Adapting to hybrid

A Harvard Business Review article ‘How to manage a hybrid team’ reports on what we’re seeing and experiencing: “your team members are likely contending with vastly different situations.”

Beyond just their locations of work, many are adapting to changing situations at home or the office and the more permanent distribution of team members across locations. 

This is the hybrid workforce. HBR suggests we ask: 

➡️ “What is the experience my employees are having at work, and how can I empower them to do the best they can?”

▶️ “What protocols can you put in place to ensure that the employees in the office are in sync with those working from home?”

Given people in your team might be located in different places but still need to be brought together - in meetings and workshops - how will you build empowerment and keep things in sync? 

Tips include : 
- beware of an ‘us vs them’ situation 
- be clear, inclusive and flexible
- know it’s not easy and will take some adjustment for all parties. 

For those who are new to this, be open to learning and experimenting, knowing that perfection isn’t possible, but progress certainly is. 

How will you handle hybrid

Microsoft, Atlassian, Google, Slack and Square announced recently that their people could forever work from home if they wanted to. 

They’ve set a precedent and trend for other companies to follow.  

The reality of a HYBRID work force means you’ll begin to have a mix of where people are for every meeting, workshop, team and project. 

Some people are here, some are there; some people are together with others and some people are alone. 

There will be some online and others who may be in the room with you. 

This can create challenging issues with engagement, involvement, participation, contribution and communication. 

How will you handle this hybrid way of working in say, a meeting or workshop? 

When we bring people together we need to:
- Engage their interest 
- Involve them in the work
- Align them as a group or team 
and then, help them
- Commit to decisions and actions. 

This need to juggle and switch across groups and locations is a new way of working for many. 

It raises questions, combinations and tricky logistical situations. 

Plan ahead but be ready to adapt. 

Some people are here, some are there, some people are alone, some are together

This is the hybrid way of working. Remote, distributed, co-located and in person. The leader or facilitator, well, they could be anywhere!

The realities of work now mean you’ll likely have a mix of where people are located. 

How do we lead meetings and workshops like this? 

It's a new way of working for many of us and can raise questions, queries and tricky situations:

- how do you achieve and maintain engagement across all of these different spaces
- how do you know people are engaged and participating
- how do you get people involved
- how do you use breakout rooms if not everyone is on their own device
- what do we need to do differently than if everyone is in the one place (all online or all in the one location)?

Think about it and plan for it.