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What’s Next:
Using technology to engage
employees and build
businesses

Emma Nicol
Client Partner
Head of Employee
Engagement
Practice
Dan Hocking
Head of Programme
Management and Delivery
Welcome
Dayoán Daumont
Consulting Partner, EMEA
Ogilvy Consulting

What’s the weather
like in your city?
Tell us
where you
are dialing
in from

Do you want
this deck?
It will be available for download
shortly after the webinar on:
slideshare.net/socialogilvy
And the recording up on
facebook.com/OgilvyConsulting

Today’s
session will
cover
• How do we foster the behaviours of collaboration,
creativity and sharing to continue to drive productivity
in a virtual environment?
• What about our teams who are unfamiliar with remote
working for extended periods – how do we keep them
engaged?
• How do we encourage positive behaviours to thrive in
spite of technology restrictions?
• When there are technology limitations, what
pragmatic solutions can we put in place in the
moment to support teams?
• How do we balance enterprise technology
requirements and restrictions with the need for
speed?

Employees:
why do they matter?

Future business success will be achieved by
utilising technological innovations to increase
productivity while simultaneously
complementing important traits of human
nature – creativity, empathy, innovation, and
imagination.
World Economic Forum – The Fourth Industrial Revolution

22%
Of leaders feel prepared to
operate in a highly digital
environment
53%
Of employees
believe a company pays
attention to people’s needs
when introducing new
technology
93%
Of our communication is
non-verbal
Communicating and collaborating in a virtual
world is going to be challenging

9

Normal ways of working are being disrupted
Change is
happening fast
Experiences
are being
distanced
Voices are
being dispersed

How do we build and maintain a
connected and collaborative virtual
workforce

• Virtual leadership
• Building trust
• Team cohesion and identity
• Inclusion and isolation
• Performance management
13
Challenges to long-term
virtual working

15
Virtual leadership
Leadership has always been about more than the
singular and highly visible heroic individual.
Leadership must be upheld as much more of a shared and
multi-dimensional endeavour.

Clarity:
• Prioritise development of clear boundaries and guidelines
• Consider sharing new metrics of success
• Clarify and re-clarify roles
Communication:
• Provide support to adjust and respond to new psychological
pressure
• Encourage team members’ responsibility
• Recognise own cognitive biases
Connection
• Avoid being exclusively task-focused
• Maintain regular cadence of meetings; embrace video
• Build a virtual office
Virtual leadership
Immediate steps

As your team’s digital maturity evolves, leadership will
start to take on these characteristics:
• ‘Network leadership’ to nurture strong connections,
robust flows and shared value with shallower
hierarchy
• Convening and weaving behaviours
• Integrating technology deeply into ways of working
• Rethinking learning cultures – beyond ‘doing virtual’
to ‘being virtual’
• Managing of psychological pressure
Virtual leadership
Future state

18
Building trust
It’s critical to use technology not just in a transactional way,
but also to help build a strong culture focused on remote staff.
With the right technology, employees can be more productive working
remotely.
In order to maintain a sense of unity within a dispersed and remote workforce,
it can’t all be about work.

Trust-building behaviour
• Dependability and reliability
o Construct teams with careful thought based on skill sets, personality
traits, and communication styles
• Consistency
o Sign off for approvals are documented and implemented [especially
helpful if attrition becomes an issue]
• Reciprocity
• Host 15min think tank sessions to solve one employees issue on the
understanding favour would be returned when needed in the future
• Confidence
o Praise and reward individual achievements with a focus on how these
contribute to critical group success
• Accountability
o Share demonstrable progress from members and give under-
performing members individual coaching to help them get back on
track
• Transparency
o Share information openly with the team. Work schedules, project
progress, and task status should be available to all members anytime
Building trust
Immediate steps

• Authenticity is a default for leaders
• Employees are trusted and respected
to manage themselves to deliver
• Value is placed on outcomes not time spent.
Workplace is fundamentally fair
• Technology not just for transactional use but to
build culture
Build on values of:
• Independence
• Mastery and autonomy
• Communication
• Balance
• Impact
Building trust
Future state

21
Team cohesion and identity
The critical factor in virtual teamwork is people, not the
technology used.
State-of-the-art technology is no guarantee of high trust or
fruitful collaboration.
Virtual team members must feel valued for who they are,
what they can contribute and the personal bonds they have
with one another.

• Remind team members of shared purpose
• Empathy helps reduce social distance
• Provide feedback on everyday behaviour
• Build small talk into meetings
• Embrace conflict instead of letting it go
Other considerations:
• Learning from one another
• Local language and engagement gap
• Personal identity and the mismatch of perceptions
Team cohesion and identity
Immediate steps + future state

23
Inclusion and isolation
As leaders, we are able to shape a universal employee experience
and ensure our workplaces are consciously inclusive.
When intra-team cohesion is working well, employees feel more
engaged with their work.
Engagement is critical to maintaining morale and preventing
feelings of isolation.

