You heard about it when you were in the office; you’re hearing about it even more now that we’re working remotely: communication. Long a darling of professional development trainings, mentor heart-to-hearts, and advice columns, the concept of communication may be more under the microscope than ever.

A big reason for such scrutiny is one of communication’s most instinctive and common forms -- real-time, in-person conversations -- was wrenched away from us in March. Before us sat a patchwork of alternatives that couldn’t quite replace that dialogue. Nearly a year in, it’s clear that the many-headed hydra of email, text, instant messaging, document-sharing, and even old-fashioned phone calls doesn’t quite replace the ease, comfort, and depth of in-person communication. For a critical mass of professionals once bound to the office, grappling with the (likely lasting) effects of a communication disruption has introduced dissonance to the work-from-home rhythm. 

We see this as a particular developmental challenge for junior to mid-level professionals. The move to asynchronous communication – where the people doing the communicating are not speaking in real time, as they would when sharing a workspace – impacts how projects are sourced, how tasks are delegated and training is delivered, and how institutional culture shapes the employee experience. 

An important first step to overcoming the communication challenge is acknowledging that a major piece of professional development and training flows from the apprenticeship approach that so many organizations have adopted -- implicitly or explicitly. Formal academic instruction, organizational learning/development efforts, mentorship, and industry conferences all play vital roles in development. But to a significant degree, professionals build expertise and judgment at the elbow of more experienced colleagues. The architecture of learning and development initiatives at modern organizations, even the most cutting-edge of them, has never fully simulated the value derived from in-person show-how. The direct communication of learning from a senior colleague -- the explanation of best practices, demonstration of key tactics, sharpening of instincts through watching their reactions to an unpredictable range of workplace stimuli -- has no scalable replacement.

That reality is impossible to recreate fully in a virtual environment.

How can team members and organizations adapt? Employees and managers can start by asking questions that build awareness of these phenomena, to mitigate developmental delays and enhance team engagement. Then (surprise, surprise) clear communication can help align expectations and close gaps.

Communication as Project Origination

The way that junior and mid-level colleagues get work can be greatly impacted by real-time communication habits of more senior colleagues. Think of when a team leader pops into an office to see if the junior employee has time to help on a new project . . . or when a last-minute client meeting that the junior employee sits in on begets follow-on work . . . or when making small talk with the rainmaker partner during an impromptu elevator chat leads to an invitation to staff her matter. Not only are we currently lacking in those natural interactions, but senior team members’ schedules may be more chaotic than ever as they seek to juggle home and work demands while adjusting to the virtual environment, and they likely don’t have the development of each junior or mid-level colleague in mind when it comes to sharing new work. As a result, senior employees may continue to feed work to those they have worked with before; this could have a particularly negative effect for junior and/or underrepresented team members. 

Set clear intentions about project origination by asking the following questions:

• As a junior or mid-level employee, what were your pre-pandemic strategies for sourcing new work? How have those strategies been impacted by the move to a virtual environment? If there are formal channels of communication for sourcing work, how are you using them? What opportunities exist for synchronous communication?

• As a senior employee, what criteria are you using in order to decide which junior team members to bring onto a project? What are your intentions in staffing a work project? What criteria would help you meet the goals of including junior and underrepresented team members and creating professional development opportunities? How are you leveraging any learning and development professionals at your organization to assist?

• As an organization, what steps can/need to be taken to ensure that work is being distributed equitably, including to women and employees from underrepresented backgrounds?

Communication as Project Delegation and Training

Once a project is underway, knowledge workers have long relied on the informal and often happenstance nature of office communication to delegate tasks and monitor execution. Even the most sophisticated workflow and project management systems haven’t replaced the knock on the office door or coffee run as a means to check in on the status of a project and provide guidance. Despite the best efforts of many, management by proximity is the default on a lot of teams. 

Proximity, as we all know, is in short supply. When a task needs to be completed, the costs of asynchronous communication -- think of a senior team member trying to track down a colleague via email or text; or a junior team member being hesitant to initiate contact, for fear of interrupting a manager -- may rob employees of growth opportunities. The senior team member simply could complete the task on their own (moderately more efficient) or just delegate the task to someone above the junior team member who can reliably execute with little oversight. Perhaps the junior team member with questions lacks clarity or confidence about when or how to turn to colleagues for help, creating delay and even harming the work-product. Where synchronous, in-office communication would have allowed the junior person an opportunity to stretch their skills on a task and receive input in a more organic way, the choppiness of asynchronous communication may prevent delegation and feedback. (For teams or industries where the work tends to devolve into urgent, reactive bursts, the problem here may be magnified.) 

