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remote team relationships

How leaders can level up a remote-working team’s dynamics

  • min read
    • The proliferation of remote working has brought many benefits, but how should a leader respond if dynamics in a remote-working team are not quite working? Rade Martinovic, Team Facilitator and software engineer at internet of things experts Icentic AG, explains how remote working altered some of his team dynamics: "It takes more effort to keep people engaged. After almost a year working this way, it's gotten better. I less often feel someone has dozed off or isn't paying attention." Considering IT, the distributed workforce needs enhanced support to manage the safety and security of business resources. As employees access IT tools from different networks and sometimes personal devices, and asynchronous communication becomes increasingly important, preserving business communication and ensuring the availability of critical data – like partner contracts, email correspondence, or service level agreements – becomes a top priority. One way to address these challenges and help a remote team flourish might come from an unexpected place: 20th-century Canadian psychiatrist Eric Berne, famed for his pioneering transactional analysis theory. Berne also took on how groups work together in his seminal book, The Structure and Dynamics of Organizations and Groups. Exploring the relationships between an organization's members, known as organization dynamics, many team leaders in tech have found his ideas effective in improving their team's communication, creativity and efficiency. Organizational boundaries: Seeds of team structure The main pillars of organization dynamics are boundaries, defined as limits or edges of ourselves which protect our integrity. These boundaries determine expectations, accountability and responsibility of all parts of the organization, ensuring common standards across the board. In turn, these standards determine workplace communication – crucial for efficient remote work. Berne says three types of boundaries underlie groups: Major internal, minor internal and major external boundaries. At team level, the major internal boundary is between the team leader and team members. The major external boundary separates one team from the company's other teams. Finally, the minor internal boundary separates each team member from their peers. Berne thinks managers can understand relationships that happen at each communication point by examining each boundary. Open or closed boundaries Each boundary is permeable and can be closed or open. A closed boundary is impossible to cross over once the group is formed. Berne gives an example of alumni of a university class. On the other hand, an open boundary is one anyone can cross at any time, for example, in a volunteering organization. What happens at each of these boundaries defines the team culture and shapes the way remote teams work. By understanding these boundaries, team leads can find reasons for poor internal communication, lack of engagement or weak results and solve these problems. What does this look like in real-life teams? Anja Radoičić Vučićević, Serbia-based software engineer and organizational coach, recommends assessing the group's dynamics rather than its structure, then incorporating individual team members' needs into an overall action plan. "We should always first consider whether boundaries are in the right place, whether agreements between all participants are clear and whether everyone in the team respects these agreements. "In any group, including remote teams, the group is not self-sustaining: It doesn't exist without interaction with the external environment. If we consider the pressure from the environment onto the system, the team can address it by opening or closing the boundary. "When the external boundary is open, the team can react quickly to market events or requirements from others, but they're also greatly influenced by external requirements. This can be a prelude to becoming reactive and endangering team identity. "For remote teams, the main source of challenges may lie in addressing the two internal boundaries — major internal and minor internal. For the major internal boundary, consider how team leaders direct employees and how consistent they are in their decisions. On the other hand, team members may pressure team leaders to manage projects one way or another – what we call 'agitation.' Radoičić discusses how leaders can respond to agitation. "When team leaders address agitation by opening the boundary too much, there's too much delegation without the leader participating. This happens, for example, when a leader is disinterested or insecure, not wanting to take responsibility. Team members begin to feel left to fend for themselves. If this boundary is too closed, there's too much control or micromanagement, waiting for approval for minor requests, which leads to a lack of trust and responsibility among employees." Fine-tuning boundaries between team members Radoičić says collaboration and innovation happen around the boundaries between team members. For a team to cooperate effectively on projects, especially when working remotely, these boundaries must have the right amount of flexibility and transparency. "And if this boundary is wide open, there may be too many interdependencies between team members. "If this boundary is closed, team members have independence in their work, but reduced cooperation. Relations are strained and formal, and people don't feel they belong to the same group. They might end up separately building the same solution to the same problem. With remote work, there's greater need to strike a balance and keep everyone in the loop while giving enough flexibility for team members to be productive and engaged." Putting healthy team dynamics into practice Martinović finds when managing engineering teams, team dynamics are crucial for improving productivity. "Teams come to be through interactions between people, communication, responding to events and all the little things. "For established teams like mine, when the pandemic erupted, not much changed. Our team had an advantage because we supported each other, professionally and personally. The team dynamics continued online without much change, and people continued with their work." As a manager, how can you translate theory into practice and establish boundaries in the right place? Radoičić suggests team leaders work with remote employees to identify what restricts boundaries, coming to a mutual understanding of what needs to improve. There's a set of questions to help decipher the team's degree of control and delegation. For control, Radoičić suggests identifying the degree of autonomy team members have in critical and non-critical tasks. Must team members ask for permission to change a process that's not business-critical? Do managers fear delegating tasks? Look at how fit-for-purpose task definitions are, if employees have enough resources to complete tasks independently and if leaders feel insecure or shy away from performing tasks. To understand dynamics between team members, Radoičić recommends finding out how team members see their roles and responsibilities and what they expect of their peers. "While analyzing this internal boundary, it's good to understand whether team members help each other out, share knowledge and ideas, or if they tend to keep information to themselves. If the boundary