5 Tips For Leading Hybrid Teams
It seems the advent of COVID has caused no end of changes to our lives.
Face masks have become commonplace, social distancing is now part of the everyday lexicon (although physical distancing would be more accurate) and working trends have materially shifted.
It would be easy to assume these changes are negative.
However, I would argue that’s not true for our working practices. The acceptance by “big business” that remote working is not only possible, but also results in business continuation (or even uplift in cases) is quite a revelation.
Having been a strong supporter of remote working since 2014, this material shift in working trends is very pleasing. The 9am to 5pm working day is an outdated concept and derives barely 3–4 hrs of productive time; if a company is lucky. This unproductivity is often masked by presentism — the biggest bain of any company’s existence.
With the rapid shift to remote working many companies were caught unprepared.
Technology teams worked overtime to implement collaboration tools (Microsoft Teams, Zoom), establish robust connectivity, and facilitate a seamless transition to dialling into meetings from your kitchen not the boardroom.
It was, quite simply, an enormous feat that deserves serious acknowledgement.
Unfortunately, not all is rosy.
The shift in working styles, now requires a greater level of leadership and management. No longer can the practices ‘of old’ be applied in the same way and expect the same results.
It is not uncommon for executive teams to attend courses at Henley Business School or such like, to learn how to effectively lead and manage. This acknowledges how important getting people management right is.
It is easy to say but hard to do (right).
That’s why I am worried.
Most managers are not ready or trained in how to lead remote teams, or the further complication of hybrid teams.
In much the same way, applying the same approach from a previous role to your new job will end in disaster (think copy & paste), applying ‘in office’ management practices to remote staff is also an accident waiting to happen.
Being open to change is the first managerial step and adopting a growth mindset is the second.
With that in mind, here are my 5 top tips for leading a remote workforce:
1. People Don’t Get Jobs To Learn How To Trust Someone
Just because you can’t see your staff doesn’t mean they are not working.
Gone are the days where being on-site means you are working hard. In fact, that was never true just ask any management consultant — the chances are they have been working on a different client whilst sat in your office!
You have employed your team members because they are skilled professionals, capable of managing their workloads and making a valuable contribution to your organisation. So why do you think that just because you can’t now see them, all this will change?
(Hint: it won’t.)
As a leader, you need to empower and trust your team to deliver. The fact we are no-longer sat in offices reinforces the shift from time-based working to output based working. Producing work of a high quality on time is more important than being sat in an office for 12 hours producing mediocre work.
Fundamentally, if you are struggling with trust issues, it means you made a bad hiring decision. And that’s on you.
As DHH and Jason Fried write in their book Remote, “either learn to trust the people you’re working with or find some other people to work with.”
2. The 9am to 5pm Working Day Is Dead
The world is constantly evolving; computers are help push innovation at breakneck speeds, attitudes are changing for the benefit of others and smartphones are getting ever more powerful.
There is one area, however, which hasn’t evolved…and that is the working day.
The 40-hour working week was established by Henry Ford in the Industrial revolution to stop employees from working 100 hours per week.
This was regarded as being ground-breaking back in 1926, but not anymore.
The working day has not changed in almost 100 years, but the world has changed enormously.
Why do we think working practices established in the 1900’s are still applicable today?
The answer is they are not.
Remote working has shattered the working day norm.
Gone are the days of climbing onboard a crowded commuter train early in the morning venturing into the office. Only to be greeted by colleagues, make a cup of tea, get settled and prepare for a day in the office.
Remote working means work fits in around life.
If you need to take your child to nursery, you can. If you need to collect a prescription from the pharmacy, you can. If you want to go to the gym during the day, you can.
In return, remote workers are often online longer.
Completing work into the evening is less daunting when you don’t have a sh*tty commute to experience too.
It is widely accepted remote workers are more productive than office workers — research proves companies are lucky to get 3 or 4 hours of productivity from employees in an office. This doesn’t feel like time well spent to me.
As a leader, remember, just because you can’t see your team, doesn’t mean they are not being productive (for longer).
3. All, All Of The Time
When you have hybrid teams, there is a very real danger work can be delayed due to waiting on input or decisions from key individuals.
This is a common argument as to why remote working doesn’t work.
Thankfully it is flawed.
Hybrid teams need to have access to all the documents all of the time. If you are in London but need to wait for Jonny in San Francisco to come online before being able to access key details, that’s a good half day wasted.
Fortunately, this is where technology can help solve a problem.
Having a centralised store based in the clouds to put all relevant files, discussions, action lists etc means the teams can keep working.
Small tweaks such as having shared calendars, common repositories and changing working practices will all lead to keeping productivity high across hybrid teams.
Whether it be Dropbox, One Drive or P Cloud, making all the important documents available all of the time, is a huge but necessary to getting stuff done.
4. The Work Is What Matters
I am an ardent believer that the 9 to 5 working day is an outdated & flawed concept, as argued previously.
That’s why remote working is a breath of fresh air.
Why you ask?
Quite simply, when remote working, the work itself becomes the yardstick by which performance is measured.
- No longer is presentism the barometer for performance.
- Schmoozing goes out the window.
- The bullsh*t associated with being the office is now null and void.
In it’s place, the question becomes ‘what did they do today?’ rather than ‘what time did they get in?’.
This is an important shift.
As a leader, you are now focused on helping your team be productive and evaluate the work directly. Frankly, you get to focus on the thing you are paying this team member to deliver and ignoring all the stuff that doesn’t really matter.
5. Level The Playing Field
The biggest danger in leading hybrid teams is the disparity in how teams are treated. The adage of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ can far too easily ring true — this is particularly likely if there are only a few remote workers.
It is very easy to make your remote team members in a hybrid model feel like 2nd class citizens.
This could be caused by poor technology on team meetings, whereby those dialling in are excluded or can’t hear what’s being discussed. Alternatively, the team in the office constantly referring to discussions held in person yesterday which weren’t shared, adds to the unlevel playing field.
As a leader, it is your responsibility to make sure this doesn’t happen.
You need to create a level playing field both in and out of the office.
I fully acknowledge it is easier said than done, but please don’t let it happen.
One approach that works well, is for really senior people to work remotely. This shows that remote working is not just cheap talk. If the individuals with the power to influence how the business operates are experiencing the same challenges as those working remotely, a 2-class system is much less likely to happen.
Hybrid working along with remote teams is here to stay. I for one, am hugely excited about this having rallied against 5 days-a-week in the office for years.
The power balance is being reset with employees being treated more as equals by employers.
Should companies not appreciate this, I believe staff will vote with their feet and leave. This is can only be a good thing.
That means leaders need to bring their A game, especially when managing hybrid teams.
It’s not easy and many ‘seasoned’ professionals will need to retrain.
Change is painful but always bring about efficiencies.
If you are a leader of hybrid teams, please don’t presume the old school leadership techniques will still apply now.
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