• Design inclusive virtual workplaces and meetings
(consider technology and participation)
• Create spaces to mimic everyday office life
• Have frequent, short interactions rather than long,
infrequent ones
• Ensure consistent information sharing
• Prioritise face-to-face communications
• Actively mentor and coach
Inclusion and isolation
Immediate steps

• Intentionally design employee experience with
remote workers as a priority
• Infuse inclusion into working culture and prioritise
it across your whole brand
• Reassess how unconscious bias manifests in a
remote environment
Inclusion and isolation
Future state

26
Performance management
Our teams are successful when people have positive
experiences in the workplace.
The essence of performance management remains the
same whether employees are remote or not.

• Adjust performance metrics to reflect remote
working circumstances
• Benchmark performance objectively across people
performing similar roles
o Competency-based rather than practice-based
• Gather behaviour-based feedback
• Ask for self-evaluation
• Create a feedback rhythm
Performance management
Immediate steps

• Build and optimise teams aligned with employee
strengths
• Develop a standardised yet flexible system of goal-
setting
o Broad terms of evaluation aligned to expected behaviours
• Increase observed behavioural assessments
• Introduce seamless online HR systems
o Single sign on, fully integrated self-service platform
• Workforce creation and candidate selection based
on suitability for mobile and remote working
Performance management
Future state

29
Finding the most
appropriate technology
for your remote teams

Select tech that solves real world problems for employees
and teams, and consider some key questions about how you
operate:
• How do your people need to get their jobs done?
• What is your working rhythm?
• How complicated is it for you to access your
infrastructure?
• What are you or your teams using already? Does it work?
Finding the best
type of
collaborative
technology for your
teams

31
Asynchronous comms Synchronous comms
What When you send a message without expecting an
immediate response
When you send a message and the recipient
processes the information and responds immediately
Example You send an email. I open and respond to the email
several hours later
Meetings, phone calls, video conferences
Benefits • Gives recipient greater control over scheduling
• Enables more considered responses
• Enables deep work as default
• Provides automatic documentation and greater
transparency
• Drives a more inclusive workplace
• Builds rapport
• Provides prompt and/or critical feedback
• Enables brainstorming of unknowns or evaluation of
different ideas and solutions
• Brings everyone together quickly
• Enables crisis management
Pitfalls • Communication is slower
• Those constantly responding may wrestle control
over the narrative
• Relies on technology integration and management
• Does not provide the human touch
• Leads to constant interruptions
• Prioritises being connected over being productive
• Can create unnecessary stress
• Can lead to lower quality discussions and
suboptimal solutions
Example
providers
Types of tech communication
Asynchronous and Synchronous comms

32
Category Example Tool
In case of emergency
All hands meeting, employee
ideation, crowdsourcing in
real time
Regular 1:1, ad hoc meetings
to discuss complex issues
In context comments on
projects
Central Hub (intranet),
announcements, ideas,
feedback, updates,
watercooler
Assess your requirements
Synchronous
Asynchronous
Immediate need
Infrequent need

33
… and your gaps

34
Don’t forget some of your core software

35
So what do we use?
Category Tool
Emergency comms and
immediate response
All hands meeting, external
meetings and heavyweight
video conferencing
1:1, internal meetings, and
team/project work discussion
Project Management and
Project Tracking
Central Hub (intranet),
announcements, ideas,
documents

In order to ensure alignment between your
remote working strategy and your technology
landscape, we recommend that you:
• Focus on the problem you are solving, not the
tech
• Partner with technology team to ensure
understanding of business need
• Identify and prioritise the most important features
to the users per requirement
• Avoid jumping on the latest tool – is there
‘consumer’ tech to implement in interim e.g.
WhatsApp
• Work with IT security to assess suitability
• Ensure interoperability and compatibility with
other software set (if possible)
• Be flexible
Introducing pragmatic
solutions

When you introduce
new technology, you
are really asking
employees to change
their behaviour

Putting it into practice

Remember
the
‘Brilliant
Basics’
• Build and maintain a connected and collaborative team
o Create clarity, communication and connection
o Clarify goals and roles, not just tasks and processes
o Focus on trust building behaviour
o Remind teams of shared purpose
o Build empathy and foster shared understanding -
supported by deliberate moments to connect
o Infuse inclusion into working culture and prioritise it
across your whole brand
o Design inclusive virtual workplaces and interactions
• Ensure alignment between your remote working strategy
and technology requirements
• Leverage technology according to the problem you are
solving
• Encourage staff to adopt a mentality that welcomes the
notion of perpetual change
• Introduce new technology via a participative approach that
engages everyone affected

This is your chance to turn disruption into opportunity
• Observe how your team’s behaviours are changing as a result of technology
• Assess the changing relationship your employees have with technology and
with each other
• Assess and implement appropriate ‘immediate steps’ initiatives for your
organisation
• Define your future state
• Identify gaps between current behaviours and your desired future state
• Implement (model) future initiatives

Questions? This presentation will be available for
download on:
slideshare.net/socialogilvy
And the recording up on
facebook.com/OgilvyConsulting

Thank you.