becomes too wide open, team members end up waiting on each other, which clogs internal workflows and reduces efficiency. So it's crucial to see where each of these boundaries are, then get ideas from the team to set the boundaries right, so they work for everyone." Structuring remote teams in sustainable ways Radoičić believes healthy teams have clear and firmly defined structures and boundaries everyone respects. "Setting boundaries stabilizes processes and makes activities effective. Some people tell me introducing processes withers creativity. But processes are not an end in themselves –  there should be only as many as are needed to make a framework within which people can be creative. "The other extreme, with no processes, leads to chaos where little actual work gets done. We have to establish a framework for work to happen, but leave freedom for ideas to bubble up and be tested." Martinović brings us back to transparency. "I feel fortunate we work in an environment where we're transparent about our work, and the management didn't try to add more means of controlling people, measuring their work or significantly changing our established process." Before boundaries can be set to last, remote teams need to unravel together where these boundaries lie for them. It's in the mutual answering of these questions and frank discussions that remote teams can find a set-up that works long-term.
fraud prevention social engineering

Financial fraud by social engineering: How humans get hacked and how business can stop it

  • min read
    • A security system is only as strong as its weakest link. And when it comes to cyberfraud, the weakest link is all around you: People. The easiest way for a fraudster to get what they want is to manipulate someone into giving it to them. For example, using a ruse to convince someone to give out their username and password. These 'hacking a human' techniques are known as social engineering. And this threat is on the rise: In 2018, 97 percent of thefts from personal bank accounts and 39 percent from organizations were breached using social engineering techniques. To protect businesses and their customers from financial fraud, business leaders should learn about social engineering and how to prevent it. Detecting social engineering with technology There's no guaranteed technology to detect a social engineering attack. You can use technology to detect behavior anomalies or prevent incubation when malware is installed, but a person is not a robot. Human behavior crosses a wide spectrum. Attackers collect information about their target. Many people publish enough about themselves on social networks to facilitate fraud, like a photo of a passport, driver's license or air tickets. When using trading websites like eBay, buyers sometimes receive sellers' phone numbers or email addresses. A phone number can reveal at which banks someone holds accounts. Once they have information about their target, fraudsters use every available technology to make themselves more convincing. Social engineering and new technologies Fraudulent fraud warnings One recent, common fraud scheme has seen customers believing they're talking to an employee of their bank who is calling to help cut their bank fees or, ironically, warn of fraud on their account. The criminal uses automated Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology, asking customers to spell their username and password, then prompts the customer to install an app on their phone. The app lets the criminal remotely access their device. With remote access, the fraudster can transfer money, steal personal data to sell on and apply for loans. As detailed in our 2019 Fraud Prevention Report, Kaspersky Fraud Prevention identified more than 3,000 sessions a month using such remote tools on the network of a major bank. We used behavior analysis and behavioral biometrics to detect these suspicious activities, quickly warning banks, e-commerce and similar service platforms. Using faith in robot voices An insight scammers rely upon is the human tendency to think prerecorded messages and robot voices are more trustworthy. Using IVR, they try to get the customer's second authentication factor data for two-factor authentication. Prerecorded voice messages ask the victim to enter a code received in a text message or push notification. Because the second factor is time sensitive, as soon as the client keys in their code, the scammer immediately transfers funds to their own account. Unfamiliar numbers are getting familiar Banking customers are now used to receiving bank-related calls from third parties contracted by their bank. Callers may introduce themselves as financial agency employees, merchant acquiring or soft collection. Fraudsters know people are suspicious of unfamiliar numbers, but they can use technology to replace part of their phone number with digits from a bank's phone number or display vanity numbers. Fraud against businesses: Two common scenarios Although these kinds of fraud attempts are common, they often follow predictable patterns. These two scenarios are commonly used to target business employees using social engineering. Scenario 1: The rescuer Rescuers are criminals that act as security experts and act out a "rescue." Posing as security officers, they might call bank customers to notify them of suspicious debits or payments and offer help. First, they ask the client to verify their identity by a code sent in a text message or push notification. The pretext may be validating the client, blocking a suspicious transaction or transferring funds to a secure account. If the target shows lack of trust, the fraudster may try using IVR or remote device connection to gain a second authentication factor. Scenario 2: The investor The investor scenario involves fraudsters posing as employees of an investment company or investment consultants from a bank. They call clients, offering the chance to invest in cryptocurrency or corporate equity without having to go to a branch office. As a prerequisite for providing the service, the investor asks the target for the code received in a text message or push notification, using similar tools to those of the 'rescuer' scenario. Fraudsters use the investor scenario on victims whose data was acquired by showing interest in boosting their savings. How businesses can prevent social engineering cyberfraud Social engineering is common, and humans are fallible. But organizations can make it harder for cyberfraudsters to exploit their employees. Use awareness training to raise your employees' awareness of what social engineering is. It benefits them at work, but also in their personal and family lives. Give examples and aim to make it fun and interesting, rather than scary. When your business or your contracted security experts conduct penetration tests, make sure social engineering is part of the testing. Put systems in place to prevent internal fraud. Analyze employee behavior, identifying anyone trying to harm the business as well as those being targeted with social engineering. You should also use fraud-detection solutions within your digital service channels. Your employees will always be vulnerable to cyberfraud through social engineering. Cyberfraudsters will keep using the latest technology to manipulate people, and attacks will become more sophisticated. Understanding how social engineering works and staying up-to-date on what cyberfraudsters are doing is a strong way to defend your business.
