Kamaria Rutland With OTM Coaching Group

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for Coach the Coach Radio brought to you by the Business RadioX ambassador program, a no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com to learn more. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a fun one. Today we have with us Kamaria Rutland with OTM Coaching Group. Welcome.

Kamaria Rutland: [00:00:44] Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:47] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about all of them. How are you serving, folks?

Kamaria Rutland: [00:00:52] Yeah, Autumn Coaching Group is all about developing really meaningful human connections in the workplace. Right. When when people go home, at the end of the day, the things that are their biggest pain points are just how they’re maybe disconnected from their team or disconnected with the manager. And so after almost two decades in the hospitality and tourism business, I love just watching human behavior. And this is why I’m really focused my efforts on serving those human connections in the workplace. How can we improve them to drive results?

Lee Kantor: [00:01:24] Well, they say that people don’t quit jobs, they quit bosses. Does this kind of fall under that umbrella? Is that what you’re trying to help, help prevent?

Kamaria Rutland: [00:01:34] Absolutely. You know, employee retention is really about that one on one connection with their direct report. Right. And so if we can bridge gaps and if we can help through miscommunications or work through those team dynamics, it really is going to help the organization as a whole. But forging better connections with the employee and manager is really a dynamic experience. And I think that when we have those breakthroughs, it’s very rewarding work.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:02] Now, in today’s world, especially as we come out of this pandemic, a lot of folks went remote, maybe for the first time ever that had its own challenges. And now as the pandemic was waning a little bit, now people are either going back to the office or creating some hybrid or some people are just staying remote. Is this something that folks should be really intentional about and not rush into anything? Because I would imagine there are landmines everywhere when it comes to making a decision, no matter which one of those decisions you choose.

Kamaria Rutland: [00:02:37] Absolutely. You know, there’s definitely been a shift in the atmosphere. More and more CEOs are kind of buying into a hybrid work model. We’ve seen the results. After a year of pandemic forced remote work, CEOs are definitely more open to developing a work model that allows a little bit more flexibility. Employees overwhelmingly are telling us through study after study that they prefer the flexible work options. Right, because there’s no one size fits all to this. Some people are going to want to go back to the office. Maybe that’s a better work environment. Some people are going to work, want to work full time, remote, and some people might want a combination of the two. But when we say those landmines, I love that word is because it’s a very fragile relationship, because there’s this myth. There’s this debate right now. Is one side going to win out more than the other, the work from home employee or the office employee? And I think for managers, they need to be especially careful to manage both the individual needs and the group needs. Right. One best practices to really develop some norms of how your team is going to communicate.

Kamaria Rutland: [00:03:49] What are the best times for us to have meetings? What are the platforms that we’re going to use? How do we make sure there’s still some cohesion among the team? And those things are going to have to be a learned skill for managers. If they’ve never had that opportunity to manage a hybrid work team, it’s going to be a new muscle, a new skill that managers are going to have to develop with time. And I think that it’s possible. But managers are going to have to jump on the learning curve a little bit faster than normal because employees are really demanding it. And then in this very competitive labor market right now, you know, you’re going to miss out on top talent and you want to retain your talent to ensure that your organization is moving forward. And so managers are going to have to very quickly shift their mindset around remote work. And how do we value the contributions of both in office employees and those employees that prefer to work from home?

Lee Kantor: [00:04:42] Right. And I think that some of the unintended consequences of having a hybrid is that if somebody chooses to go in the office and it’s just the proximity, the accidental kind of collisions that you have with a coworker and you’re like, oh, and in two seconds you can communicate that challenge or solve a problem. And if at the end of the day, those kind of people in the office are getting promoted faster or getting more face time or access to the higher level folks, it might create this feeling of, well, you’re letting me work from home, but I’m not getting any of the kind of political capital gains that I might be getting if I was face to face with folks.

