How do you appraise employees you don't see?

"Seeing is believing" is a popular idiomatic expression that seeks to emphasise the point that it takes physical presence for people to believe what they are told.

And that is largely true: if something really exists, won't it be seen and felt?

This notion, although contestable permeates every facet of life, from spirituality through career to the attainment of life goals.

When it comes to work, people are also more inclined to believing what they see.

It explains why those who report to the office early and leave late are mostly regarded as the hard workers.

But, how true is that?

Results over efforts

While the era of 'results over efforts' weakens the veracity of this 'report early and close late' exemplication of hard work and productivity, a new trend is making it even more slippery.

Thanks to technology and triple thanks to the raging novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), many employees the world over are locked down in their homes yet are able to work and deliver to the best of their abilities, if not more.

Although a norm in the developed world prior to the onset of the virus earlier this year, working virtually is now gaining currency in Ghana.

And now, everything, from the benefits to productivity, continuity of work, reduced pressure on workers and office facilities and improvements in health, shows that work from home will be one of the positive disruptions from a historic distraction -- Covid-19.

Appraising virtual workers

But, with it comes some challenges; key among them being how bosses and human resource departments in particular will adjust from 'seeing employees work' to deliver results to 'feeling the results of employees you do not see.'

And when it comes to end-of-year assessments, which are a key activity in the calendar of employers and employees alike, how do you assess the employees you were not seeing?

To throw more light on the topic, I had a discussion on how to assess 'work from home employees' with the Head of Human Resource (HR) at the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), Mr Ernest Appiah, and the Head of HR at First National Bank (FNB) Ghana, Mrs Ernestina Danquah.

The MiDA example

Mr Appiah said MIDA, which implements a range of public and donor-funded projects nationwide, currently had about 98 per cent of its staff working remotely or virtually at one point in time or another.

He said while the emergence of the virtual ecosystem presented some opportunities to both employers and opportunities, it also came with ingrained challenges that HR personnel and supervisors would have to navigate.

One of them, he said was how to monitor the employees.

"It is generally difficult to monitor employees remotely," he said in an interview conducted virtually on August 15.

The tactics

Sharing his experiences, Mr Appiah said it was advisable that supervisors designated specifically assigned tasks to their staff after which they must "demand certain deliverables by specific time periods."

"That way, you can be sure that people are working, " he said.

"Another way of keeping taps on employees is the response time to any request you send to them."

"For example, if you send them an email or call them, how long does it take to get a response from them," he said, adding those techniques had so far proven useful.

The FNB route

For Mrs Danquah of the FNB Ghana, telecommuting, as working virtually is known, "came along with its own discovery."

She said in an email response to questions that the bank had been making good use of a "new employee of the year -- Microsoft Teams."

"We have used Teams as a unified communication platform," she said.

Microsoft Teams is a cloud-based platform that allows many people to exchange information through chats and videos, among others, virtually.

It creates a virtual office for people from different locations to converge and interact.

Mrs Danquah said this feature of the product  allowed "us to seamlessly interact with each other remotely."

To further track progress, she said the bank had instituted a weekly virtual catch up session on Microsoft Teams, making it possible for staff and management to engage better.

"All tasks are assessed for the various reporting lines and all meetings to track performance are held on Microsoft Teams," she added.

Going forward

It is obvious that telecommuting is here to stay and if properly harnessed, it can be the game-changer for an economy that almost always sleeps between 6pm and 7am.

Like the MiDA HR head said, with telecommuting, working hours will no longer be 8 a.m to 5 p.m.

People can now start work as early as 5 a.m and knock off as late as when they are exhausted or finished with their tasks.

While this long in coming, Covid-19 has fast tracked it and fortunately, employers and employees are embracing this work from home.

What we now need to do is to fine-tune the rough edges that it brings.

One of them is the development of a robust monitoring system that HR departments and supervisors can use to track the work of employees working virtually.

To that end, HR staff in various organisations will have to start sharing knowledge on what works and what does not work.

For companies deciding what to use though, it is important to note that just like the physical monitoring of employees' performance which was sector- and company-specific, the success rate of a system to monitor the output of virtual employees will be dependent on the type of firm and the business it is into.

What's your experience with work during Covid-19? Please share with me on [email protected]