More and more these days, I’ve been seeing some interesting conversations on social media outlets such as LinkedIn regarding work from home policies. Oftentimes these conversations are in reaction to shared articles such as this one from Forbes, or this article from Inc.
I’m a very big proponent of the work from home model for a myriad of reasons, many of which are covered in the aforementioned articles, so feel free to read through them. But right now, I’m much more interested in talking about a particular reaction to these posts that I see quite frequently regarding trust. Most of the comments I’ve seen can be boiled down to this:
“How can I trust that my employee is doing their job if I can’t see them?”
Trust vs. Expectations
Trust is almost analogous to faith. I trust that my best friend won’t get a pile of speeding tickets or in an accident if they borrow my car. I trust that my partner won’t go blabbering about my private comments to our friends.
Why do I trust them in this? Because we’ve built a rapport over time and built a relationship that establishes this trust. I have no real evidence that they won’t do those bad things, but because I’ve known them for a period of time, I can have faith that they won’t do them.
It’s understandable, as creatures who rely on positive interpersonal relationships, that we want to trust the people that we work with or for. Trust is part of what makes a good team. And a trust that is broken between co-workers can have serious effects on providing a good product to customers – both internally and externally. But when we hire someone to a position, it isn’t because we trust that they’re a good worker – we hire them because we expect that they can do a particular job.
I expect a co-worker will perform the tasks that are assigned to them, regardless if they work above, below, or alongside me in the reporting structure. Likewise, I have tasks that I need to perform, and my co-workers expect that I will accomplish what is necessary to achieve the end goal.
So the question you should ask yourself is simply, “does the person in question meet the required demands within the deadline assigned?” If the answer is yes, then the question of whether or not you ‘trust’ an employee becomes moot. They do the job.
Another comment that I frequently see is, “I’m worried that my employee is going to spend the majority of their day playing Xbox or PlayStation and not actually working!” This one actually makes me giggle a little bit inside for a few reasons.
First, if you’re employee is meeting your expectations of delivering quality work in the time allotted, then why is this a question? Second, if it takes them two hours out of the day to accomplish the work, and they’re playing their preferred gaming console for the other six, then you are failing to leverage your assets effectively. The only difference is that if you are doing so with them in the office, they’ll replace video games with Facebook or something else they can do from their computer.
The Solution Is Easy and Manageable
Any good manager should understand, at least fundamentally, what their employee’s job is and what they need to do to get the job done. With this information in hand, you can not only set those expectations, you can measure the results.
Those expectations should include how much time the employee expects that the work will take to accomplish. If those tasks aren’t filling out their 40 hours, then you can assign additional tasks. If you don’t have any tasks to assign, there should be no problem in allowing the employee some idle time – in or out of the office – to allow them to blow off some steam. If something comes up and that employee has the idle time, then you have flexibility in your team to accomplish those unforeseen tasks and avoid overtime.
Pure, plain, and simple. You don’t trust an employee to do a job; you expect them to. If your employee isn’t meeting those expectations, then that’s a problem that can be solved by coaching, education, or dismissal. Where they work from isn’t important – it’s whether or not they get the job done that does.