homeworking mental health

Supporting your home-working team’s mental health: Advice from psychologists

  • min read
    • That's how Time magazine describes working life in 2020, after measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus. How will this unexpected shift from office life, and the pandemic's upheaval and uncertainty, impact employees? I asked two world-leading experts in workplace mental health what managers can do now to build their team wellbeing. Set the standard for mental health at work We know we need physical health and safety to protect everyone. The need to protect mental health at work is less well understood. Leading expert and media commentator, Dr. Joti Samra, R.Psych., wants to change that. She helped establish the National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace, a world-first of its kind. It's now informing the development of an international ISO standard. She's now founder and CEO of MyWorkplaceHealth, a consultancy helping businesses make their workplace more psychologically healthy. The National Standard identifies 13 factors that contribute to a psychologically safe work environment, including civility, respect and clear leadership. Samra believes we now need to increase efforts to maintain these standards. She says, "Our research tells us when we enhance these, it's win-win. Customer ratings, staff retention and the bottom line all improve." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx3e073AEx8&amp=&t=24s Dr. Joti Samra's free webinar, Enhancing Psychological Health, Wellness and Resilience in the Era of COVID-19 "Every business in the world is changing because of COVID-19. We must evaluate what we're doing now – what's going well, and be honest about the pain points. We need to plan for resilience." Good mental health starts with good people management People managers are the nexus of success, in Samra's view. "Every business leader in the world is in a tricky position right now. We carry great weight because of our responsibility for others. Your direct manager is important in balancing your baseline stress. We must give leaders the skills to self-regulate, understand their stress triggers and stay calm. "Unpredictable events and things out of our control distress many people. Coronavirus is 'check' on all counts. To manage anxiety, you need to build more certainty. I'm writing one, three, six, 12 and 18-month plans and financials to give more predictability. It's keeping me sane as a CEO and it resonates with my corporate clients. "I've run my start-up for a year. We were just getting into a flow. Now we've had to change for new priorities, plus business as usual. I'm re-thinking what's critical and what can take a backseat. I break it into details week to week, or sometimes day to day. This means we can move quickly as things change." Value trust and openness Trust is at the center of the shift to remote work. Kristina Barger is an expert in remote team management and psychological wellbeing. She's worked with start-ups in London, New York and South Korea. She warns trust is fragile. It can easily break when teams are spread out and in times of crisis. "If you disagree with a co-worker in your office, you can blow over a problem by taking coffee together. But when you don't see people, it's easier to misconstrue something. If problems aren't addressed, they compound." Give more praise and rewards "Uncertainty makes deadlines harder for people to hit," says Barger. "Setting up routine and reward is important. People need a positive boost. Cut both your and your team's tasks into smaller chunks, check it off and reward yourself. It could be just, saying thank you to a co-worker, or a break to call a friend." Samra believes changing times may mean managers need to be change tack. "Let's be more forgiving. Acknowledge no one will be at their best right now and create a culture of trust. Let people work out their schedule around their new life. This helps build loyalty and work-life balance." Communicate more often and more deeply Samra believes people managers need to know how to communicate effectively. "Have 1-2-1s with direct reports more often to understand their stress points. It may be money, children or caring for an elderly relative. Adapt expectations to each person's needs. I'm asking my managers to have more contact to find out who's OK and who's struggling, so we can give them early support." Barger also recommends talking more. "We can't separate what's happening in the outside world with what's going on in our teams. Replace the 'water cooler' moment by making time to connect. Start meetings with light chit-chat or a check-in." Ry Morgan, Founder of workplace mental health platform Unmind, likens mental health to dental hygiene. We should all do something about it each day. In the same way you brush your teeth regularly, check in with yourself and then your team – at work and home. Have more virtual face time Samra also recommends more virtual face time. "We're having more video meetings. It takes more time than a call, but the human connection helps normalize this surreal time. Social connection helps us not only survive but thrive in the face of adversity." Barger says it's good for leaders to show vulnerability. It should be OK to express emotion at work. "It's more authentic if