Lead to a distance: what bosses have to learn now - cio.de

Christine Albrecht is the department head in the field of personnel at the Berlin city cleaning (BSR), and she has participated in an exponential learning curve in the past few months when it comes to digitization and management management."Digitization has taken up a pace in the company that was previously unthinkable," reports the personnel expert.Processes were digitized in a very short time that could not have been imagined before pandemic - for example because of long discussion groups, concerns, coordination loops: "But now it had to happen," said Albrecht, and it worked.Everything about the lead on CIO.de

The second important project, with which she was and as a HR as a personnel, and is the topic of leadership.According to their experience, employers must be established from a presence- a culture of trust.Bosses who previously led through control will not get far with this leadership style if the mobile location -independent work becomes an integral part.

From the presence to the culture of trust

It was of course ahead of Corona that discussions took place in the hallway and in the coffee kitchen, the boss knew what was on his employee's desk, which he deals with how he is on it.Feedback or assessment talks ran almost by the way and were part of the normal everyday life.Now many bosses notice how important these conversations and contacts were, and for some this leadership now means a "big change", observes Albrecht.

"Of course, the provision of services is also in the foreground when it comes to home office," emphasizes the BSR manager, but she also says that it must be the task of every manager to strengthen the self-responsibility of the employees to enable them independentlyto be allowed to meet.

Invest more time in management tasks

It had become clear to her that a "different focus on employee leadership" must now be placed.In the future, bosses would have to invest a lot more time in the topic of leaders.

Your employer reacted to these developments and offered training around the topic of leadership at a distance, so that managers understand what it means if you work with your team mostly digitally or to pay attention to the intermediate tones.It was important to give the managers the feeling that they are not left alone.

More employee surveys

Even before pandemic, the BSR had built up extensive health management for its employees, with corresponding offers for health, nutrition, yoga, relaxation programs;In pandemic this now had to be implemented in many ways digitally.With the Corona pilots in the employee app and a health app that was offered to all employees, this was now ready to call and bundled at any time.The employees of the employees were regularly considered to be the mood barometer as a supplement to the regular employee surveys.

It was also important to remain in contact with the large part of the commercial employees without the possibility of a home office so that there was no misconception between those who were allowed to say goodbye to the home office, and those who on the streets of the streets every dayCapital provided their cleanliness.

Allow more personal responsibility

In the future, managers will be necessary to lead the employees to the highly flexible on site, digital or hybrid and to allow them more personal responsibility, Albrecht is convinced.This has to be taken into account in new settings, on the one hand, to develop a new generation of managers who can deal with hybrid forms of work confidently, and on the other hand to gain employees who are important to work independently.

Easier said than done, because "the ability to lead to a distance does not fall from the sky," says Lutz Bellmann.On the one hand, he is a professor of economics at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, on the other hand, he has been working at the Institute for Labor Market and Vocational Research (IAB) of the Federal Employment Agency and has been leading the company and employees there and has recently intensively headedalso employed the topic of corona and the resulting consequences for the labor market.

He also knows examples in which managers were not willing to go this new way, or in which managers are still difficult to work online, for example with this new form of delegation.On the other hand, the scientist is positive that the increased online communication often works much easier.Another positive effect is that the status often counts less in virtual sessions, but what the participants specifically contribute.

"In the company canteen, only the colleagues from their own department usually met," says Bellmann.BSR manager Albrecht can only agree: "We have never had as much interdisciplinary communication as now, it has never been easier to meet at short notice", precisely because such digital sessions are quickly organized and the colleagues are easier to be availableHapped a regularity and could progress well with projects.

Bellmann observes that thanks to Corona, new team structures are created in the companies, that superiors who make it difficult to use the technology and virtual leaders.The strength of teams is to manage such constellations well without a "palace revolution" being.

HR work has become more important

What is pleased to the scientist is that in these pandemic times the personnel work generally gained importance.However, he also notes that the HR departments with the managers from the specialist areas have to clarify who is responsible for which tasks when it comes to employee-oriented topics.There are already experts who, analogous to the shadow IT in the departments, speak of a shadow-HR outside of the HR department.

There are two topics for the professor that employers should keep an eye on: give employees as much trust as possible and make clear regulations.The second aspect is also so important, this showed the surveys of his institute because the topic of home office would not disappear.The majority of the companies report that they continue to work at a high home office level."Twenty percent of employers say they want to have more home office after pandemic than before the pandemic periods," says Bellmann.

Home office discusions are in full swing

The surveys also showed that there were industrial differences.In the IT, for example, "I observe that the bosses say that the main thing is that you come to the meetings", in other industries you try with the argument that the need for coordination is high to only allow the employee to give the employee for a day or two.Completely home office or mobile work or completely presence at the workplace is the exception.

Bellmann advocates clear agreements so that the disputes and misunderstandings between employer and employees were limited.For example, accessibility should be regulated, performance goals should be transparent and clearly formulated how performance control takes place and how the working hours are to be recorded.