You’re leading a hybrid team. How can you get everyone on the same page?

Establish Clear Communication Channels, have regular check-in meetings and discussions, and allow people on the other side to participate, share updates, discuss progress, and address concerns. Set Clear Expectations: Clearly define each team member's roles, responsibilities, and expectations. Ensure that everyone understands their objectives and how their work contributes to the team's overall goals.Encourage Collaboration: Foster a collaborative environment where team members can work together regardless of location. Encourage the sharing of ideas, knowledge, and resources to drive innovation and problem-solving.

Use Technology to Bridge Gaps: Leverage the available technology tools s to facilitate real-time collaboration, engagement, and brainstorming sessions.Promote Team Bonding: Organize virtual team-building activities, social events, or informal gatherings to help build rapport and strengthen relationships among team members. Foster a sense of camaraderie and belonging despite physical distance.Respect Flexibility: Recognize and respect the flexibility that hybrid work arrangements offer. Encourage Feedback: Create a culture of feedback where team members feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, ideas, and concerns openly. Solicit feedback regularly to identify areas for improvement and address any issues that may arise.

Defining your goals is best achieved by following the SMART criteria: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Ensure your goals are clear and specific, measurable so you can track progress, achievable with the resources available, relevant to your values and aspirations, and set within a realistic timeframe. Additionally, regularly review and adjust your goals as needed to stay aligned with your evolving priorities and circumstances.

Leading a hybrid team requires transparent communication, regular check-ins, and clear expectations. Encourage collaboration and inclusivity among team members while leveraging technology to bridge the gap between remote and in-office workers. As a leader, lead by example, solicit feedback regularly, and be adaptable to ensure everyone feels aligned and engaged in achieving shared goals. With all these strategies in place, you can foster cohesion and high performance within your hybrid team.

The real drag when it comes to hybrid teams is collaboration. Necessary, but not easy to achieve. With team members spread across different time zones, scheduling meetings becomes complex. It is unfair & impractical to expect team members to attend meetings during their off hours. Instead of forcing everyone to dial in at odd hours or sit through long, meetings, why not give collaboration tools a shot? You get an agenda sent out ahead of time. You can share updates & documents in real time, so everyone's on the same page without having to waste precious time going over stuff they already know. The trick is to opt for tools that cater to the varied needs of team members, whether they need to manage tasks or share feedback on them.

Having been a part of a remotely collaborating team with members scattered across different locations, here are some of my observations: - Have daily brief catch-ups to be on the same page within the team as well as with other stakeholder teams. - Using multi-functional messaging tools like Microsoft Teams make remote collaboration a relatively easier task. Replete with diverse features like meeting notes, recordings & transcripts, innovative views for video calls, such apps help users get a feel of working in-office - Grow a habit of documenting every important discussion via mailer communications and minutes of meeting. That way, a track can be kept of the flow of communication, and can be referred to by anyone at any point.

The article and points are good and the feedback from others is also important to consider. As a leader of remote teams it is easy to work on your own tasks quietly. This does not allow your team to feel you are connected to them. Let your team know what you are focused on. Let them know what progress you are making. Explain why your tasks are important to the overall success of your team. Allow your team to hold you accountable, it’s a two way street.

- Explain why your team exists - Talk about each person's job - Share goals and celebrate achievements - Use tools that help everyone work together like video calls and file sharing - Make rules for using tools to avoid confusion

I think using tools like WhatsApp and Google Docs will be enough. Also, from time to time, interactions with your team members are needed. Keep a tab on their work. However, don't be harsh on them if it's not urgent.

Having regular meetings with set agendas keeps everyone on track. However, it is equally important to have those no agenda meetings where you try to create a good rapport with and within the team

Adding to it my 2 cents:- - Approachability of the leader helps - Sincere empathetic 1:1 connects - Follow through the action points from those meetings

In a Hybrid setup the most intentional thing to do is having everyone on same page. Clear work assignment to each 'hub' of the remote setup is first step. Define success criteria for each hub, ideally a long roadmap. And then establish rhythm of business for regular checkins on progress and even more importantly to exchange notes and keep everyone on same page.

It helps to have a purpose and agenda laid out with the meeting invite, always. With teams new to concepts like standups, retrospectives, product reviews or sprint planning, clarifying the purpose -what the meeting is (and is not), helps. Sheduling and rhythms are good, but I have been able to build more engagement through post-meeting check-ins. Just 5 to 10 minutes following a meeting to check understanding, provide constructive feedback or appreciation goes a long way to help the team be more engaged and committed in future meetings

I've made it a practice to schedule 4, 1-1 conversations a year. In person (if possible) on the staff member's anniversary, and quarterly via a conferencing solution. Some of the questions I ask: 1. What makes you look forward to coming to work? 2. What makes you dread coming to work? 3. What 'next thing' would you like to learn? 4. Am I/is our organization focusing on the right things? 5. Is there anything you want to know about me/my work? 6. Is there anything you want me to know about you/your work? Mostly, I let this time be about them, rather than something I've structured.

Leading a hybrid team requires effective communication and collaboration strategies. Clearly communicate team goals, individual responsibilities, and expectations for both in-office and remote team members. Utilize communication and collaboration tools, such as Microsoft Teams, for virtual meetings, messaging, file sharing, and project management. Schedule regular team meetings, both virtual and in-person, to discuss progress, address concerns, and align on priorities. Foster an environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing ideas, asking questions, and providing feedback, regardless of their title or location. Recognize and celebrate team achievements to foster a sense of unity and motivation amongst the team.