Kamaria Rutland: [00:05:27] Absolutely. And I always think of let’s try to find what is the equivalent in a work from home on. Right. How often do in office employees go over to someone’s office, knock on the door really quickly, say, hey, do you have a second? I just want to ID with you real quick. I want to think through this. I want to talk through this. That very same experience can happen in a remote environment, right. Quickly putting someone on instant message, say, hey, do you have a chat or Helus schedules? Ten minutes. I just want to talk through this with you. It just has to be a very intentional effort because they’re not in the same physical location. Right. Global companies have been doing this for years. Technology companies have been doing this for years. It’s not new, but it is something that management definitely has to be very intentional about. And middle management is really where the rubber hits the road. Right. And this is what’s going to make or break an entire organization’s ability to very successfully have a hybrid work model.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:23] Now, are you are you finding that folks are reaching out to you because they’re contemplating this, or have they pulled the trigger and now they’re dealing with some ramifications they weren’t expecting?

Kamaria Rutland: [00:06:34] They’re already dealing with it. I think that the pandemic really forced a lot of organizations to suddenly go remote and managers did not know how to manage people when they were not seem right. They were not physically in the same location and they did not know how to manage. Were they managing just for time or were they just watching and observing them, or are they really looking at performance, manage it from the actual outputs of their their team members? Right. And so I think this is really forced people to quickly shift. Some people have done it better than others. And for some organizations to reach that, they just need a little bit of help. My organization offers a training class called the Rocky Road of Management. In the virtual world. The Rocky Road is definitely symbolic. Fun fact here. A rocky road ice cream was actually invented in my hometown of Oakland, California, back in the Great Depression, back in nineteen twenty nine to give people something to smile about during the Great Depression. Right. And when you think about this, this is obviously a metaphor for this. We’ve got to help managers get to that sunny side over the horizon, over the big hump of transforming their team to work in a remote way. Right. And so we’ve got to help them figure out this rocky road. There’s going to be bumps along the road. Right. But we’ve got to help them get to a place where their team feels like they can contribute no matter where they decide to work, that their team feel supported. Right. And I’ve definitely got tips and tricks because I’ve worked with various work groups of how to do it successfully when you need to manage people both in office and remote because it can be done, it’s not impossible.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:11] Well, why don’t we share some of that wisdom with our listeners? Can you share some tips? Absolutely.

Kamaria Rutland: [00:08:17] Yeah. You know, for those workers who prefer prefer to have a remote work environment, whether it’s one or two days in the office, whether it’s full time, remote, they really need some things. I’ve got a top five camera is top five list of things they really need from their organization to feel supported. Right. Number one, remote workers want to be seen. Right. Exposure and visibility is very important to people’s career progression. Right. And that feeling of inclusion in the team and during team events and a best practice is to ensure that both in office workers and remote workers turn on their Web cameras during team meetings. Right that way, everyone gets a equal virtual seat at the table. I’m going to say that again, a virtual seat at the table so that they can be seen and they feel a part of the group. No two remote workers want to be heard, right. Everyone wants to be able to contribute equally and they want to feel like they have an equal opportunity to contribute during meetings. So if a manager is hosting a meeting and the audio is not really that great, right. Maybe there’s only one speaker phone in a very large room. The remote worker can feel like a woman. I can’t hear what’s going on. I might be missing out on some information, but to if I speak up, will I be heard? Will someone call on me to interject? Right. So a best practice here is maybe assign one person and rotate it, which is on one team member to manage the chat box.

