Shaping Employee

Performance &
Productivity
in the Enterprises
of Tomorrow
This pandemic has served as a big knock on organizations and leaders to change
the way they lead and communicate. It has pushed them to operate from a premise
that builds greater trust, transparency, continuity, and efficiency with their teams in
an environment that is highly unpredictable. Of the many challenges, the necessity
to integrate progressive andooi empathetic talent management with
complementary and embraceable technology strategies to ensure not only safety
and motivation but also productivity and performance in the workplace, work, and
workforce is a critical one staring business leaders in the face.

The year 2020 heightened the effort of several companies to create deeper
connections with their constituencies and examine more closely their purpose and
what they mean to their employees and customers. Purpose-driven enterprises are
known for the longevity, authenticity, loyalty, consistency, and relevance they raise
in their relationships with those associated with them. Their positive social actions
leading to prevent climate change, improve diversity and inclusion in their sphere
of influence, and pay parity, health and education, etc. are what makes them
role-models in the short and long term. However, to live up to their larger purpose,
organizations have hard work to do at the ground level to keep them viable,
growing, and relevant.

www.entomo.com
What productivity looks like
in a post-Covid scenario
Certain sectors have embraced the work from home model unscathed and have
witnessed an increase in employee productivity and efficiency. Case in point is the
Indian IT industry which according to NASSCOM moved 95 percent of the 4.36
million employed by it to work from home with little or no disruption.1 That many
companies were able to maintain and, in some cases, even improve their
productivity deserves applause given that the pandemic ended the status quo and
new ways of work had to be embraced practically overnight with absolutely no
preparation or training.

For some other sectors including the small and medium businesses because of the
compression in the market, the impact has been disastrous. It has been
catastrophic on various other levels, but this situation may turn out to be a blessing
in disguise for businesses to leapfrog into the future of work using tools such as
augmented analytics and artificial intelligence to keep work going strong with a
distributed workplace and workforce.

www.entomo.com
Trends in key areas that
can help improve
Performance & Productivity
Leaders who empower

Leaders wanting to stay on the front foot in successfully managing their teams during
the crisis delegate and empower their teams more and give them the confidence to
make decisions. This requires a mindset shift in both the manager and the team
member coupled with technological support that enables real-time performance
consciousness and diagnosis where the individual can self-evaluate their output or
outcomes at that particular moment.

www.entomo.com
Employees supported with the requisite technology tools to enable this analysis and be
guided into right action through independent thought and action will less likely need
frequent discussions and hand-holding from their supervisors. Leaders can focus on
continuously providing their teams a line of sight and the tools that enable
self-management. That said, real-time prognosis where the manager gets an
understanding of why a particular incident unfolded the way it did is also needed for the
manager to be able to nudge the team members into the desired performance behavior.

Key questions leaders need to ask when

deciding remote working tools
What digital tools will employees need in a non-office-centric workplace particularly
to support collaborative tasks?

When part of the team is in the office and part of it is at home, how do you develop
norms to ensure that everyone feels included and sees the big picture?

How do you create the sense of a workplace camaraderie for those working from
anywhere?

Does the technology infrastructure also protect from cyber-attacks and set
transparency standards on data collection from employees?

Does the company provide the physical tools and equipment needed to work from
home, such as external monitors and ergonomic chairs, or compensate employees so
that they can purchase them?

Enable tracking and enhanced collaboration for distributed teams

www.entomo.com
 Build returning-employees’ trust

The vaccination would be a defining factor of employees’ willingness to return to

work. This is true especially for employees who are at-risk or living with at-risk
family members. Plus, it would be fair to assume that in many cases employees have
progressively made their home office more comfortable over the past months and
have formed new work habits. However, many miss the small things about being in
the office, like catching up with colleagues and friends, sharing snacks and meals
with teams, the fewer distractions than at home to get work done but would look to
their organization and leadership for cues on how they are preparing for safety in the
work environment, whether it is work from anywhere or from an office. What’s going
to matter to employees is sanitation, ventilation and overall cleanliness and safety in
the office and trust towards employers and colleagues and others they would
interact with in the office.

Even for employees working from anywhere, employers can improve productivity
and performance gains from a widespread remote work set up by, encouraging
self-management and ICT skills, investments in remote offices, and fast and reliable
broadband across the country. In addition, the technology infrastructure also needs
to accommodate security and privacy requirements, ranging from protection from
cyber-attacks to protecting client data and setting transparency standards on data
collection from employees.

