Team Building the Hybrid Way

Do you have a hybrid team? Do you have some people working from home, some in the office, or in dispersed locations? Do you have some in the office some days and others at home?

With a myriad of working arrangements, it can be challenging to be across where your team members are, let alone how the team is working together.

It’s critical, as the leader, to pay attention to how the team is interacting and working?with each other and with you?while operating from different places and spaces.

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Signs You Have a Great Team:

• A great team creates a supportive atmosphere where people are happy to take risks, say what they think, develop one another’s ideas, and commit to agreed courses of action—even when there may be, from time to time, differences of opinion. Some assertiveness and communication training may help in this regard.?Clear expectations and accountability between team members and between you and your team members will help the team know where they stand and therefore know how to be supportive.
• A great team accepts and values differences of opinion as everyone contributes their unique knowledge, skill and expertise to shared problem-solving and decision-making.Be sure to avoid any ‘us and them’ culture emerging.

• A great team will make sure everyone is included. Loneliness is a real factor when working from home. So when the daily or weekly?online team meeting kicks off, be sure that everyone has a voice. Pay attention to who is quick to speak up and who holds back.Encourage the more vocal team members to be mindful of the less chatty members; empower the more vocal members to invite the quieter team members to speak up. This will help those verbose members remember to make space for everyone and to listen.
• A great team will avoid making?assumptions about people’s work hours. Not everyone will be online every minute of the?day.Clear agreements on work progress milestones and expectations?will help you and others focus on the outcome rather than the process.
• A great team learns from experience—both its successes and failures. It reviews its processes and aims to constantly improve its own performance.?Honest, open feedback without the risk of ridicule or punishment will help team members feel safe speaking up.
• A great team ‘works hard and plays hard’, that is, its members not only achieve challenging objectives but also aim to try and enjoy themselves as they achieve them.Hybrid work often means the birthday cake morning tea no longer happens—get creative and explore ways to have some social time, some ‘water cooler/kitchen’ chat. Have a cake delivered to the person celebrating a birthday.Find fun challenges for the whole team to participate in; this will help the team build trust.

Keep the Community Spirit Alive:

When you were all together in the office, did you participate in any charitable giving activities?

You and the team can continue to build a sense of community through a charitable project even?while in a hybrid situation. So many fundraising programs are managed online these days, so it’s?much easier to make a difference as a team.

Not sure what charitable activity? Ask your team; I’m absolutely sure someone will have a suggestion.

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What is something you miss about the ‘old way’ of working when you were all together in the office? Share this with the team and set the challenge of how to re-invent it the hybrid way.

Let me know how you get on.

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