Back-Office Breakthroughs is a newsletter for sharing ideas and tactics that back-office teams can use to thrive in today’s dynamic economy.
One quote:
"Transparency is the currency of trust." - Stephen Covey
One problem:
Hybrid work can slowly erode transparency, trust, and productivity.
One idea:
To build highly productive teams that flourish in a hybrid world, leaders need to embrace frameworks and tools that increase transparency and trust.
Our thoughts in 500 words or less:
Remote and hybrid work have become the new normal for many back office departments like human resources, legal, finance and accounting. This hybrid work trend likely extends beyond just back office jobs as evidenced by persistently low levels of office occupancy rates even as the workforce has grown. In the U.S., total non-farm employees have increased from 152 million in December 2019 to 157 million in October 2023[i]. Despite this growth in jobs, office occupancy rates have flat-lined around 50% of pre-pandemic levels throughout 2023, according to data from Kastle Systems, a provider of office access cards to 2,600 U.S. office buildings[ii]. Regardless of your views on hybrid work, most back office teams will need to optimize around this new work pattern for at least a few more years (and perhaps indefinitely).
Hybrid work creates a unique set of challenges for both managers and employees. For most managers, the primary challenge lies in overcoming an ingrained belief that productivity is synonymous with physical presence. Can a manager really trust that an employee is being productive at home if they can’t physically see what they doing? We believe the answer is a resounding “Yes” and it requires new management tools that increase transparency for both managers and employees.
For employees, a more flexible schedule, fewer hours commuting, and the potential to wear sweatpants during virtual meetings are clear benefits of hybrid work that must be balanced against the challenges of reduced feedback, less in-person relationship building, and feelings of isolation. These drawbacks of hybrid work are particularly significant for new or younger team members. Harnessing tools and systems that objectively provide transparency and clarity for employees about what their priorities should be and how they are performing are critical to building trust and improving the productivity of hybrid teams.
In summary, trust is a two-way street between managers and employees. Managers overseeing hybrid teams need to be transparent about how to prioritize daily and weekly work, how that work will be valued, and how employees are doing. Employees need to be transparent about how they are spending their time, proactively ask for help, and regularly suggest ways in which they could better achieve their daily and weekly priorities. Hybrid work is likely to persist for at least a few more years and, since it presents new challenges for managers and employees, new frameworks and tools are needed to enable back office teams to flourish in a hybrid world.
We’re here to help and have spent nearly two decades solving back office problems. Our unique software tools will allow you to overcome the challenges of hybrid work and enable your back office teams to thrive in today’s dynamic economy. If you are interested in discussing how to get your back office teams to stop missing their performance goals and start exceeding them, please reach out to our founder, Daniel Paik, to learn more.
About CuroWork:
CuroWork was founded to build trusting teams by clearly aligning all work around the right things at the right time.
[i] Source: U.S. Bureau of labor Statistics; https://data.bls.gov
[ii] Source: Kastle “Back to Work Barometer” from March 4, 2020 to November 15, 2023; https://www.kastle.com/safety-wellness/getting-america-back-to-work/