The spread of increasingly advanced technological tools contributes to the increasing importance of Human to Human relationships within organizations.
It may seem counterintuitive, but in this age of hyperconnectedness, issues arise that can only be solved through the in-person relationship.
Since the pandemic, most companies have asked employees to return to the office, and more or less “hybrid” work formulas have been defined.
In particular, looking at the younger generation shows that predominantly remote work is disappointing young employees and depriving workers of the community experience of a shared workplace.
According to experts, the situation is complex regarding a dichotomous distinction between the success and failure of remote forms of work. Here’s why.
The difficulties that technology alone cannot get us through
1. Communication through a medium, a tool, is not 100 per cent effective
Only a tiny part of communication is verbal; nonverbal communication is equally essential for adequately transmitting and decoding messages. Without the ability to capture nuance (tone of voice, but even more so facial expression with video cameras often off, and no doubt body language as well), the message risks arriving distorted and fragmented.
In addition, the lack of direct interaction in the “before and after” moments of meetings causes a lack of empathy, and the sense of sharing created in a meeting conducted in person is lost.
2. Attracting young talent and improving employee retention is increasingly difficult
We live in a time when attracting talent and keeping them in the company is a real challenge. The absence of Human to Human relationships makes it difficult to create interpersonal relationships and build an actual social fabric within the organization.
This undoubtedly makes onboarding, or the phase in which a person becomes part of the new company community, more difficult. It is a crucial phase in which socialization and real integration into the company environment cannot be missed. This stage lays the foundation for the so-called “sense of belonging,” that is, the person’s desire to join and be included in the new company community.
Personal relationships build bridges within the person-organization relationship and form elements of resistance.
In addition, being in person with one’s reference persons (mentor or manager first and foremost) is the most effective way to learn, taking advantage of informal learning and imitation, elements that are obviously lacking in a purely distant relationship.
3. Motivation and engagement are difficult to cultivate through long-distance relationships
Reduced collaboration and shared experience can lead to limitations in creativity and innovation.
Coaching and employee development activities become sterile at a distance, while in-person training still provides opportunities for more engaging experiences.
Not surprisingly, even in multinational corporations, the trend is to recall their employees in presence, striking a balance between distance and in-presence relationships.
4. Social relationships are critical for psychological well-being
Two difficult pandemic years with the absence of emotional support have led to increased anxiety, depression, and a general decline in psychological well-being, especially in younger people. This is a gap only partially filled by digital interactions.
Building authentic relationships, although not always easy, is good for the individual and positively impacts the organization. Moreover, well-being is an element of welfare that companies are increasingly interested in, highly valued by the younger generation.
At the organizational level, team performance suffers if the group is not cohesive and lacks a common psychological subject. In a team, the result can be greater than the sum of the parts, but it takes deep relationships to achieve this result.
Reconciling physical and digital relationships
In a hybrid work environment, we need to promote social events, incentivize mentorship programs, and create new open work environments that foster interaction between people.
In this process of redefining work modes and spaces, HR Analytics play a crucial role in understanding whether there are situations of disengagement and measuring the elements of improvement and positivity against specific actions taken by the company.
At HR Intelligence, we support companies using HR Analitycs to identify disengagement through indirect and direct measures.
Here are a few examples of indirect statistical measures for various components of the corporate population:
- absenteeism statistics
- turnover statistics
- retention statistics (successful, unsuccessful, repeat, etc.)
- the statistics of participation in company initiatives
- the sentiment analysis of comments concerning corporate initiatives
- the analysis of exit interviews.
Some examples of direct measures:
- the analysis of data from specific engagement surveys
- the use of special Apps such as Life Radar, Lattice and Thrive Sparrow to collect specific data on well-being and engagement in the company.
It should be remembered that there is no universal recipe for proper measurement: the HR Analytics to consider can vary significantly from company to company, depending on the company’s goals and needs.
To learn more about how to identify criteria and leverage HR Analytics effectively, contact us.
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