Virtually Invisible
Bring yourself back to 2019 when you were probably working in a jam-packed office with your team. Now imagine that over a two week period, you observe one of your team members doing the following:
Continually coming into the office early to prepare for a big presentation to the board
Patiently sitting with a junior team member to get them up to speed on a new project
Huddling with their team to rally a response to an urgent client request
As their manager, how would witnessing these actions make you feel about them? What would it signal about their level of commitment, collaboration and care for their team? How might it impact your view of their performance?
Over the past year, I have coached a number of leaders that are struggling to be noticed by THEIR manager. As work shifted to hybrid or virtual, they feel less "seen" by their managers and those around them. I hear things like, "My manager doesn't have as much time for me as they used to," "Our interactions are very transactional," or "I feel like I'm working harder than ever, but I'm not sure if they notice."
These individuals are unsure of what to do about this feeling. While some are more actively reporting progress to their manager, many are hesitant to do so for fear of looking like a self-promoter. To make things more complicated, some team members need more recognition than others in order to feel valued and motivated. A feeling of not being noticed can lead to an overall feeling that their manager or company isn't invested in their career. It can also make performance reviews more challenging because they will feel that any judgment isn't based on enough primary information. To make matters worse, this is likely to be a bigger issue with your top performers (your lower performers might be quite happy that you aren't noticing them).
While I encourage my clients to raise this concern to their manager, increasing visibility is a challenge that needs to be addressed by leaders as well as their team members. Otherwise, leaders leave it to chance that their best will ask for recognition, feedback and coaching. Leaders must adapt their recognition habits for a virtual world, but what can be done? While there isn't a single solution, here are a few simple ideas:
Encourage self-reporting in 1:1 meetings: When you meet with your team members, try asking one of these questions: "In the past week, have you put extra effort into something that I may not have noticed?" "Has there been a time when you went above and beyond in your work?" Is there any accomplishment in the past week that you are particularly proud of?"
If you SEE something, SAY something: When you do notice something that your team member has done, put greater emphasis on mentioning it to them. In a virtual world, you get fewer opportunities to do so.
Consider adopting enterprise recognition solutions: There are an increasing number of cloud-based recognition solutions on the market. These can be used to empower your team to recognize each other and will likely give you more visibility into not only WHAT your team is accomplishing, but HOW they are doing it.
I'd love to know what has worked for you. If you have adopted successful habits for recognizing your team in a virtual environment, let me know at geoff@geoffbalzanocoaching.com.