Kamaria Rutland: [00:09:43] So that way, if you have a remote worker, they can chime in the chat box and still make sure that their voice is being heard. Tip number three, remote workers want their managers to create really systematic and equitable methods to assign projects. You alluded to that before, the fear of missing out, fear of missing out on work assignments that may be really critical to their career. That’s right. They want to know that they’re not going to miss out on being tapped with a task or given a really awesome project because they’re working remotely from home. Right. So if there is a very systemic way that their managers can say this is how we’re going to assign projects, is going to relieve that that tension and the anxiety around not getting a fair shake at those work projects. All right. Tip number four, remote workers want to trust that their managers are going to resist the urge for that, consisting that consensus building among in office workers only. Right. Just like you said that quick. Hey, can we talk about this or those brief interactions around the water cooler or. I passed in the hallway and we touched on this topic, you know, leaving your remote workers out of those conversations. I can make them feel very isolated. They can make them feel like not a part of the team, and they might have something brilliant to contribute to the topic. So managers have to be very intentional to make sure they’re including the entire team when they are discussing projects or wanting to brainstorm around any objectives.

Kamaria Rutland: [00:11:11] Lastly, tip number five, remote workers, they still want their manager managers to continue those things like team building activities to enhance the cohesion and the collaboration. For someone sitting right, one of the basics of team dynamics, right, those highly effective teams is that there is trust among its team members and so managers are going to have to find very creative ways to ensure that both in office and remote workers are finding ways to come together. And that can be as simple as doing a search on Pinterest. Google in the top tips of how to build some team building in a virtual world. But it’s not impossible. You can play games, you can use gamification. You can just, you know, do shared experiences like a virtual ice cream, social or whatever it may be. But there should be ways that managers orchestrate shared experiences to build some cohesion around the team. So, again, top five tips for remote workers want to be seen. Remote workers want to be heard. They want to ensure that there is a systematic way the projects are being assigned. They want their managers to resist the urge of consensus building around in office employees only. And they want there to be team building activities for cohesion and collaboration. So these are my top five tips to help managers navigate that rocky road in that virtual world.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:35] And it sounds like what you’re saying is that you just can’t say, OK, here’s the zoom link. You’re remote now. We’re good. And you’ve got to be intentional. You got to change some ways. You had been doing things in order to be more mindful and proactive to help these relationships stay relevant and easy for everybody to participate in. It’s not you flip a switch and we’re remote now and then we’re done like this is a work in progress that you should be tweaking, holding the results accountable and really pulling your people, making sure that it’s serving everybody.

Kamaria Rutland: [00:13:14] Absolutely. That that were very intentional has to be a part of the management framework. Right. This is really where I hope managers across industries will meet this moment. Right? They will. They will. Upscaled their own ability to call a meeting. Right. When you do call a remote worker into the office, is there some intention behind it? Is it a meaningful collaboration effort? Is this meeting going to be very dynamic or was it something that something could be an email? Right. I know early in my management days, you know, I would just have a regularly scheduled meeting every Tuesday at three o’clock. We would meet and we would discuss certain things. And it was just, you know, I was numb to the dynamic. When you now have to orchestrate remote workers and in office workers, when you do bring people together, it should be impactful. Right? There should be compelling information that you’re sharing. There should be amazing brainstorming activities or ways that we are going to work more work better together as a team. Right. When you do bring people together, it should be meaningful and it’s going to take some effort for managers to think of when I bring people together. Is there a greater purpose than just being together?

Lee Kantor: [00:14:31] Right. I was trying to get this app built that would lay over your resume or whatever service you use. The calculates, the hourly cost of all the people in the room, and it just takes off like a ticker as the minutes go by. How much money that the companies investigate investing in this meeting and just keeping score. And there was this meeting worth, you know, eighty thousand dollars.

Kamaria Rutland: [00:14:59] Exactly, and and I’m I’m betting that if you were to miraculously develop that app, it would be mind blowing to two leaders, right? When people I’m a believer in face to face meeting, I think that human connections are so amazing and so beautiful when they happen. Right. But it should be for a purpose, right? It shouldn’t be just to say for political reasons, we’re going to bring everyone together. Right. Checking up on the stakeholders. We’re bringing people together right now. What is the main purpose of why you are gathering people together?

Lee Kantor: [00:15:35] Right. And especially when people go to promote their personal and work life starts kind of blending together in ways that are another unintended consequence.

