2024 marks four years since the pandemic changed the world’s way of working. Working from home became the norm for many sectors which had previously been 100% office based, with employees and organisations having to adapt quickly.
Since this enormous shift, some companies have remained in the ‘remote’ camp, taking the opportunity to reduce costs associated with keeping offices open – why pay for office space when people can work from home? – and others have returned to a mainly office-based model, with many organisations opting for somewhere in between.
The recent announcement by the Civil Service, one of the largest employers in the UK, that they were introducing a ‘60% of time in the office minimum’ policy for all employees, represents the zeitgeist, in that both employers and employees can see the merits of both office-based and home-based work, and many organisations have implemented a form of this hybrid-working model.
The benefits of hybrid working include reduced absence from work, increased employee wellbeing (and the associated benefits of this on productivity), reduced facility costs for employers and as an incentive to attract and retain top talent. But what employers can gain in offering hybrid working, they risk losing in the erosion of the company culture as a result of the loss of the physical core of the business.
In this blog, we take a look at why culture is still an essential marker of a successful team, and how to get the balancing act right in your hybrid team.
The Culture ‘Issue’ in Your Hybrid Team
Identifying, let alone improving your team or company’s culture can often be an elusive task. Many organisations opt to introduce satisfaction surveys and arbitrarily improve employee benefits in the hope of creating a ‘good culture’. But does this actually work? In my experience, organisations can offer as many benefits as they think will help, when actually creating a great company culture starts with the basics; it all comes down to the level of trust, respect and appreciation between team members. This is harder to elicit than offering some additional employee benefits.
The training sessions I run focus on highlighting and strengthening this trust and openness between virtual team members – when trust bonds are formed, people open up and are able to give more to their work wholeheartedly, and find themselves more ready to help others, to offer themselves for collaboration, to truly listen to others, and learn. Is this possible in a Hybrid team? Yes, absolutely.
The caveat to this is that creating these initial bonds might be slightly more difficult to manage if team members are working from home, but there are workarounds.
If you are planning on tweaking your team culture for the better, you should be looking for ways to bring your team together to give them an opportunity to open up, and to form the genuine bonds than run deeper than many surface level colleague relationships, and this does not necessarily have to include ‘in-person’ meet ups.
As a leader of a hybrid team, do not be discouraged into thinking that your team culture is bound to become, or has been eroded due to hybrid working. Hybrid working alone does not have to be the reason for a poor culture, in fact there are many organisations – both hybrid and fully remote – who are able to maintain a positive company culture, and this comes from the values, attitudes and attributes of the team members.
The Main Hybrid Culture Challenges – Explained
As a leader of a Hybrid team, you may come across these common challenges of maintaining a positive culture in your team – here is how to overcome them.
- Communication Barriers – tone and intent can be easily misconstrued via email or instant message, which are the main communication tools for hybrid teams. Aim to instil an ‘explanation’ culture in your team – instead of simply asking a colleague for data, explaining what the data is for and when it is needed by creates a conversational culture where colleagues are more likely to share information and feel positive towards workers they don’t meet very often in person, if at all.
- Invisible Colleagues – in medium and larger organisations, virtual meetings can take place with the majority of the participants having the camera and mic off. While it’s not always possible to have large team meetings where everyone has the opportunity to contribute, ensure that smaller teams within teams are having regular catch ups, where they are expected to contribute updates on their current projects/workstreams.
- The Hybrid Divide – When was the last time you evaluated your team’s working schedule – is the split of office and home working measured evenly across teams and employees? Have newer team members been given the same work from home opportunities as longer standing employees? If your hybrid schedule hasn’t been reviewed in a while, this could be unknowingly damaging your team’s culture. Prioritise reviewing your hybrid schedule, with a focus on fairness and meeting employee’s needs, to the best extent that the business can allow.
- Lack of Camaraderie – This can be the most difficult issue to overcome, as there is no real equivalent to the ‘water cooler’ in remote and hybrid teams, and efforts to encourage people to share personal updates in meetings can feel forced. To enhance genuine connections between your team, firstly, be a leader who encourages less formal discussions, always be ready to share your ‘outside of work’ self with others which can encourage others to open up in a smiling way. Additionally, sharing team members’ working successes and accolades each week can be a really effective way of getting employees to connect with each other on a deeper level. They might not actually be interested in where each other is going on holiday, but they will be interested to know the success of a certain project they have been directly or indirectly linked to and share in ‘work pride’ of the successes of their fellow teammates.
Finally
If you’re looking to improve your team culture or are interested in understanding the psychology behind why your team is acting a certain way, and how to amend this, get in touch. I work with leaders of teams to help them understand and improve their team culture. Because as a leader with an ever-growing to-do list, this is one of the projects that can slip down your list of priorities.
Head over to our blog, to read more articles in which I share further insights into team culture and a number of other leadership and team development topics. Or if you’d prefer to get in touch, click here to find out more about our culture-enhancing programmes.
Until next time,
Julia Carter
About Zestfor
Zestfor delivers training coaching and development programs and resources scientifically tailored to develop new and experienced leaders and their teams in technical markets – including Pharmaceutical, Life Sciences and I.T.
Our blend of in-classroom, online, and virtual live-stream delivery methods will engage and assure even the most introverted team members from the first meeting.
You can find out more about our leadership programmes here.
