In our last 2 month’s blogs, Geri McKenna and I have made the case for intentionally designing the way that your hybrid team works (May 2022) as well as sharing what you told us about your experiences (June 2022).
In this blog, building on our learning from coaching teams and the latest research, we are sharing 3 principles for hybrid working and 4 practical steps to set your team up for success.
Three Hybrid Working Principles
Before diving in, we’d invite you to consider some principles to shape your approach:
- Mutuality:
Your hybrid working solution needs to be mutual – it needs to work for both team members and for the organisation; for team members the ideal solution balances productivity and wellbeing, while for the organisation it enables the work to be done well meeting needs of internal and external stakeholders. - Test and Learn:
As subject expert Jo Owen says “Don’t panic – everyone is figuring out how to make hybrid working work and everyone has teething problems. It’s natural.”[[1]] An iterative approach where you test, learn and adapt is the best way to move towards the right solution, including feedback from key stakeholders who interact with your team. In our experience 90 days is a good period of time to test, learn and iterate as you go. - Co-create:
Making a hybrid model work successfully is best achieved by co-creating with your team, not making unilateral, top-down decisions. If your organisation has mandated a number of days in the office, work within that framework to find a mutual solution for team and organisation.
Four practical steps to define your hybrid approach as a team:
- What does GOOD look like?
As a team, define what good looks like at a high level – what does your hybrid solution need to enable?
– For your team results (e.g. maintain or improve speed of response)
– For your stakeholders (e.g. seamless access to services)
– For you as a manager (e.g. ability to manage the hybrid solution and team members)
– For your team members (e.g. ability to be productive, maintain sense of belonging/wellbeing) - What’s the purpose of the office?
- Before the pandemic you did things a certain way. During the pandemic you adapted. Now is the opportunity to review what activities, processes, or tasks are best done in the office vs remotely ensuring that you are able to meet your internal and external stakeholders expectations going forward. You could consider the following questions with your team:
- What’s worked really well that you’d like to continue?’
- ‘What wouldn’t you want to lose?’
- ‘What have you missed?’
- ‘What’s not worked so well and needs to change?’
- When considering type of activity, be aware that research shows that our ability to be creative is better in person than when virtual as you are likely to generate more ideas and they are likely to be of better quality. As a team, decide which work/activities are really best done in the office.
- It is also important to understand the preferences and ability of team members for remote working. While some may prefer to spend more time working remotely, they may not be self-disciplined or motivated enough to make it work. In addition, there may be companywide policies and principles on eligibility for hybrid working which need to be taken into account.
- Before the pandemic you did things a certain way. During the pandemic you adapted. Now is the opportunity to review what activities, processes, or tasks are best done in the office vs remotely ensuring that you are able to meet your internal and external stakeholders expectations going forward. You could consider the following questions with your team:
- You are now ready to agree your hybrid working framework, (and then pilot), which will include:
What work is done in office versus not (see 2)
When team members are in the office together (deliberately design interaction on office and remote days – don’t just leave to chance)
What team member’s working patterns are being transparent on these when agreed - How will you know if your hybrid approach is working?
– What will be your indicators of success?
– When will the team review and iterate your approach?
In our experience this will give you and your team a clear framework to get started. But you also may want to consider the following (which we’ll address in future blogs):
- The best approach to onboarding new members into your hybrid team
- The critical competencies required for your team members for hybrid working and re-learning how to ‘be’ when in the office space, as well as re-defining what being productive looks like in a hybrid world
- The mindset that will best serve you as a hybrid team manager and how you intentionally best support your team, be a role model, be inclusive and avoid biases
- How to nurture connection as a manager, and why it is important
We’d love to hear how you and your team are approaching your hybrid working framework and the benefits you are achieving from being intentional about this.
[1] Jo Owens is author of ‘Smart Work: the ultimate handbook for remote and hybrid teams’
Sources:
https://www.raconteur.net/workplace/lessons-from-the-successful-adopters-of-hybrid-working/
Leading a hybrid team? A manager’s guide to getting it right – CNN
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