Lessons From An Early “Hybrid” Work Adopter
It was late 2013 and I was just promoted to lead a department. Among many tricky elements to this position I had just taken, one was that most of my team was dispersed across neighbouring provinces. And so, being the at-times analytic thinker that I am, I set out to google how to lead what was then known as a ‘virtual’ team. Hybrid and remote work wasn’t anything any of us could wrap our heads around, and it was still almost a decade away before it would become part of our day-to-day vocabulary.
My google search didn’t yield much beyond a few formulaic listicles - general enough to click on, not specific enough to be useful. And so I set out to build this team, fresh off of a restructure and find my footing as a new leader.
Some bumps and bruises later, I found my groove through the trusted old friend that is experience. But then, in from 2020 through 2022, seeing the world adapt to working remotely, folks turn on their cameras on video calls, and take the odd meeting in pyjama bottoms I couldn’t believe how something so foreign had transformed overnight. Only to be that fresh-faced Operations Director in 2023 vs. 2013!
As I follow headlines ranging from big bosses ordering folks back into the office, to reports on top collaboration tools, to mental health advocates commentary on policies, I think back to my school of hard knocks, filled with trial and error on repeat until I found a winning combination that endured.
These are my lessons from being a forced ‘early adopter’ of hybrid work and virtual teams, complimented by more recent experience we have all been living in, and its application to the issues my clients continue to grapple with today.
The IT Factor
In 2013 I was rewarded only with a fixed landline in my office, and an embarrassingly bad cell phone plan. In 2023 this is basic stuff. Firms must have at minimum the industry standard for their employees, but really should be continually assessing and listening to what employees are indicating is important to get their work done effectively. This includes, at minimum, reliable VOIP phone which integrates between computer and mobile seamlessly, video calling capabilities, multi-screen set-ups and compatibility between various tech elements.
LESSON: Businesses that make the leap to stay on the forefront are the ones who win, regardless of where the employee is working. Productive technology is not the place to start cutting costs.
A Sense of Belonging
As I started to build my team across as many as four provinces, we first all worked out of the local office and were a dispersed team. Conventional thinking was that because each person worked ‘in’ an office they would feel a sense of belonging, right? Wrong. In fact, I had team members who had identical physical set ups in similar sized practices in different cities with entirely different experiences. The differentiator was the daily engagement - how and how often I engaged with them as the team leader, as well as the people who they encountered day-to-day.
LESSON: Being in an office doesn’t create a sense of belonging; people engaging with one another in a human-centric way does.
Culture Breeds Connection
Those who work primarily or solely remotely often get asked if they feel connected to their firm, with the expectation that they must somehow feel less loyal, less entrenched, and less a part of a bigger whole. Experience continues to show otherwise, and that an employee’s connection to a firm is not a singular function of their location. In fact, some of my clients who have significant contingents of remote employees show extremely connected, loyal and engaged teams. The differentiator? Culture. They are extremely clear and precise about their culture, and they monitor it, nurture it and invest in it constantly.
LESSON: Relationships and teams are about more than location. Understand, nurture, and invest in your team, office and firm culture.
The Dreaded “A” Word: Accountability
For geographically dispersed teams, whether it be across provinces or across homes in a suburb, “showing up” for work becomes more nuanced than being seen at your desk. Who is actually in the office and who is at home? Who is on vacation? Who stepped away for a couple of hours? Some may say it shouldn’t matter, but there are practical implications. For example, booking meetings, client calls, etc. Knowing who is available to support a client group with quick, on-the-spot questions. In 2023 there are technologies that facilitate these logistics, but regardless of tech, the key is understanding a common set of ground expectations and having a process for communicating.
LESSON: However a team or firm chooses to do it, having a process in place to stay informed as to your colleague’s working status is critical to mutual accountability and smooth operations.
We May Be Speaking The Same Language But Are We Saying the Same Thing?
Hybrid work has a few different dimensions of flexibility: location, hours, and time. Location refers to the place of work. Hours refers to the start and end time of the work day. Time refers to how many hours are worked per day or week. So for your team, where does flexibility start and end? Location only? All three? Is the lunch hour an ‘hour’ or is it flexible too? How much is up to each employee, team, or office? While Employment Standards legislation impacts some of these questions, a significant component is up to individual firm policy.
LESSON: Be clear on what is flexible and what isn’t - for the sake of operations as well as fairness.
It’s Not You, It’s The Job
I had some interesting requests over the years, including from team members whose roles are front-of-house and fundamentally tied to greeting clients, to request to work from home. In some cases, I was able to come up with creative solutions in the right contexts, but there was explicit recognition that not all roles are candidates for the same types of flexibility. If flexibility (however defined by a given firm) is important to an individual, they may explore other options for upward or lateral mobility as one potential win-win, but the bottom line is that when an essential component of a role is face-to-face client assistance, video calling in is just not going to work.
LESSON:
High performers are location-agnostic
If I had a dollar for every time someone tried to solve a performance issue by mandating more in-office time, I would be painting in a studio somewhere with no computer in sight. The bottom line is that a performance issue is a performance issue, regardless of location. And trying to remedy performance issues with office mandates is like putting a band-aid on a headache.
LESSON: Deal with performance issues the same way for remote and in-office colleagues.
Inclusiveness is a two way street
Some firms prioritize hybrid work without flexibility (i.e. each employee has set days in office and work-from-home). In these cases, individuals tend to become fairly entrenched in their routines, so much so that if there is an in-office demand on their “at-home” day, they decline it because it’s “their work from home day.” While this is a perfectly valid policy approach, it can result in a lose-lose situation because the employee doesn’t get flexibility from the employer, they’re either not willing to reciprocate it or they may not naturally think to do so. I had the most success when the middle managers were empowered to manage the flexibility in their teams so that there remains a level of autonomy at the workgroup level to make decisions that are best for clients, employees and the firm overall.
LESSON: Build in flexibility in both directions in the firm’s policies, entrusting managers to manage their teams accordingly.
For more information on hybrid work and how to make it work for your business, contact us.