Winning with Hybrid working

Harvard Business Review (HBR) identified hybrid working as one of the biggest challenges facing organisations in 2024 and beyond. For businesses who want to retain employees, prevent burnout and foster culture and connection, establishing a strategy for hybrid working is crucial to success.

A OnePoll study commissioned by TravelPerk found that 40% of respondents’ organisations operate hybrid model – 80% of respondents were happy with this arrangement. However, as the same research shows, what we have gained in flexibility, we are loosing in connection. Simultaneously, a report from Mental Health UK found that 9 out of 10 adults experienced high or extreme levels of stress last year, despite flexible working being at an all-time high, citing 1 in 5 workers needing to take time off as a result.

Labour have indicated an upcoming Employment Rights Bill will include flexible working by default, employee rights to disconnect outside working hours, adopt compressed hours, and a ban on zero contract – there is more onus than ever for employers to create an environment of excellence and high performance through means other than whip-cracking and threats.

The benefits of flexibility such as the decreased travel expenses, have, it seems, come at the cost of culture. With employees spread out, lone working and silo’d, how you intentionally bring teams together will be the key that unlocks businesses that not only survive this new paradigm, but thrive. Since after all….

All businesses are people businesses

– Codie Sanchez

Praeduco’s strategy to winning with hybrid

1. Be deliberate and consistent

Be deliberate and consistent on WHEN.

Changing the day / time of a meeting, especially in-person has a much bigger impact on individuals than pre-hybrid. Co-operative arrangements of childcare and pet-care are carefully balanced and scheduled and what may seem like an easy shift for a manager or solo-breadwinner can be a huge disruption for a team-member.

Be deliberate on WHY you’re assembling

If the purpose of bringing your team together is to create connection find a location, activity, or pursuit that will do that – a bar, a team activity or a learning opportunity. Find out what motivates your team – are they t-totalers, gym rats, or coffee snobs? Could you arrange an exclusive visit to a roasters or wine bar nearby (who i’m sure would love some more business). Could you bring in external speakers to educate on key skills to their trade, or external skills? What about the history of the local area? Is there a building nearby that they walk past that has a secret history to all but a local expert?

If you have expectations on participation – give a framework for doing so. If you want reports on progress, ensure every individual is set up for success. Starting this process can involve pre-meets with individuals to ensure they have something to share, creating wins that build into more wins. Create a template, set them up for success. Until it’s embedded, have reminders automatically sent out to ensure they are getting ready to present.

Make it mandatory – whilst unpopular, if you do everything on this list, they will WANT to be there. Until that time, it’s mandatory. Non negotiable. Training for athletes is mandatory – most see / know the benefit so they show up, either way it’s mandatory. Incidentally, if attendance is mandatory – no-one dials in, opening the door for creativity to create moments and magic for those in attendance. Make it so special they re-arrange their diary FOR it.

2. Re-commit to vision, every time

Use in-person to re-connect a team to the vision – where are you going together, and how will you get there. Leaders should be using gatherings to share and re-iterate where teams are going, and share what’s inspiring them as leaders.

Some of the activities already mentioned can re-inspire to vision. Or they can help share who you are as a leader. Did your favourite team win this weekend, why does that matter to you? Did you receive amazing service somewhere, and did it inspire you to work harder for YOUR clients.

Hybrid working and the decrease of in-person connection has led a generation to look for inspiration online through the form of social media. If you’re not inspiring your team, and acting as a resource for them to draw energy from, they will find it elsewhere, in places you can neither reach nor control. They will create their own vision in the place of where you hope yours is.

Not clear on your vision? Check out Praeduco’s services and get yourself, and your business aligned.

3. Ideate together, contemplate apart

Behind every bad idea, is a good one

Will Guidara

Time and necessity will create innovation. Great leaders can leverage both to spur innovation, once they have created a place of safety where team-members can ideate without fear of failure or retribution. Speed, face to face feedback and intuition play a huge role in teams solving problems together. So team meetings can be incredible crucibles to innovate from.

Using the framework of, “Yes AND”, stolen from drama-improv groups is a great tool to ensure that ideas iterate instead of stall over phrases like “Yes BUT”. This is where everyone iterates on what comes before, BUT stops innovation in it’s tracks, AND works the problem.

If your team is made up of externalisers and internalisers, extroverts and introverts, it’s worth giving them time either in smaller groups, or in the days after to refine their ideas, and contemplate their impacts. Checking in with your team 1:1 in the days preceding and proceeding an ideation session is crucial in ensuring that no idea is lost in the melee of louder voices. Giving these quieter voices a platform in following meetings can be a great way to build confidence and validation that it’s OK to have ideas outside of the moment, that the most important this is getting a solution that works.

4. Make it worth it

If you are leading a high-performance team, or one that aspires to be, the importance of this cannot be overstated.

If you don’t respect their time, they won’t respect yours, each others, or their clients / customers / patrons. Stick to time and ensure they leave feeling it was worth it. This doesn’t mean you have to be a larger than life cheerleader, re-aligning to your vision can be enough, inspiring them on their future, teaching or celebrating a win can be more than enough.

Get to know your team as individuals and create curated moments around your meetings that showcase you know and understand them.

1. What uplifts your team? This could be as simple as ensuring that their favourite treats are available, for some this might be fruit, others it’s those unreal donuts your company usually reserves for big clients. Gimmicks cannot replace substance, but they are light touches that develop belonging and delight around attendance.
2. Do you HAVE to be at the office – does your team all live in the same more affordable neighbourhood and has to commute to the office, could your leaders travel to them instead of them to you?
3. Create exclusivity – could you have specific pens / notebooks / jackets just for your team, unaccessible to anyone else in the company and the meeting is the only place they can get hold of them?
4. Demonstrate growth and success – show what they have achieved – improved performance, great client feedback, other senior leaders noticing their work, celebrate the wins together. Note: celebrate in public, criticise in private, using team meetings to highlight bad-behaviour or low performances is the fastest way to disenfranchise and is a big NO.
5. Give others a platform – do you have a team member who’s wildly passionate about something? Are they a super-nerd on micro-brewing, or are they digging into a piece of law that has sent them down a rabbit hole – invite them (with plenty of notice) to share what they are learning. Note that this relies on you getting to know your team as whole people.

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Hybrid working is not going away. So it’s up to leaders to bring their teams together in a way that sparks energy, that reignites purpose and imbues teams with the fire to achieve.

If in doubt. Do the human thing.

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