Remote workers likelier to feel isolated

A study has found remote workers are likelier than on-site staff to believe their associates don’t treat them equally.

Working from home may not be the Shangri-La it’s cracked up to be. In fact, remote workers are likelier than on-site workers to believe their associates don’t treat them equally, a new study shows.

Employees who work from home or another remote location struggle harder than on-site workers to handle issues such as getting co-workers to fight for their priorities, according to a survey of 1153 workers by VitalSmarts, a corporate training firm. Roughly half of those who responded primarily worked remotely.

The findings of the survey, conducted in September and last month, highlight “the importance of organisations figuring out how to manage remote employees”, says David Maxfield, vice-president of research at VitalSmarts and the study’s co-author.

Most US employers let staff telecommute sometimes, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. Companies say remote work improves employee satisfaction and retention while helping recruitment.

But the practice also creates challenges. According to the VitalSmarts survey, remote workers are significantly likelier than their on-site colleagues to report seeing colleagues change projects without warning and to believe co-workers say bad things behind their backs and lobby against them with others.

Remote employees perceive greater workplace harm from these problems than on-site employees, including wasted time, more stress, lower productivity and lower morale, the survey found.

Maxfield says individuals working remotely have trouble resolving work difficulties because they rarely meet face-to-face with their supervisors. “Out of sight, out of mind,” he says.

Nearly half of everyone canvassed by VitalSmarts said the most successful managers checked in frequently and regularly with remote staff.

Companies use different approaches to help remote workers. Belay, a start-up with an all-remote workforce, takes a strict stance on the gossip issue cited in the VitalSmarts study. The firm’s 71 corporate employees and 540 contract workers provide services such as virtual assistants.

Belay has sacked two staff members for violating its ban on workplace gossip. Chief executive Bryan Miles says he wants staff to air gripes with management because gossip “is incredibly toxic in a virtual com­pany”.

At Dell Technologies about 15 per cent of employees have formally signed up to work wherever they prefer, but 58 per cent work remotely at least one day a week.

The tech giant says it encourages leaders to check in regularly with subordinates regardless of whether their staff work in the same building, from home or a distant office. Feeling isolated “is not something unique to remote work”, notes Mohammed Chahdi, Dell’s director of global human resources services.

Many employers, however, “have let remote work happen rather than make it happen. They haven’t done the (management) training,” says Kate Lister, president of consultancy Global Workplace Analytics.

That is why National Equity Fund trained managers before the non-profit real estate syndicator and builder of low-income homes offered remote work throughout the company in 2013.

During training, bosses learn to trust employees working from home, says Gaylene Domer, vice-president of facilities management. “A lot of our managers who were so dead set against it are now working from home,” she says.

More than half of National Equity’s 176 employees primarily work from home, though they still must come to the office at least two days a week.

WALL STREET JOURNAL