laws.

In order to satisfy these laws, you generally have to disclose to the employee that they are being tracked and/or monitored, which undoubtedly will cause concern to some of your workforce who feel ‘Big Brother’ is looking over their shoulder.

“The final and most important lesson brought to us courtesy of Better.com was how not to communicate a 900-person layoff to your workforce.”

The final and most important lesson brought to us courtesy of Better.com was how not to communicate a 900-person layoff to your workforce. Losing your job over a three-minute video chat alongside 900 peers is just awful. Many of those employees undoubtedly provided numerous years of service to Better.com. They were rewarded with no chance to ask questions about the layoff decision, no chance to talk about other opportunities within the organization, and apparently no offer of severance to get them through the holidays. Garg faced severe criticism in the media for his callous approach to firing 900 people at once — and deservedly so.

But is there an easy way to tell people they are getting laid off? No, there is not. But there is a right way and a wrong way. The wrong way was illustrated by Garg — cold and impersonal, and showing no signs that you care in any way about the employees’ future endeavors.

Based on my experience, the right way to conduct a layoff involves three things. First, employers need a polished communication strategy that involves one-on-one meetings with affected employees that gives them an opportunity to have some real dialogue about the decision-making process and suggestions for future success with another company.

Second, consider offering outplacement services to all employees who are part of a reduction in force. Outplacement services are coaching and mentoring programs that help separated employees find a new position. These services are typically affordable and demonstrate that the business cares about its workforce.

Finally, providing some severance to affected employees is always recommended. This may not be an option if the reason for the layoff is driven by financial considerations, which is often the case. Even so, severance should absolutely be part of the conversation when thinking through a layoff, and, in my opinion, should be offered as a gesture of goodwill unless the bottom line just will not allow for it.

 

John Gannon is a partner with Springfield-based Skoler, Abbott & Presser, specializing in employment law and regularly counseling employers on compliance with state and federal laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act; (413) 737-4753.

Technology

From a Distance

By Sean Hogan

Hogan

Sean Hogan

COVID-19 has changed the way we all do business. The remote workforce, which was embraced by a few, is now the new norm and embraced by almost all businesses. The question lingers, though: will this revert when there is a vaccine and we go back to the normal, non-pandemic lifestyle?

Many believe that remote workforce is here to stay, and these numbers seem to be growing with each week and month. But to do that, we need to understand how to manage our remote workforce and embrace technology to support our staff.

To do this effectively, managers need to manage the technology, the people, and the culture. Let’s take them in order.

Managing Technology

Our company, Hogan Technology, has sold and configured videoconferencing and collaboration systems for 25 years. We would set up conference rooms with audio and video so clients could establish videoconferences with employees and customers.

In the past, we saw most of this technology gather dust; at first, a client would embrace video collaboration, but it would quickly be disregarded. The older video and collaboration technology platforms were clumsy and difficult to navigate. Staff would quickly give up trying to learn how to use the tech.

Today’s collaboration tools are extremely easy to use, especially for the younger generation that grew up on smartphones. COVID-19 has promoted the skyrocking popularity of services like Zoom and Microsoft Teams. These tools can be used to enhance your company communications and productivity, but we need to know how to use these tools.

Hogan has had remote employees for more than seven years; the challenge has been including those employees in the day-to-day interaction at the office. Pre-COVID, we rarely had video meetings; now, we meet several times a day via video to collaborate and share data.

“Many of my clients have been quickly thrust into the remote workforce with little or no experience with online collaboration. They have quickly learned how to host and manage online collaboration.”

Meanwhile, many of my clients have been quickly thrust into the remote workforce with little or no experience with online collaboration. They have quickly learned how to host and manage online collaboration. Hogan has adopted a platform for the security and simplicity of the service. We host several Hogan Teams meetings per week. We have fixed meetings and ad hoc meetings. Our fixed meetings are administered by our staff; we create the team, invite the necessary personnel, and share all pertinent data to the Teams site for ease of retrieval. Teams has a smartphone app, desktop app, and browser login.

We have noticed that our video meetings are more focused than our traditional conference room meetings, our data is consolidated, and our agendas are clear.

I must admit that, at first, I was resistant to host sales and client meetings through video collaboration. It took some time and some failures — I completely failed on my first large Zoom conference, but eventually, I embraced the meetings. Throughout the pandemic, all introductory sales meetings have been on Teams, and to my shock they have gone well. We print fewer documents, we save on travel expense, and we can host more meetings per day than before. If we are looking for bright spots during this COVID-19 madness, then this would be one.

Oddly enough, because meetings are so easy, we tend to meet more and share more. We understand that the end game is improving communications; whenever we have a management meeting, we are stressing the need to communicate better, internally and externally. COVID has forced us to communicate better, faster, and more efficiently.

Managing People

We have had many clients request analytics or reports so they can better track the performance of remote employees. There are several ways to track productivity, such as call-volume reports, CRM usage reports, presence activity reports, internet-usage reports, and so on. Personally, I manage my staff to their individual goals; if I have an employee who is exceeding his or her goals, then I don’t need to be very granular with activity reporting. I will use their analytics to compare to other personnel; this helps me determine where I need to focus my attention.

It is critical to protect your company’s endpoints no matter where they reside. If an employee uses a business machine at home, that machine needs to have updated anti-virus, malware protection, multi-factor authentication, and end-point detection and response.

Managing the Culture

Culture is a critical piece in all businesses. Corporate culture refers to the beliefs and behaviors that determine how a company’s employees and management interact. Often, corporate culture is implied, not expressly defined, and develops organically over time. It can be a challenge to maintain your culture while working with a remote workforce.

We have found that we need to engage our employees through collaboration. Our meetings are not just management telling staff what needs to be done and how to do it. The meetings must engage all the personnel — they need to be part of the solution, and we as managers need to stop talking and start listening. This helps cement our team culture.

The key is that we listen to everyone, and other businesses should embrace this mindset. You need to sit back and ask, ‘what is our culture?’ ‘Who are we?’ ‘What matters to our clients?’ and ‘How do we support our community?’

It’s critical to know your culture and even more critical to defend your culture. Make sure your team knows what matters.

In this time when more and more people are working remotely, it’s important to manage the technology. But it’s equally important to manage people and culture.

Sean Hogan is president of Hogan Technology; (413) 585-9950.