When Hybrid Working Isn't Working & 8 Ways to Improve It.

Almost all of us worked remotely for significant periods during the pandemic and proved it can be done. Many people find enormous benefit in flexible working arrangements, find it more efficient, and a lifeline when it comes to managing other responsibilities during the day.

That said, it’s also true that culture and community tend to suffer when teams don’t see each other in person. Harvard Business Review details some alarming data from Gartner in this article, indicating that only 25% of hybrid and remote workers felt connected to their company’s culture. Companies that have tried to turn this around have found that in-office mandates have the opposite intended impact,?with connectedness taking a further, decisive nosedive.

This shouldn’t surprise us. Many people don’t want to go to the office at all, and for good reason. There is an enormous amount of wasted time involved with working in an office.? Getting ready for work and commuting can take hours each day, and constant interruptions are rife in a busy workplace.? For people with caregiving responsibilities, being able to nip around the corner to get the kids from school is a godsend and takes less time than having a chinwag with Kathy from Accounts Receivable at the water cooler. There seems to be a pervasive belief among leadership that people are less committed when they are working from home.? For many workers, this isn’t true, and this characterization is deeply insulting.? This attitude can be enraging to?employees who are?working longer hours than ever from home, and struggle to turn off.

So, remote work appears to damage culture, but forcing people back to the office isn’t the answer. People?expect flexibility and will leave if they don’t get it. According to this McKinsey article, more than 80% of workers prefer a hybrid model to working on-site full-time. And 2/3 of those who prefer a hybrid model would seek out other opportunities if mandated to go back to the office full-time. So hybrid work seems to be a reasonable, middle-ground, that most people want.

So why are so many people reluctant to embrace a hybrid model, and go back to the office at all? It’s probably because there is no apparent benefit to them. Yes, we have evidence to say that being together promotes culture and connectedness, but simply being in the same building is not going to do that. If hybrid working is simply people coming into the office to do the exact same work they do at home - sitting and looking at a screen all day - then the benefits of being together are not going to be recognized.

If we want people to be happy about coming into the office, we?have to make it?valuable. We must spend our time together doing high-value work that makes progress toward our goals and builds connection and community. Here are 8 ways to achieve this:

1. Make sure your team isn’t on calls all day when they are in the office. It makes absolutely no sense to require someone to be in the office for work they could do better and more comfortably at home.?
2. Encourage your team to work together when they are together.? Innovation, idea generation, collaboration, process improvement, and planning are all things that are great to do together. Get your team to prioritize these activities on in-office days.??
3. Empower your team to say no to meetings on their in-person days and communicate to your peers and senior leadership that your team will be focused on making progress together on the day(s) you have in the office.
4. Have fewer days and more value: instead of requiring people to be in the office?3 or 4 days per week, make it 1 or 2, and pack those days making progress together.??
5. Redesign for progress, not updates. No more weekly update meetings.? These are great for managers and a waste of time for everyone else.? Instead of getting together to do an “around the grounds” of what everyone is up to, get everyone to write down those bullet points in a shared document the day before. Create an expectation that everyone reads it in advance.? Ask your team to highlight anything that needs the group’s help.? Those highlighted items, that require everyone’s input?and decision-making, form the agenda for the meeting.??
6. Get to know each other as people in a fun way.? A great idea that requires no budget and not much time is a potluck lunch where everyone brings a favourite dish, cultural dish, or dish from their childhood.? Everyone needs to tell a quick story about the food and why they love it, and you share everything.? A team member of mine did this with a wider group?and it was so engaging and fun.? We all learned about each other as people, had lots of laughs, and it was all delicious and so enjoyable.? It took 90 minutes and required 0 budget.
7. Be the change you want to see. Your team cannot be expected to prioritize the time together if you don’t. Blocking out your diary for the time you have together will send a powerful message to your team about your commitment to making these days valuable.
8. Iterate & Improve. Have a monthly meeting where you improve how you work together. Get together and review what’s going well, and what needs a boost or a change. Try new ways of working, and review those the following month. Keep fine-tuning until you are a well-oiled hybrid working machine.