1. Introduction

The world over, February is traditionally associated with the month of relationships. Instead of focusing on love relationships this blog will focus on how relationships in the workplace have been impacted by working virtually as well as what is required in order to improve work relationships. Particular focus will be given to how inclusivity and working remotely affects the latter.

2. State of affairs

Working remotely as a result of Covid-19 and subsequent lockdown has yielded visible benefits for many companies. The gains include saving commute time, therefore increased time in work focus. Other benefits include employees saving on travel costs, therefore enjoying relatively improved disposable income. In turn, this is said to have improved work engagement. However, the benefits of working remotely, also brought about some challenges. One of the more glaring challenges is innovation and knowledge sharing among team members. Innovation and knowledge sharing rely on team cohesion and team members not feeling isolated but included in the life of the team. It is often difficult to maintain and enhance team cohesion when team members only connect virtually. Such cohesion is further compromised by the fact that team members might be subjected to loadshedding for extended periods of time, therefore not partake in team brainstorming and development of ideas. These are the burdens of remote work.

According to neuroscience principles, team inclusion and cohesion are fundamental to productivity. In other words, the extent to which team members experience inclusion and cohesion in the life of the team, they tend to experience psychological safety. Psychological safety refers to employees, at individual and team levels, feeling comfortable to share their views and taking risks to be innovative, without the fear of negative consequences. The average leader will concede that it is more difficult to ensure psychological safety when the team is not in the same physical space than when they are in the same space at the office. This is because psychological safety is more than just communicating and reassuring. It is also about the nuances inherent in communication. It is about the spontaneous engagement, including reacting to odd and humorous activities at the office. Such spontaneity is often limited during virtual engagements. In fact, the possibility of misunderstanding increases in a virtual corporate setting as compared to a face-to-face setting. As a result, this can also impact psychological safety. Therefore, the challenge for leaders to create an inclusive and cohesive work atmosphere becomes even more heightened when employees are not regularly in the same physical corporate environment. As a result, team members are not always certain of how included they are in the trajectory of the team or the company. Therefore, psychological safety for individuals and teams in the virtual workplace seems to have been compromised.

3. Way forward

Given the above scenario, it is therefore imperative that leaders become intentional about improving their emotional intelligence profile in order to drive employee inclusivity. Emotional intelligence is one of the most powerful tools to help leaders in creating and maintaining workplace inclusivity consistently. This means that leaders must improve their balance between task-focus and interpersonal-focus in order to effectively facilitate psychological safety for employees. Given that leaders themselves are adjusting to the hybrid way of working, it is that much more important that they improve their self-awareness sufficiently to ensure that their own anxieties do not create unintended consequences in their efforts to create team inclusion and cohesion.

Emotional intelligence can be defined as a set of emotional and social skills that influence the way one recognizes and manages emotions, perceives and expresses oneself, develops and maintains social relationships, copes with challenges as well as the ability to use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way in social interactions. While there are several ways of understanding dimensions of emotional intelligence, Kisima subscribes to the EQi2.0 model which suggests that there are five domains of emotional intelligence. These are Self Perception (relationships with yourself); Self Expression (how you share your truth); Interpersonal (nature and quality of your relationships); Decision Making (how you arrive at conclusions); and Stress Management (how you respond to challenges). While it is important for leaders to master their EQ, it is also important that employees consider how they impact each other as colleagues. Employees are not exempted from co-creating an inclusive work environment with their leaders. How they treat each other will benefit the whole team and the company.

Written by Our Founding Director Phyllis Ndlovu