Many organizations have explored and experienced the advantages of hybrid work: better flexibility and life balance, along with reduced commute time. For employers, hybrid provides an edge in recruitment and retention, and allows them to source talent globally. However, some companies are finding the current economic environment challenging—with layoffs, the economic downturn, and global insecurity eroding performance. Leaders report their organizations seem more fragmented and teams seem to be losing the momentum gained during early days of hybrid work, and leaders are considering doing away with hybrid work entirely. It’s time to rethink hybrid work. Begin with these four steps:
1) Evaluate opportunities for improvement (OFIs). These OFIs will vary from organization to organization, but here are a few that I’m hearing most frequently:
• Inadequate hybrid planning. Some organizations have requirements for number of days at the office, with some requiring five, three, or two days per week. Many employees tell me it doesn’t make sense for them to commute an hour or more to the office to find that team members are not necessarily there on the same days, and the employee must spend the day on Zoom, Teams or Slack wondering, “what it’s the point? This is what I do when I work from home.” Instead of creating some arbitrary requirement out of “fairness,” hybrid planning needs more thoughtfulness and should be designed to support performance.
• Too many priorities. Both managers and their direct reports complain of too many conflicting priorities now that layoffs are common and some companies’ hybrid planning created more silos, not fewer. Employees are burned out and many hybrid teams have lost some of their effectiveness.
• Too many meetings. Employees are voicing concerns about too many meetings, draining their time and energy, taking away much of the advantage of hybrid work.
• Proximity bias: For managers who tend to manage in pre-COVID ways, there is discomfort with not seeing employees day to day, and they may be inexperienced at creating new ways of collaboration. This leads to unconsciously favoring employees they see more often, regardless of an employee’s output. On the flip side, employees feel disadvantaged and stressed when they work from home, fearing they are being left behind when it comes to coaching, feedback, and promotion opportunity.
2) Evaluate and improve asynchronous work.
Regardless of OFIs discovered during assessment, make a deliberate attempt to review and improve asynchronous work. Asynchronous work provides some of the organization’s strongest advantages for hybrid work—respect for employees, flexible work, improved wellness and work-life balance, better morale, and higher energy for work. Managers may feel uncomfortable with losing control, but results-oriented does not equal control-oriented. My clients often have certain times of day or week for same-time interactions at appropriate times, and other work time may be discretionary. Some employees do their best concentrated work in the evening, some in the morning; some parents need to transport a child at 2 or 3 p.m. or run errands at midday. Not all work has to be done at the same time. Evaluating opportunities for asynchronous work for teams and individuals can strengthen your hybrid plan and reenergize employees and provide flexibility which is a plus for recruiting and retention.
3) Organize hybrid schedules more effectively.
Most in-office schedules can benefit from more conscious and purposeful planning to avoid the ghost-town office that many employees experience. In social networking and in face to face networking, one of the most frequent downsides I hear about hybrid work is “too many meetings.” That’s not to say we need to do away with meetings; we just need to be more purposeful about them. Too many leader-to-direct report meetings may be due to managers’ trying to lead by control rather than by measurable results, and other coordinating meetings may be due to inadequate collaboration planning and streamlined technology. Regardless of the causes, all employees should be educated and coached in meeting skills and practices. At the end of each meeting across the organization, one of my clients uses is a very quick evaluation where team members and attendees can do a “strengths and improvements” brainstorm about the meeting itself. This activity can uncover which parts of the meeting could have been eliminated through other means. And with better use of technologies, some meetings can be eliminated entirely.
4) Fine-tune performance management; prioritize results rather than activity.
To make hybrid work better, managers should have clear definitions of performance results expected from each employee and team. Schedules and activities are not nearly as important as results. The objective is to make sure to achieve goals and results. When employees are measured and held accountable via results and outputs, there is far less conflict and far more clarity. Employee performance improves overall, and the morale of leaders and employees alike gain ground.
Because the current business environment is very different from two years ago when organizations began implementing and experimenting with hybrid work, now is the time to re-evaluate, improve, or implement hybrid work to keep a performance edge or to regain momentum.
For a complimentary evaluation or 60-minute brainstorming session to help your organization improve hybrid performance, please contact me or message me in LinkedIn.