What we’re really talking about in these scenarios is a weakening of training. The potential result: developmental stagnation for junior and mid-level team members. 

• For the manager, what steps have you taken to clarify for your team any expectations around communication? How have you overcome, or not, barriers to communication with junior team members when delegating tasks? What support do you need in delegating?

• As an organization, what expectations are being set around communication within teams? What support do more junior team members need when it comes to receiving tasks and completing them adequately? How are senior team members supported in their efforts to delegate? What training and development efforts could encourage more apprenticeship interactions?

Communication as Culture

Relationships, in many organizations, are a form of currency. They create more work in the informal market for assignments. They tie teams together by engendering a sense of shared struggle and success. They form the basis of trust and reliability between colleagues, which in turn are foundations for promotion and championing. They are what so many employees point to in saying why they enjoy working in a given organization; in that sense, they are vital aspects of engagement and retention. In many ways, these relationships form the base of an organization’s culture -- those aspects of the social and work ecosystem that make a place distinctive. 

It’s hard to overstate how important in-person communication is to these relationships. Asynchronous communication puts stress on them, both in their creation and maintenance. Those colleagues we may have felt particularly close to before the pandemic may have stayed close -- think of the daily conversations via text, social media, perhaps even distanced in-person meetings you may have had with office besties; in some way, these relationships may have strengthened. But those you didn’t talk to as much in the office (your “weak ties”) may feel even less connected to you in a remote environment. If relationships are vital to a feeling of embeddedness in the organization and to the development of competencies, consider what is being lost for junior and mid-level team members who may not have been as connected as senior employees.

Attenuated communication also impacts how these more junior team members develop a sense of group identity and professional norms. Consider the information -- the inflow of data and interpretation of that data -- exchanged when co-workers can glance at each other across a room in a client meeting; or when you read the body language of a co-worker during the announcement of a long-sought after management initiative; or how hallway chatter passes along helpful tidbits and can soften otherwise difficult or sensitive news. For more junior employees dealing with the challenges thrown at them by the urgencies of the corporate world, an ability to commiserate and gauge the collective mood of a place can help with coping and morale. Think about how junior team members have internalized organizational and team expectations beyond what is reduced to an email or policy handbook: the mirroring of behaviors of a senior team member in a client meeting, observing interactions of office leaders with others in the workplace, and down to the attire of others. The richness of all the forms of synchronous communication help shape professional norms. The tiny squares we show up in on videoconference during the periods of scheduled conversation throughout the day don’t convey the nuance junior team members need. Zoom just can’t compete. 

These questions may help you focus on how to recreate the intangible results of in-person office communication:

• For junior and mid-level employees, which interpersonal ties could use reinforcement? How might you informally engage with fellow junior employees and with more senior employees?

• For managers, what efforts are being made to keep relationships strong across the digital divide? What is the tenor of most one:one conversations with junior team members? In what ways could you be more intentional with your outreach to junior team members? 

• At the organizational level, how are you monitoring morale and engagement? What are the needs of more junior and mid-level team members that aren’t being met? In what ways can you facilitate opportunities for social interaction among employees? What are the professional norms that junior employees should learn, and how might you facilitate that learning?

Recent graduates and early-career professionals so rarely arrive fully formed and ready to take on all the responsibility placed on them. Learning and development initiatives help close that gap, but the nuanced communication of the in-person workplace still does the heavy lifting of training and acculturating junior and mid-level colleagues. Remote work and the forced transition to more asynchronous communication imperils that development.

Even as vaccines roll out, this isn’t necessarily a problem with a defined end date. In the hybrid world we might be staring down, some senior team members may leverage their financial and sweat equity to work from home more and more frequently, thereby putting greater stress on training and development by desynchronizing communication. How organizations adapt to the new landscape could have a substantial impact on retention, hiring, culture, and the bottom line. The good news is that each member of an organization can take steps now to adjust to, and succeed in, this new world.