Leadership in Tech: What Does 2021 Have in Store?

Going into the new year, leaders will have to pivot to prioritize their team’s mental health with regular check-ins, leading by example, and amendments to KPIs. Here, Svenja de Vos, CTO, Leaseweb Global, discusses how the leadership in the tech industry is going to have to adapt going into 2021. 

The pandemic caused leadership in tech to transform due to the drastic changes in the workforce. While the trend of remote working was beginning to increase in popularity in recent years, the pandemic has caused its adoption rates to surge. Since the global pandemic took hold, the number of people working remotely has continued to increaseOpens a new window , and many key tech companies— such as TwitterOpens a new window — have committed to permanently having a remote workforce.

In the first couple of months of the pandemic, people were overcompensating to prove that they were still producing their work. This, in turn, caused productivity to skyrocket, which was great for business but wasn’t healthy for employees. The added stress and pressure that came with a boost in productivity wreaked havoc with many employee’s mental health — a recent national pollOpens a new window showed that 58% of employees in the U.S. workforce were experiencing burnout (a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment in a person’s profession). 

However, as the year continued, that spike in productivity decreased as this performance overdrive was neither sustainable nor conducive to employees’ mental health. This added stress that came with the boom and decline of productivity, and the general worry of COVID-19, will cause leadership in tech to reroute their priorities going into 2021.

Mental Health Will Take the Front Seat

Going into the new year, leaders will have to pivot to prioritize their team’s mental health. This will be done with regular check-ins, leading by example, and amendments to KPIs. With a virtual workforce, regular check-ins will be critical to keep ongoing communication between team members and maintain high employee morale. This will also have to be supported by leaders setting examples of themselves and taking the time needed to take care of their mental health. Seeing leadership take their own advice and look after their well being creates an environment in which employees feel comfortable to take time for themselves to ensure their mental health stays positive.

However, amending KPIs will be one of the most important changes leadership will have to make going into 2021. KPIs need to change to outcome-based, and I am a firm believer in the fact that if you manage your people that way, not only does this help the employee, but also the company in the end. We need to all shift not towards the amount of work but to the impact and outcome. Often we explain productivity as the measure of the efficiency of a person completing a task, but we need smarter productivity.

Leaders in tech companies will have to adapt their focus on the outcome instead of attendance. To alleviate some of the pressure with having a remote workforce, many leaders will have to learn to place a lot of trust in their employees to complete their work, necessarily shifting the culture from work and attendance focused to a more outcome-driven performance measurement structure.

The Remote Work Boom Will Continue

How tech leaders adapt in this moment and into the future will also affect how their businesses can attract and retain talent. The remote work boom is only predicted to continue into 2021. According to a survey Opens a new window from Enterprise Technology Research (ETR), the percentage of workers around the world that is permanently working from home is expected to double next year.

Many companies’ unique selling point when attracting talent is their secondary offerings. For example, tech giant Google offers free meals, cooking classes, a free onsite gym, massage therapists, and decompression capsules at their offices. However, with the pandemic forcing many companies to close their offices and have their workforce go remote, these secondary benefits are no longer available to current employees nor future employees.

In 2021, the tech companies that will best attract and retain employees are those which both most successfully translate their pre-pandemic on-site secondary offerings into the needs of the now virtual workforce and find a way to advertise this to potential hires. This can be in the form of virtual happy-hours where drinks are delivered to staff or on-call therapists instead of massages. 

Tech companies that aim to be successful in attracting and retaining talent will focus on building a connection with their current employees via the tools available. This may include regular check-ins (but not too frequent) and ensuring that employees have the tools necessary to feel comfortable in their new environment.

In Conclusion

As 2020 comes to an end and the tech industry looks to the new year, the work landscape has changed drastically, and it is something that leaders will have to take into consideration when planning for the new year. It will be important that they take into consideration the mental health of their employees as well as what their business will look like to existing and potential employees in 2021. 

Companies will have to be flexible in various ways, including learning how to be flexible with infrastructure — tech companies and leaders are used to scaling up, but with the unpredictability of 2021, they will also have to adapt to scaling down without it negatively affecting employees. With enough planning and thoughtful actions regarding employee burnout and benefits, tech companies can emerge from 2021 in an even better position.

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