Learn with a skill outcome in mind

In the current scenario, learning agility is a key requirement for employees to adapt
to evolving technologies and business models and keep pace with these changes.
Leaders at all levels within the organization should encourage employees to embrace
a mindset of continuous learning and acquire new skills and provide the resources
required. Organizational success hinges on the ability of employees to skill and
upskill themselves and arrive at the desired growth and productivity level in sync
with the organization’s expectations and culture.

www.entomo.com
 Monitor mindfully

The verdict is still out on the impact of employee monitoring in a work from
anywhere format as the tools that enable the same provide more information on
employees than is generally available in a traditional office environment. It is a
tightrope walk for decision makers as employees may get more stressed out because
of the monitoring leading to lower performance or worse, they may complain
publicly about the intrusive checking and breach of trust. In some cases, these tools
may have no positive or negative impact on employee productivity. If approached
discerningly by employers and positioned as a tool to help companies be productive
and stay above board in times of a collapsing economy the reason for monitoring
could be acceptable

CHECKLIST 2
The ‘why’ and ‘how’ of monitoring

There are ample digital tools available for employee monitoring which include screen
and keyboard activity captures, location tracking, stealth monitoring, live video feeds,
optical character recognition, etc. In the same vein, adherence to regulation on data
protection would be necessary to ensure privacy rights. Here are some elements to
consider particularly to ensure the productivity level does not drop:

1. Choose productivity related metrics.

Tools should be relevant for assessing productivity, efficiency, and revenue. Simply
monitoring the quantity of emails written or read, for instance, is not a reliable
indicator of productivity.

2. Be honest with your employees.

Share the results of the monitoring with them and, crucially, provide a system by
which they can appeal decisions about their career influenced by the data collected.
Transparency increases employee acceptance rates and prevents the relationship
from being hampered.

www.entomo.com
3. Reward and Reprimand.
Think about ways to motivate and boost desired outcomes, not just pinpoint
inefficiencies. Ask supervisors to talk to their team members and focus on listening,
finding solutions, not faults.

4. Be patient.
Don’t make hasty decisions about who is and who is not a good employee or a hard
worker based on performance under these conditions. Some very hard-working and
talented employees may be stretched due to a lack of school and child care options,
for instance. These are people you want as they provide a tremendous amount of
value.

5. Monitor equally.
Monitor all employees equally without exception to title, level, etc.

6. Decrease monitoring when and where you can.

The impulse to monitor is understandable, especially in these times. But look for
places to pull back monitoring efforts where things are going well.

Enable collaboration aligned with productivity and

company goals and recommendation

(click on to reach a entomo representative who can help you)

www.entomo.com
 Culture of adhoc, random and
meaningful communication
A lot is at stake for the overall performance of the business when communication and
information sharing is inadequate or infrequent which is what organizations fear in the current
WFA/ remote working scenario, more so as it becomes a permanent feature. Communication is
essential for the necessary knowledge flows to take place among employees. But it doesn’t stop
there. Having open communication with colleagues helps build empathy, resilience, and
awareness within the team, making the impetus it gives to performance, a certainty. Technology
has a significant role to play here with emails, virtual chats and video calls surging during the
pandemic compensating for the lack of personal communication but more advanced technologies
can take this many notches up.

CHECKLIST 3

Building a Connect at Work

Building a rapport with colleagues in a work from anywhere scenario is hard to
achieve but necessary.

Some areas to consider:

How do you encourage leaders to put in place social-connectivity strategies and
practices for their teams that are in sync with the company’s culture?
How do you build a rapport with new post-pandemic joinees who have joint at a time
when the organization is fully remote and do not have the social network from
pre-Covid times?

How does the team collaborate when some people are working remotely while others
are onsite?

How do you build organic relationships and trust in a socially distanced world where
everyone wears a mask, which hides many facial cues?

www.entomo.com
How do you replicate coffee-machine meetings with colleagues who work on the
same team or were once in the same work area?

With what do you substitute the on-the-job-learning especially for younger

employees who are missing out on these opportunities and interactions with senior
colleagues.

Learn more about how to power workforce productivity in a fluid workforce

click on to reach a entomo representative who can help you

www.entomo.com
CONCLUSION
The offices that were hurriedly closed in March will never re-open in the same form
and the journey back will be a contrast to any earlier one and a consistent
work-in-progress. The enterprise of the future will see itself as both part of the
macrocosm and microcosm and learn to thrive by making the fundamental shift in
their technology strategy, requiring them to augment human intelligence with
AI-powered analytics to enhance every employee’s outcomes and distinctive
moments that matter. At the end of the day, humans will always continue to be at
the helm of the enterprise but the future belongs to enterprises that exhibit the
following six patterns with the help of technology:

Employee experience led v/s employment contract-led

Employee experience impacts everything from productivity to culture and cannot
be ignored. It doesn’t just encapsulate the written word but the full spectrum of
touch points an employee interacts with including colleagues, clients and
technology.

www.entomo.com
 Employee-led v/s Leadership-led
Employee-led teams supported by leaders create and sustain a high performing
environment. Purpose-driven companies have greater employee engagement and
involvement leading employees to come to work knowing that what they do
enhances meaning for the organization.

Insight-led v/s Intuition-led

Successful managers usually have strong intuition but decisions need to be
strengthened with insight that comes from data and more perspective.

Nudge-led v/s Instruction-led

Nudges can help employees with choices to make better decisions rather than
stern directives from management with implied consequences.

Democratized and empowering v/s controlled and constraining

Democratized and empowering organizations provide a platform for employees to
embrace and leverage technologies such as Artificial Intelligence to add critical
value to their jobs.

Agile vs Lean
Agile organizations are best positioned to lead in the future because of their
people-centered and purpose-driven culture that creates an environment of fast
learning and decision-making using technology as an enabler.

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/companies/in-covid-times-companies-m
ay-embrace-new-ways-to-measure-employee-productivity-says-hr-experts/arti
cle31898366.ece

www.entomo.com