Kamaria Rutland: [00:15:44] Absolutely. There’s been several articles about how to manage that transition right now that inoculation rates are improving and people offices are starting to open back up as people start to transition back, even if it’s for one or two days a week, there’s an emotional toll to them giving up some of the freedoms that they had at home, walking their dogs into the day, being able to help their kid with their virtual school or whatever it may be. Right. The things that they were balancing in life, it takes a toll on them. And there’s this emotional rollercoaster that they’re going to have to go through and manage. You’re going to have to manage it very delicately, right. To help them transition back into it. Won best practice. I like to share with people, as you know, develop a team charter. This is how we’re going to manage this. This is how we’re going to work as a team. These are the platforms that we’re going to use. These are the the primary work times. We’re going to collaborate virtually. Right. And these are the freedoms we want people to still be able to enjoy. I think it needs to be a part of the discussion. Right. And this is left to everyone’s own understanding.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:48] Right. And I think that one of the ramifications of going through this is there’s been a lot more grace given to the folks at home and their circumstance, whereas maybe before the pandemic, people were a little geggie about, oh, that was my kid in the background. I’m embarrassed or, you know, that’s not professional. Now, I think there’s more grace given.

Kamaria Rutland: [00:17:09] Absolutely. And I imagine that it took a pandemic for us to give grace to our our teammates, our employees. Right. Because the thing is, we are more than just our work. Right. Human beings are very dynamic and have lives outside of the work they do. And this is a way for us to really honor that, you know, and again, there is no one size fits all. So for the people that prefer to work in the office, maybe their home, their home doesn’t allow for space for them to work without distraction. And so working out of an office is better suited for others. I hope they might have an home office or they might have a couple of things to balance and juggle. And working from home gives them the flexibility. This is a way for us to say, I see you, I honor your preference and let’s find a way to work together.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:54] Right. And I think that the organizations can really benefit if they do this correctly, because like you said earlier, you’re opening up your talent pool to the world now, not people that are just, you know, an hour drive from your office.

Kamaria Rutland: [00:18:09] Right. And my fear, you know, there’s this term kind of bouncing around right now called the great resignation. Right. One in three millennials is said to consider quitting her job post pandemic. And we’re kind of around that time frame right now because of the lack of culture they’re feeling from their remote work environment and how their company actually dealt with the remote work and flexible work options during the pandemic. Right. That now that people have had a taste of what it’s like to work from home and they and if they prefer it, we’ve got to find a way to incorporate that into the corporate culture so that we don’t lose out on talent. Right. We’re going to lose them to different industries who are going to be more open to it. Right. I’m in the San Francisco Bay Area and we’ve got a wide array of companies and having very different perspectives on it. Right. Facebook just announced that they’re going to have a full time remote work options indefinitely. Apple just said people going to have to come back into the office three days a week and they dictated which days and there was some uproar around it. So I think the companies have an opportunity to rise to this occasion, to really survey and engage their employment and their employees and find out what is the sentiment, what can we do to create a work environment that you can thrive in? And if they listen and they try to manage the major trends, they’re going to come out on top of this. But it’s going to take them really being open to the ideas. I understand that they have large offices, buildings. They would like bringing people together. But when they do make sure that it is meaningful, it’s impactful, and there was a reason to bring people together.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:53] So now if there’s an organization out there that would like some help in their transition, no matter which. Way the transition is going to go in the workplace, what is the website for your organization?

Kamaria Rutland: [00:20:05] It is OTM coaching group Dotcom and it’s pronounced Autum, but it’s Ottmar coaching group Dotcom. Feel free to reach out, happy to help you navigate again the rocky road of management in this virtual world, because it is a transition, right? We’ve had to evolve past typewriters and fax machines. This is just another evolution in the modern day workplace and we’ve got to find ways to help our employees thrive in this new workplace.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:32] Good stuff. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Kamaria Rutland: [00:20:38] Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:40] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach Radio.