If you have trust in your team, do not hesitate to discuss with them on the Areas of Improvement. While Discussing Clearly Communicate what is the area of improvements against the Goals to be set into the organization and individual Prospectives. Give them a Commitment and Sense of Belongingness to increase their Morale

TRUST is the foundation of all great relationships and great relationships are the key to success. TRUST is built through clear, regular, open, and honest communication. Freely sharing information, celebrating successes and course correcting when results fall short, understanding the needs of individuals on the team, keeping things as focused and simple as possible, and being committed to the team are keys to building TRUSTing relationships that will benefit the team whether officed based, hybrid, or remote.

One way to share information across a hybrid team that I love is to structure your share-outs as a celebration or kudos, rather than simply a report. For example you can call out the great work that was done and by whom. That way everyone understand the latest updates, but it creates an atmosphere of recognition and appreciation rather than micromanagement.

Communicate, communicate, communicate. Rumors? Address them. Make sure decisions made at the upper levels of leadership are cascaded throughout my team. Don't assume because I know it my team knows it - verify. Trust team members to do their jobs, but check in regularly. Offer support. When we have a new hire to our team, the staff meeting includes an ice breaker. Our December staff meeting is only about games (and I usually buy prizes.) Our organization also has a newsletter in which employees can be recognized for going above and beyond.

Diversity and inclusion in critical element. One should be empathetic, considerate while interacting with others. Divers team members will have different perspectives, cultures. We can celebrate different festivals so we can understand each other better.

Giving all the team members opportunities to share their thoughts, ideas and give them new challenges to grow them up at higher level in the organisation.

To keep everyone in the team we need to - Conduct regular virtual meetings: Ensures all team members, regardless of location, are updated on goals and progress. Utilize digital collaboration tools: Facilitates real-time communication and information sharing among dispersed team members. Foster a culture of transparency and inclusivity: Encourages open dialogue, feedback, and involvement in decision-making processes. Recognize and appreciate contributions: Reinforces a sense of unity and appreciation among remote and onsite team members. Lead by example: Demonstrating proactive communication and accountability sets a positive precedent for the team.

It is true that if it does not get measured, it does not get improved. I have found that when the team agree on what to measure, and what rubric to use, they are more committed to the process. This hold true for process improvements as well. To avoid complency, I use a retrospective of retrospectives, quarterly or an agreed upon time interval. Not only do we look back on the process improvements identified in the past, we also rate how well we have been doing since then. If we fall back in the "red" or heading towards that direction, in any process improvement on the list, it may need some discussion and action.

I feel, celebration of each collaborative milestones along with customers can be a key contributor. Correlation of Dependencies and contexts need to be clearly called out along with accountability. It will help unnecessary delegations to be eliminated.

Work-Life Balance Support: Recognize the importance of work-life balance in a hybrid work environment and provide support to employees to maintain it. Encourage boundaries between work and personal life and offer resources such as mental health support and flexible scheduling options. Flexibility and Adaptability: Recognize and appreciate employees who demonstrate flexibility and adaptability in navigating the challenges of hybrid work. Rewarding and acknowledging such behavior can motivate others to follow suit. Regular Check-ins: Schedule regular check-ins with employees to discuss their progress, challenges, and any support they may need.

A retrospective is an excellent tool for self-evaluating because it incorporates both attention for things that are going well and results in actionable items. Teams are encouraged to adapt ownership of their shared responsibilities. This tool works best when executed on regular intervals. Another tool that can be useful when combined with the retrospective, is the Four F Method (Facts, Findings, Feelings, Future). The latter is a bit more open to address also the social aspect of a team.

GO SEE THEM! Take them out to eat and learn about them. Don’t talk about work, learn who they are, what they’re passionate about. Joke around, be vulnerable. Make a connection. We’re social animals and not meant to be isolated. Trust and productivity will flow much easier if they can see you as another human with the same flaws, insecurities, goals, and personal and professional challenges.

One thing which is very important is to understand the importance of coaching. While I was discussing this with my SLT, one piece that goes missing is the professional coaching and exposure that the teams get when they work alongside the experienced mentors, in the same premise. It hence becomes important to develop hybrid operations in a way this element is not missed out.

As a leader, demonstrate commitment to the team's goals and values through your actions and behavior. Model effective communication, accountability, and adaptability to inspire confidence and trust among team members.

Some members of so-called Virtual Teams HAVE TO be on-sight and often miss out on the benefits of hybrid working. Such employee groups can also be missed out in policies designed to protect employees. For example engineers, cleaners, and security personnel etc. that had to report to physical workplaces while others worked virtually during the Covid lock downs. To limit the risk of (unintentionally) excluding and alienating members of the Virtual Team who HAVE TO work differently to others, consider the following 3 questions: 1. Is our team culture inclusive of everyone? 2. What about the culture needs to change to enable everyone to feel genuine Belonging? 3. How will WE know when we've succeeded in improving our culture TOGETHER?

Aus meiner Sicht gibt es keine wesentlichen Unterschiede ob Teams vor Ort oder Remote oder eben hybrid arbeiten, solange Menschen wertgesch?tzt werden. Mitunter das Wichtigste ist immer Transparenz die auf Augenh?he kommuniziert wird. Auch helfen klare Strukturen und definierte Rahmenbedingungen in denen sich das Team und die/der Einzelne frei agieren k?nnen und somit safe sind. Alles Andere wurde schon in den Punkten 1-6 erw?hnt.