Vivienne Ming shared her insights on remote work during the Future of Work conference.
A self-professed mad scientist, Vivienne Ming shared insights from her research as well as the challenges for managers and their teams laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic during her Dec. 14 keynote at Pensions & Investments’ Future of Work conference.
The inaugural conference was held as part of the 10th anniversary program of P&I’s Best Places to Work in Money Management.
“For me, the lockdown was actually this wonderful experiment,” Ms. Ming said, recounting a request by two large technology firms that sought her counsel in how to ensure innovation and inclusion during a unique period in time when all employees were working remotely.
“Everyone’s lives went through cameras and monitored networks. ... So I got to see everything that was going on in these organizations.”
Ms. Ming, a Berkeley, Calif.-based neuroscientist, artificial intelligence expert and co-founder and executive chair at Socos Labs, a science incubator, said productivity initially plummeted over the first month of the pandemic as employees confronted a new normal. But then, productivity increased and soared above pre-pandemic levels, a trend that she said many companies with knowledge-based workforces also experienced.
That elevated productivity remained in place for about a month and a half, she said. However, thereafter, she noted, a divergence occurred — productivity among the largest percentage of workers (those employees who need the structure of the office whom she calls balancers) experienced a big decline; while it soared among the second group (those who thrive on autonomy whom she calls synergists).
For balancers, “the more they try (to) find structure that isn’t there, the more they start giving up.”
Synergists, she said, can usually be identified by their “high conscientiousness” and “high emotional stability.’’
Synergists, she added, already had their own internal structure, producing a response much like: “Send me home and let me do my own thing.’” Synergists, Ms. Ming asserted, have been “super productive” for the past two years.
The challenge for managers is recognizing that “these two groups of people need totally different treatment,” she said.
Balancers need the structure provided by an office, with boundaries modeled by their managers — for example, being told it’s OK not to respond to emails that come in over the lunch hour, while synergists’ need for autonomy should be respected, she said.
It will be challenging, she noted, for companies to foster a sense of community and culture with such different groups of employees as the pandemic continues and firms adopt a hybrid work schedule. Balancers, she said, should be honest about what they need from managers — namely that they require more structure in order to flourish and succeed.
In contrast, synergists should declare that they need more autonomy to work well. And if they’re not immediately responding to a Slack message, managers should trust their judgment that they’re working on a more-important task.
As an aside, Ms. Ming said her research revealed that during the pandemic, the likelihood of an employee gaining a promotion was directly related to how much face time that worker had with his or her manager over Zoom or other videoconferencing platforms.
For people doing remote work, “the more minutes you get in front of your manager, the more likely you are to get a promotion,” she said. It doesn’t even matter if this worker is doing a good job or not, she added, noting that this pattern also plays out when work happens in the office as well.
Employees with higher virtual communication skills also fare better, she said.
Employees with a reliable internet connection, good lighting for their workspace and the knowledge that a mic placed too close will amplify their breathing, are perceived as more competent.
As such, Ms. Ming suggests that companies conduct media training sessions so that employees can put their best face forward during Zoom conference calls.
“Even if intellectually you fully understand it’s a technology problem, your company should be investing in these communication technologies and trainings,’’ she said. “Again, even if you are fully aware of everything I am talking about and think, ‘I am a rational person — I mean I manage a billion dollars — I don’t make irrational decisions.’”
“You do, ‘cause you are human. And this is one of them that you will be making.”
