Be A Great Hybrid Team Manager

People managers have had to take on a lot more responsibility with the transition to hybrid work. They need a blueprint and toolset to deal with the additional complexities of building and managing a hybrid team.

Challenges managers are facing as we progress into 2023 include:

• Struggling to find the balance between a hybrid model that is best for the individual, and one that is optimal for team performance.
• Concern that their people are not all on the same wavelength about "the way we do things around here", and are not collaborating and delivering as effectively as they could be?
• Unease because their team feels less connected to the culture, the glue that kept them all together when everyone was in the office?

A definitive blueprint for hybrid management success

A hybrid work course can be an invaluable tool for a people manager looking to adapt to the new reality of remote and in-person work. A well-structured course and leading hybrid teams training should provide a comprehensive understanding of the benefits and challenges of working in a hybrid environment. A hybrid work course should help the manager:

• Understand how to effectively manage and lead remote and in-person teams by providing strategies and best practices for managing and leading a team in a hybrid work environment.
• Improve communication and collaboration among team members who are working remotely or in different locations.
• Use tools and technology to support remote work and hybrid teams, and how to use them effectively.
• Motivate and engage remote teams by fostering a strong team culture despite the physical distance.
• Provide guidance on creating and maintaining effective remote work policies and procedures.

Recognize the complexity of managing a hybrid work team

A hybrid work course should recognize the complexity of hybrid people management and deliver a framework that managers can apply to their team, whether they are office-based, remote or both. It should enhance the current direction and strategy that managers are required to deliver on.

Thanks to the transition to hybrid work, these three significant challenges, collaboration, team management and culture, are all landing on the manager's plate at the same time and it is no surprise that managers feel overwhelmed by the added responsibility.

Hybrid work means managers must double down on team collaboration

Before hybrid, collaboration was easier because we were all in the office 5 days a week. Being in close proximity in the office allowed things like a quick chat, brainstorming, watercooler moments and other informal communication to happen naturally. We could read the room and sense when there was an issue, or someone was down. These things are more difficult or impossible to replicate in a world where two or more days of your week are spent working remotely. Now, to achieve collaboration without hybrid work friction, managers must become more deliberate about things they used to take for granted before, like balancing synchronous and asynchronous communication, one-to-one meetings, community building and documentation.

Hybrid work means managers must manage differently

Team leaders have always had the challenge of balancing the needs of the individual with the needs of the team and the team's performance. But at least location has usually been a constant, the mostly-unchanging part of managing a team. The hybrid work manager now has the added complexity of managing several employee personas: there is the employee who wants to be in the office more, the employee who does not. There is the employee who has moved out of the city and has to care for a loved one. And there is the employee who wants to choose their days based on their children's school activities. Managers have to bring all of these people together on the same page and enable them to deliver together, to achieve the team's goals and targets? A hybrid work manager has a series of levers they can pull to achieve this: from focusing on outcomes versus inputs and being more transparent, to building social capital and being more of a coach, collaborator and facilitator.

Hybrid work means managers must be deliberate about developing their team's culture

Before the pandemic managers did not have to worry about being intentional about their team's culture because culture gravitated around the office. The remote work element of hybrid work means that our people do not experience culture in the same way now. People are feeling disconnected from their organization's culture because they spend less time in the office, are having fewer in-person interactions, are interacting less with their colleagues, and have less time for community building and social connection. And managers now have to do something about that.