Post-Covid 19 data-driven workplaces: Control and employee surveillance or team intelligence and trust? 

By accelerating the move towards agile working, the Covid-19 crisis is forcing us all to explore new ways of collaborating and managing the performance of our remote teams. 

In this new environment, building trust and harnessing collective intelligence will be a key difference between success and failure.

Remote working is here to stay. What started as a contingency to deal with an unexpected crisis will soon become the new normal. Instead of  Monday morning meetings, teams are catching up using videoconferencing platforms. Coffee-break conversations are being replaced by emails, the ‘water-cooler moment’ by emojis and WhatsApp groups. These changes are here to stay.

The benefits to remote working are evident. Aside from the environmental and social gains, this new way of working offers teams the chance to create more effective and flexible forms of collaboration. When properly implemented, remote working can empower teams to be more creative and dynamic, as well as improving their sense of responsibility and work/life balance. But this new normal also poses a dilemma to leaders when considering the best way to manage their teams remotely: trust or control?

In order for this new remote working paradigm to work, technology will be essential. However, the ways we choose to use that technology will differ greatly depending on the culture that already exists in our organization. Some features offered by online work platforms also allow employees to control and monitor their teams remotely,  which can significantly impact the feelings of trust and shared responsibility that allow every team to flourish. However, technology can also be used to build trust. 

Statistics show that productivity improves when employees feel trusted in their workplace environment. Collective Intelligence needs to be built using online platforms that emphasize engagement and transparency, not control and surveillance; a way of managing remote teams that can help to accelerate the cultural transformation of a company towards a more agile, effective and healthy work model.

The constantly evolving crisis is putting pressure on leaders to produce real-time data about not only performance, but also about the well-being of their teams. Using anonymous reporting and actionable data analysis, TeamEQ’s team intelligence platform provides data that puts transparency and team intelligence first. A tool that can help teams to boost their performance and companies to accelerate a cultural transformation towards an approach based on trust and transparency.

Trust or surveillance? In the face of this transformative moment caused by Covid-19, it is vital for companies to make the right choice now.

Find out how TeamEQ can help you here. 

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