Trends That Will Shape Your Team Management in 2015

2015 means adopting to the generational differences. Millennials will become the largest percentage of the workforce in the U.S. This means more millennials will be taking leadership roles.

With the increasing number of millennials entering workforce, prepare yourself for job-hopping. On average, millennials are staying 2 years at a company before leaving.

In 2015 prepare to work more with freelancers. In the U.S. alone 53 million people are freelancing. That’s 34 percent of the entire workforce and millions more will likely follow.

62% of employees claim that mobile access to team information is essential for productivity. 38% say the use of mobile devices reduces the time it takes to do the job by an average of 30 minutes.

Partly because of the hectic lifestyle of constantly moving around and partly due to the need to be connected with the world, mobile apps are a great way to keep an eye on your workforce wherever you are. Moving team management into mobile gives you the opportunity to consume information when its suitable for you.

Continues feedback will be in the focus of attention. You'll see less annual performance reviews. Perhaps it's time to ditch them altogether. According to Globoforce survey, 92% of performance reviews take place annually, semi-annually or are never even scheduled in the first place. Yet it’s often the only channel of feedback. Nonetheless, 65% of employees state they need and want more feedback. Managers are self-critical about it themselves, openly admitting not providing enough of it.

With a clear positive correlation between higher level of motivation and timely accurate feedback, more managers will seek ways to give effective continuous feedback.

In 2015 we'll see a growth in companies experimenting with the OKR, Objectives and Key Results. As people are putting more emphasis on linking personal plans and growth with group goals, the OKR is a great technique for goal alignment.

As the tidal wave of information grows above our heads, in 2015 it's time to say bye to lengthy word files and hello to dashboards. Dashboards turn big data into smart data. So, it's time to put more emphasize on information visualizations. Turn your team data into a landscape that you can explore with your eyes and get a quick overview. In Weekdone, we have developed team dashboards that show company-wide trends, but also team-members' personal performance with a blink of an eye.

Polish your skills of honesty and transparency, which will be most valued leadership traits in 2015. 52% of Gen Z’s and Gen Y’s state that the most important quality for being a good leader is honesty and transparency.

To tackle the U.S. employees' stagnating engagement, it's time to measure employee satisfaction and set employee happiness KPIs. According to Gallup, 52% of American workers are not engaged in their work, while another 18% are “actively disengaged.” This disengagement costs U.S. businesses $450 to $550 billion in lost productivity per year. To conquer the tipping point in employee engagement, it's about time to have happiness KPI next to your sales KPIs.

It's quite likely that during the next year you'll have at least 1 remote employee in your team. Flexible work places will become pervasive. In a short period of time the proportion of people working from out of office has already grown by 80%. In the U.S. 34 million people work in remote teams. This number will swell to 63 million by 2016.
This means your company needs to expand the digital footprint and harness new social technology.