Good morning,

I work on a small but tight team. We’re a well-oiled machine, and we value our chemistry. So naturally, each time a member leaves and a new one comes on board, we’re nervous about the impact. 

And yet, time and again, the newest member has contributed a valuable fresh perspective to established processes. One introduced us to Slack for team communication when we were still stuck on emails … way longer than we should have been. The recommendation became a game-changer to our efficiency.

This week, we hear from Kellogg’s Leigh Thompson, who tells us not to “waste the disruption” that comes with a new member joining the team. Plus, Kellogg’s Letian Zhang explains why remote jobs often demand more skills and experience, which disadvantages another set of newcomers: early-career workers.

Don’t waste the disruption

A change to team dynamics when a new person arrives can be disorienting. But Thompson, a professor of management and organizations, says this disruption can allow teams to rethink everything they’ve been handling on autopilot and actually improve their teamwork.

She offers advice for teams going through this type of change. First, use the opportunity to discuss how the team works. For stability, it’s critical to address questions about who does what, how decisions are made, what expectations people have, and which processes should be kept or eliminated. 

“Those conversations aren’t administrative housekeeping. They are an essential part of your team’s DNA,” says Thompson.

Thompson also urges teams not to simply onboard the newcomer but to learn from them. Sure, it’s important to bring a new member up to speed. But also ask, “What can I learn from this person?” In her research, Thompson has found that “the arrival of the newcomer stimulate[s] the creativity of the ‘oldtimers’ … but only if the team gives those differences some oxygen.”

Read more in Thompson’s Dear Professor Substack.

The narrow door to the home office

If working from home sounds enticing, consider that there’s a higher barrier to entry.

Research from Zhang, an associate professor of management and organizations at Kellogg, and colleagues found that remote job postings listed 25 percent more required skills than did non-remote job postings with the same occupation from the same employer in the same year. 

Three factors are driving this trend, the researchers believe.

The first factor is larger applicant pools. Remote work inherently expands the number of people who can perform a job since they don’t have to commute to a fixed location. With significantly more applicants, employers might want to set higher criteria to filter out applications so that the hiring process stays manageable.

Organizations may also set a higher bar for remote workers because of the lack of in-person interactions. Some employers may want to emphasize verifiable credentials more heavily for remote jobs since they will have fewer face-to-face interactions to assess someone’s ability and cultural fit after hiring.

And finally, the more-demanding requirements could help offset the increased difficulty of training people remotely. Understanding that they may not be able to train and develop new workers in person, managers may prefer to hire people who have sufficient experience with certain tasks.

As more jobs go remote, there may be consequences to these higher hiring standards. 

“This may hurt the entry-level workers who need training,” Zhang says. “Those are the workers who might be left out because organizations, after becoming remote, may have a stronger preference for more-experienced workers.”

Read more in Kellogg Insight.

See you next week,

Maja Kos, senior academic editor
Kellogg Insight