you open up, like saying, 'It's tough for me too. My kids are driving me crazy!'" Share freely, and personalize it Information overload is affecting everyone, particularly people managers. Samra asks us to personalize communication. "Connect individually and ask what they need. It shouldn't be 'one size fits all.'" Digital sharing tools can help. Barger and her peers launched the Remote Leadership Support Group, a Slack community for managers to get credible advice and support from vetted experts. Samra has also used Slack for her start-up's internal comms. "It's optional. People can use it if they need it." She advises, "Share information proactively with your teams. If you offer employee benefits like counseling or health at work schemes, make sure everyone knows how to access them. There are also free resources that can help." The blog for MyWorkplaceHealth is an impressive trove of articles on meeting the challenges of the pandemic and mental health at work issues. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZuB-kUJD_A&feature=emb_title Tips on managing coronavirus anxiety at work, one of many free resources from MyWorkplaceHealth Watch for the warning signs of deteriorating mental health Mental health can decline slowly over time. "You don't usually notice it's happening to you until you're far into it. We need to see subtle shifts –missed deadlines, late to calls, or rambling or confusing emails," says Barger. According to the World Health Organization, depression and anxiety at work cost the global economy 1 trillion US dollars in lost productivity. For working adults in the UK, about 15 percent have current mental health issues. During the pandemic, these numbers could grow. Barger explains, "Things that are good for us – like money, predictability and socializing – have been taken away or reduced." How to start that difficult conversation about mental health Barger suggests a tiered approach. "Lay the groundwork by normalizing the change we're all going through in group emails and calls. Explain the resources available and that you're there for them. Next, is individual check-ins. "Managers need to set the tone by being compassionate and non-judgmental. When you say 'come to me with a problem,' it might not happen straight away. This all takes work. There can be denial. Explain to the team that to connect, you'll schedule a 'virtual coffee,' so people don't feel singled out." She advises paying attention to cultural differences and personality preferences. "Reach out to those who are more emotionally reserved, but without pressure. You could ask peers to check in with each other if they have a good relationship." Reduce time-consuming negative news While we adjust to new ways of working, there's potential for burnout from long hours. With nothing to break up the day, things can become overwhelming, on top of the news. Barger recommends, "If you notice the news getting you down, monitor your access. Research in Israel showed consuming news more than twice a day had negative mental health consequences." How to create structure in changing times In the unexpected shift to the home office, many of us have new co-workers in partners, housemates, pets and children. Samra believes strengths and weaknesses in personal relationships will be exaggerated. "It's a dangerous time for those in controlling or abusive relationships, but even a 'so-so' relationship can become strained. We can give our employees structure, so they have an escape from their personal lives. Let's encourage people to get up, get showered, get dressed – video helps with this – then shut the door." If you have concerns about a colleague's safety in a relationship, don't ignore them. Find out what local violence-prevention agencies advise. The UK's Department for Health has guidance for managers on recognizing the signs of domestic abuse, and what to do about it. Barger says the route to productivity is different for each person. Regular, scheduled breaks are essential to decompress and refocus. "Someone in a crowded house-share could work for an hour then have something relaxing scheduled, like a call or coffee with a housemate. If it's not scheduled, it won't happen. Structure needs discipline. If you dive into a Netflix binge during a work day, it won't feel rewarding later." She believes relaxation is also important to recharge. "Meditation is often ideal, but if you're feeling extremely anxious, it may not be so effective. A few minutes of exercise can help. Try it every day for a week and see how it makes you feel." How can remote working make business better? Despite the challenges today, Barger believes there are business wins. "People will need to improve their communication skills. It could help improve planning and structure. The commute and office environment had given us structure, but now we need to make it for ourselves." Samra notes that physical separation can also unite people on common ground. "As a planet, we've never had a more shared experience. It's brought my team together by sharing more about our lives." "We live in unprecedented times" has become an overnight cliché in the pandemic world. But we need to adapt how we work to meet the challenges ahead. And that starts with looking after ourselves and our people.
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