Contributed by Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, CEO of the boutique future-proofing consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts, which helps forward-looking leaders avoid dangerous threats and missed opportunities. A best-selling author, his newest book is Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams. We asked Dr. Tsipursky how leaders can better manage their teams by revising their performance review process. Here’s what he shared:

The pandemic forced leaders to reconcile with the need for effective hybrid and remote team management strategies, including in performance evaluations. Research shows the benefits of replacing large-scale quarterly or annual performance reviews with more frequent, brief reviews focused on task performance, effective feedback and coaching. To survive and thrive, leaders need to benchmark to best practices on performance evaluation for hybrid and remote team management in our new normal.

Hybrid is our future

During the pandemic, two-thirds of all US workers worked remotely some of the time, and over a half full-time. Surveys show that between two-thirds and three-quarters of employers intend to permanently switch to a mainly hybrid schedule of one to three days in the office combined with a minority of fully remote employees.

The question is: If a large majority of employees work most of their hours at home, how will their performance be measured?

Performance evaluation in the new normal

Too many managers and companies still rely on “time in the office” as a primary measure of evaluating performance. This has led to employees focusing more on “time logged” rather than their actual contribution to the company.

As survey responses show, many employees and top leaders feel concerned about the possibility of hybrid and remote work undermining their career growth. To allay these concerns, employee performance evaluation systems need to stop relying on time worked.

The companies I helped guide through this transition shifted to regular, weekly or biweekly performance evaluations of team members by team leaders. Some added an occasional 360-degree evaluation component by one’s teammates and other stakeholders once every month or couple of months.