Changing leadership style when managing hybrid workforce

In every part of the globe, some of the employees have returned to their office, and in the meantime, some others are continuing to work from home; there are even some people that are doing both.?

Managing this emerging hybrid workforce will be a real challenge, but fortunately, new rules are being made to make this transition as useful as possible.

So, what do HR departments and leaders need to consider as they begin this transition and make their workers stay happy and productive?

Inclusion becomes even more critical.

Even if most of your workers aren't physically present in the office, it doesn’t mean they aren’t there as an equal part of your team. So inclusion is more vital and essential than ever.?

Everyone’s had a different experience during the Covid19 pandemic. People will be returning to the office with diverse personal backgrounds and possibly different viewpoints.

Make sure you have the needed open channels of communication, so your employees can voice their concerns or give feedback. Make sure all employees, regardless of their location, are participating in the company and team activities. Ensure that they don’t feel left out. Remind your workers that you are all in this together; it doesn’t matter if they are in the office or at home: each employee has a role in supporting the company’s unique culture in the next age of work.

Build a sense of psychological safety

The first step in creating psychological safety to make sure that the office workplace is safe and that employees feel mentally safe in returning to work.?

The present crisis has undoubtedly negatively affected many people, and this holds the possibility to manifest itself over time. Employers must be extremely mindful and careful regarding employees’ mental health and practice caring for people who are struggling or who have had a difficult time.?

Promote collective ownership

When returning to their physical workspace, employees must feel and be as safe as possible. It is the employer’s??responsibility and duty to ensure that all the essential anti Covid19 safety measures are in check around social distancing, health, and hygiene.

However, it must be required of every individual in your organization to share this collective responsibility for it to succeed.?

Every person in the work environment has a role in ensuring a safe workplace through their behavior. You workers must understand that you are all in this together; by helping one another, you can bring everyone together physically or remotely, but in both cases: safely.

Leaders to display specific skills and mindset to success in this new hybrid ecosystem

During the pandemic, leaders displayed skills like emotional intelligence and resilience to tackle the daily-changing environment. But the realities of today's hybrid workplace are quite different from what they were a year ago. And effective leaders must add to that the need to stay innovative in the competitive global marketplace, which requires them to manage diverse teams in both virtual and office 2.0 set ups. The Hybrid workforce model has given importance to some of the specific skills and mindsets every leader needs to succeed in this new hybrid ecosystem.

• Be visible:?As a leader, visibility is key. Not only is it vital that your employees see you, but also that you see them. Of course, this was easy in the past when everyone inhabited the same space. Now, you need to ensure you’re visible and accessible to both your workplace employees and your remote employees. This is a key factor in creating an equitable hybrid workforce. Visibility is crucial for transparency, recognition, and empathy. For those working remotely, it might seem that the employees working in the office receive more recognition for their work - or that they receive more direct guidance or are more likely to be chosen for certain projects. The easiest way to ensure you’re visible and accessible as a leader, is to run regular check-ins. Frequent contact via video technology is an effective way to maintain your visibility as a leader. This will give your employees the opportunity to ask questions and keep the lines of communication open and transparent.
• Agility:?Just like organizational agility is crucial to business success, leaders also need to be more agile. It's not just about how they make smart and effective decisions in a fast-paced and changing environment, but also how they stay focused on being efficient today and in the future. This skill set gives leaders the superpower to unleash all other competencies in response to various environments. To attain true agility, leaders need personal resilience and the ability to tune their leadership style to be more flexible based on each particular moment. The skill gives them the way to align, equip, and sustain change positively for their teams.
• Authenticity:??Authenticity and knowing who you are is fundamental to being an effective and long-standing leader. One will fail when trying to lead like someone else. There is no rocket science here. People will quickly recognize whether you’re being true to yourself or not. When you are authentic, you tend to inspire inclusively with emotional intelligence and strategic transparency. Authentic leaders engage and inspire others with integrity, intention, and a shared goal. But this competency requires courage, a strong sense of purpose, and willingness to be vulnerable.?
• Lead by example when it comes to wellbeing?:?With remote or hybrid working, wellbeing is paramount. When people are working remotely, they’re instinctively less likely to take breaks or to stop working at a set time. This is having a detrimental impact on wellbeing and mental health. Helen is clear that burnout has definitely increased since we’ve been working from home.?When we all worked in a workspace, the delineation was clear: we began work at a certain time, we had breaks, we had lunch, and we left at a set time. But what happens when your workspace is your home? As we transition into hybrid working, leaders need to be aware of the dangers of facilitating or ignoring an ‘always on’ culture. While this has been a risk to wellbeing throughout the pandemic, there’s now the added potential for division and unfairness.?One of the big challenges of hybrid working is creating an equitable workforce. If your office employees are?working within clearly defined hours and taking breaks, it’s crucial that you strive to achieve the same for your remote workers. The best way to combat this is to set clear parameters and to lead by example.?Reinforce the message that people should take breaks, and should not be working past a certain time. If someone is on a break or having their lunch, they should be given time and space to do that without being bombarded.?
• Accountability:?Even as a leader, you are answerable to higher authorities. But you are accountable to yourself first. Did you take ownership of that recent project failure? Were you honest about the likelihood of delivering on commitments? Answering these questions while being true to yourself will also promote accountability in your team, enabling a growth mindset. To become change agents, leaders need accountability and should demonstrate a healthy sense of ownership to empower others to do the same.?

In conclusion, Covid-19 pandemic has not “created” a hybrid workforce. It has only speeded the manifestation of an already-rising trend toward a mixed workforce.? Now we all are aware and agree that many of these changes are, in some form, permanent.?That is why employers and leaders can secure a perfectly smooth transition that is effective for all participants.?As a leader, empathy, trust, and setting the culture are always paramount. Now, as we move into this new way of working, these leadership skills have become more important than ever before. At its core, it all comes down to listening, observing, and responding. By listening to the needs of your employees and adapting to them in an agile way, you can create a productive, equitable hybrid workforce. During this process, every company's standards and culture will be challenged- see it as the perfect opportunity to build something better moving forward.