Imagine yesterday’s workplace. Employees arrived at nine and left at five. Everyone worked at their desks and walked to team meetings together. The workplace was strongly defined and boundaries were clear.
That workplace is gone, and today’s norm is centered around flexibility -- the opportunity to work whenever and wherever the employee wants. In fact, flexibility has already morphed from being seen as a privilege to an expectation, and which has birthed a new team structure that many companies are not yet prepared to support: the hybrid team.
You may already be part of a hybrid team, a group of people who need to work together despite rarely being in the same location. As you can imagine, this leads to some huge challenges. How does everyone work together effectively and at their best when some people are in the same place and others are over 100 miles away? Not only is it difficult, it adds substantial inequality that often privileges those who are in the office.
Some companies default to regaining a sense of control by requiring everyone to work in the office. This is in misalignment with the natural way people want to work, making both hiring and retaining employees difficult for those companies. More innovative organizations try leveling the playing field by encouraging all employees to act remote. For example, during meetings, each teammate will join a video call as a remote employee would: in isolation, either at home or at their desk. While this is successful in giving everyone the same experience, it also decreases the level of interaction to the lowest common denominator. Employees who could have benefitted from the in-person chemistry can’t. Everyone loses.
In order to truly enable and support the hybrid team, leaders must make sure every employee is equally supported and engaged, and each person can enjoy the inherent benefits of his or her preferred work location and style. For example, if a person loves to be spontaneous and interact with their team in person, don’t take that away from them in order to drive equality. Instead, develop mechanisms for spontaneity across remote and in-office workers. Similarly, if a remote person is a night owl, don’t force them to adopt a work schedule when they can’t be at their best.
The ideal balance is one that removes the limitations that come from being either remote or co-located, while also helping each employee get the most out of their world. Here are five tips companies can follow to better support their hybrid teams:
1. Identify the imbalances.
What are the instances in your organization where one work style is unintentionally privileged? While the more obvious advantages will exist for your in-office workers, there are likely some that also exist for those who are remote. For example, perhaps remote employees benefit from more time with family. If that’s the case, what can you do for in-office employees to give them the same opportunity?
2. Normalize communication.
There is likely a huge imbalance in communication, putting your remote workers at a disadvantage. Think through your different communication methods and do your best to make sure it supports everyone agnostic to location. How can you use better technology to capture the conversation in the room during team meetings? How can you make sure water cooler conversations aren’t banned unnaturally but are still recapped on chat for the remote folks? And remember, don’t improve communication by removing it from some groups. Instead, enable and support it for all.
3. Gauge performance based on results versus visible effort.
When identifying individuals for new projects, promotions and other opportunities, use one’s results and impact to make your decisions. In fact, this is an important leadership principle in general. The folks who come to work first and leave last aren’t necessarily your champions.
4. Support the style.
Make sure you understand what each employee needs in order to thrive and be at their best -- whether that’s working in the office surrounded by colleagues or in peace and quiet at a home office. It’s essential that, as a leader, you support whatever conditions help your employees do their best work.
5. Trust is a must.
If an employee requires constant oversight to be successful, that’s a big problem. Provide a goal, make success criteria clear and let your employees do the job when and where they want to. The best way to encourage your employees to rise to the occasion is to show that you trust them.
