Mastering the Hybrid Workplace: Overcoming Challenges and Leading with Confidence
Hybrid work environments offer significant benefits, such as the ability to attract talent beyond local geographic areas, but they also present new challenges for leaders. Managing remote and hybrid teams requires navigating complexities that many have not faced before.
Statistics Canada cites a study by Deng, Messacar and Morrisette (2020) that states almost 40% of Canadian workers have jobs can be done from home.
Although remote work varies by industry and location, understanding and overcoming the challenges of leading hybrid and remote teams is now a crucial skill for managers.
While these challenges are for a hybrid team, they exist also for a fully remote team (with the exception of balancing the in office group with the remote group).
Challenges
Communication
It is easy to share information when you see someone; often just seeing someone reminds you that you have something to tell them. It is more natural to lean over and share a piece of information or an update with someone sitting near you.
As a result, often in person workers have more access to information than remote workers do. Remote workers are often “out of sight; out of mind.” Ensuring each team member has access to the same information (and all the information) can be challenging.
Building and Maintaining a Team Culture
Culture is built through relationships which are easier to build in person. Including remote workers can sometimes be an afterthought, which makes them feel like they are being excluded (even if unintentionally). This can often happen in hybrid meetings when in person people go first consistently and remote people contribute later.
Gathering input can be more challenging too. You often need to build in extra time which can be an obstacle at times.
Managing Performance and Productivity
A barrier to remote work for many people was that managers felt they needed to see someone, and see that they were working to believe they were working. The pandemic proved this untrue as millions of people successfully worked from home.
People can waste time in the office too, and certainly before the increase in remote work, people were fired for lack of productivity or performance.
Managing performance and productivity, however, can still be a challenge.
Equity and Fairness
Research shows that there is a visibility bias where in person workers receive more recognition, opportunities and promotions. The phrase, “out of sight, out of mind” is an issue for remote workers.
Overcoming Challenges
Learning to manage hybrid and remote workers is a skill managers will need to hone. Some suggestions for each of the challenges are as follows:
Communication
Schedule regular check-ins with all workers, but especially with remote workers. Consider a more frequent schedule for them.
Communicate in different ways (often people need to hear something seven times in many different ways before they absorb it); include updates at meetings, emails, weekly newsletter, one on one meetings, internal SharePoint site, phone calls
Embrace collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams, Slack or SharePoint. Consider an internal SharePoint site where you keep copies of weekly updates or important information so that team members have an internal repository of important information. Creating teams and subteams in Microsoft Teams is another good option.
Be aware of when you share information with in person workers so that you ensure you also share it with remote workers.
Consider transparency and inclusivity in your communication to ensure each teammate feels like they are getting the information they need.
Utilize synchronous communication (such as meetings) with asynchronous (weekly updates, SharePoint/Teams posts)
Schedule time to plan communication so you ensure you are sharing pertinent information in multiple ways effectively, and reflecting on your success and challenges.
Create a Communication Protocol so that people know where they can find updates and information. Consider including what means of communication should be used, where information is stored and how collaboration tools are used. Is there an expectation for responding and if so, what is the timeline? When do people include others on emails? What are the guidelines for using BCC and replying all? What is an email versus a Teams post?
Building and Maintaining a Team Culture
Actively involve remote workers in meetings. Alternate speakers between remote and in person attendees.
Ensure what you do for in person workers is also done for remote workers. For example, if you have a team lunch, give remote workers a spending allowance and then consider having a virtual meeting so they can be involved too. If you give out cards to in person workers, mail them to remote workers (I helped organize a recognition program for one company and we handed out Lego pieces when someone was nominated for a recognition – I mailed pieces to remote workers).
Ask members of the team to take ownership of building the culture; the manager’s job is to ensure they are actively building it, however the execution of various tasks can be done by anyone on the team.
Include team building activities. You can start a weekly meeting with a question each person quickly answers to get to know each other. You can also ask each person to share something cool that happened or something they are looking forward to. Host virtual coffee breaks, lunches or online social events.
Have co-working office hours where people can work “together” even if it’s on a Zoom or Teams meeting.
Managing Performance and Productivity
Clearly communicate outcomes and expectations. Manage key performance indicators, deadlines and deliverables.
Be clear about expectations (do they need to have childcare, when do they take lunch, what are their work hours, do they need to be active on Teams or a collaboration tool). Some of these might not matter (eg. their hours of work as long as they work x amount of hours), but when they do matter, ensure you have set clear expectations.
Recognize that fair isn’t equal. Not everyone needs to have the same work hours (especially if your team is across multiple time zones).
Focus on trust and autonomy while balancing them with accountability.
Have regular check-ins with team members to review their progress on KPIs, deliverables and deadlines, and to discuss challenges and roadblocks before they become major issues.
Utilize tools such as project management software, collaboration tools, time tracking and performance dashboards.
Provide feedback and support rather than micromanaging.
Equity and Fairness
Recognize Visibility Bias and be aware of it.
Rotate project or meeting leaders and other leadership opportunities so each person has the chance to demonstrate their skills and abilities.
Include remote workers in professional development opportunities and ensure they have growth plans.
Ensure fairness in workload distribution and regularly review.
Adapt your communication style to meet the needs of different teammates
Leading hybrid teams is a skill many leaders have had to learn on the fly, with little formal training. Hopefully, this skillset will soon become a standard part of management and leadership development programs.
The first step is awareness—recognizing the challenges and understanding their impact. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by the long list of possible strategies, start by choosing one or two to implement. Engage your team by asking what they need to feel unified and ensure remote workers are included.
Then just start!
Next Steps:
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