During my work experience at Innecto, I was asked a question many organisations face today:
How do you motivate performance when employees are emotionally holding back and feel disconnected from their managers?
The answer is not to ask people to bring their “full self” to work. Although this sounds progressive, it’s unrealistic and can be exhausting.
What organisations need is to build a virtual psychological contract that keeps connection alive when proximity disappears.
This involves consistent, meaningful interaction between managers and colleagues to build trust. Trust is a recurring theme, and cultivating it requires deliberate effort and a commitment to authenticity, fairness, and open communication. This then minimises psychological distance, allowing employees to feel seen, supported, and motivated when working remotely.
No need for the full self – just the right self, at the right time
When leaders say they want the “full self,” they don’t mean the version that loses their temper over a dodgy Wi-Fi connection. They mean the version where the best parts of their personality shine through, offering authenticity when it matters.
High performing businesses thrive on selective authenticity.
Research shows that 55% of successful teams have a culture where people feel free to reveal aspects of who they are outside of work, creating connection, trust, and engagement without going overboard.
Without this connection, accountability can drop, and people may hold back, disengage, or avoid taking responsibility.
In the office, leaders could recognise employees simply by seeing them. Remote work has broken that model, making values-based recognition more important than ever. Research shows that this kind of recognition fosters deeper connection, strengthens employee-manager trust, and builds psychological safety which allows individuals to bring their authentic selves to work and take accountability.
Employees need to know:
- Which parts of them are valued
- How they can grow
- That their contribution is seen and appreciated
Put simply, the virtual psychological contract is:
Employees bring the right parts of themselves to work, employers recognise what actually matters.
You can measure employees - if they feel known
So, how can managers achieve this?
Justine Woolf, Director of Consulting at Innecto, highlights through her research that building a performance culture requires rewarding those who go the extra mile and being explicit about what “excellent” looks like, signalling a shift back toward performance-related pay.
In a remote context, one insight is especially important: employees need to feel known if you want to measure them on their performance. Feeling known is critical to maintain trust and boundaries when assessing performance in a virtual setup.
Consistent feedback and publicly recognising contributions help leaders build this trust and foster mutual respect between employees, keeping them in the loop and making them feel part of a team.
This is where tech starts acting as a connection engine, providing real-time visibility into skills, progress, and contributions, creating a digital channel between managers and employees.
This supports:
- Goal setting - Lattice enables goal tracking, allowing managers to celebrate wins and flag challenges earlier.
- Frequent feedback loops - 15Five provide weekly check-ins and instant recognition through features like “High 5s.”
- Access to opportunity - Innecto’s Pathfinder is a “career SatNav” giving employees access to career pathways available within their organisation, with features like skill gap analysis.
- Value based recognition - Personal Group's Hapi allows teams to acknowledge each other’s achievements in meaningful, values-aligned ways.
These tools replace the signals that proximity once provided, think of them as a virtual ‘pat on the back’. They allow employee motivation to come from knowing which parts of themselves are valued, understanding their progress, and experiencing recognition for their contributions.
This is reinforced by a transparent culture, keeping things fair, preventing feelings of mistrust, and allowing performance to follow. In effect, the system mirrors the day-to-day support of a manager reflected in research showing that 69% of employees, whose managers help them set clear performance goals, are more engaged.
Connection was accidental, now it needs to be intentional
The office ran on accidental interaction, chatting at the coffee machine, catching up before a meeting.
Remote work doesn’t.
Once employees feel the virtual psychological contract with their managers, it's equally important to reinforce connection between employees themselves. Without deliberate effort, remote employees may feel excluded, while in-office colleagues could naturally dominate social and work interactions, leading to resentment, conflict, or a sense of missing out.
A recent survey found that 50% of employees view workplace friendships as important, and Gallup data links having a best friend at work to higher engagement, productivity, innovation, and job satisfaction. Encouraging peer connection in remote settings can help bridge these gaps, fostering inclusion and stronger team dynamics.
Managers play a key role in facilitating this intentional interaction. Deliberately planned communication and social bonding help recreate the camaraderie of in-office life, that builds these employee relations.
Managers can encourage this in several ways:
- The "One Sixth Rule" - Dedicate one-sixth of a meeting to non-work conversation, creating a virtual "water cooler".
- Non-work Slack channels - Spaces for employees to chat about hobbies, pets, or shared interests.
- “Lunch & Learn” sessions - Informal virtual sessions where team members can share expertise and learn from each other.
Social connection is what gives people the confidence to bring authentic, high-value parts of themselves to work. This highlights why informal socialisation is crucial in remote work, but it only works when it’s anchored in clear values, otherwise it slides into distraction or gossip.
Passion is one of Innecto’s three core values, alongside pace and professionalism. But in a remote world, is passion the value that’s quietly being left behind? When visibility drops, energy and accountability can too. The question for leaders isn’t whether passion matters, it’s how deliberately they’re creating the conditions for it to show up.
Because passion is the one thing every member of the workforce has in common.
Motivation in remote teams doesn’t come from asking people to bring their full emotional selves to work. It comes from building a culture where people feel socially connected, recognised, and clear about what matters. Selective authenticity, consistent recognition, and intentional interaction show employees which parts of themselves are truly valued.
And that’s what reignites passion.
When people know they’re seen for what they contribute best, engagement increases and becomes something that happens naturally, even when working remote.
