Managing Hybrid/Remote Teams Is A Key Capability, Are Your Team Leaders Ready?

The time to begin this journey is now

“Many of the workplace changes that were necessitated by the pandemic have become the new normal and…are likely to be with us in decades to come.” This is among the major conclusions of a January 2022 study by the HR Research Institute

The study also reports that “flexible arrangements,” i.e., hybrid and remote work, have benefits such as “reduced operational costs, the ability to attract top-notch candidates, improved diversity, and even higher levels of engagement.” Most importantly, this research identifies that training in leading hybrid and remote teams is characteristic of those companies that excel at “flexible arrangements.”

The study conducted in November and December of 2021, gathered 289 responses from mostly North American HR professionals across industries. This research followed up on a similar study released a year ago.

The 2022 study found that hybrid and remote “are now the most common types of work arrangements.” Seventy-four percent of respondents indicated they are likely to use remote work strategies, while sixty-five percent reported that they were likely to use a hybrid work strategy. However, while sixty percent of respondents claimed that their work arrangements had improved since 2020, just thirty-four percent reported that their corporate culture had improved during the same period. A slightly larger percentage, thirty-six percent, said that their culture had worsened during the past two years.

Preserving and maintaining the culture is what leaders do. Culture is their domain. More than one-third of HR professionals surveyed said that their corporate culture is worsening points to the challenges of leadership in a world of hybrid/remote teams. From the team level to the C-Suite, leaders are having difficulty adjusting their management approaches to the “new normal.”

The research data, however, shows that only a minority of managers receive the training they need in how to lead hybrid/remote teams. Thirty-one percent of respondents said that they were trained to lead hybrid teams, while only twenty-eight percent were trained in managing fully remote workers. HR professionals also indicated that training in this area is a growth market. Fifty-nine percent reported that “over the next two years there will be more training of managers on how to manage different types of work arrangements.”

When researchers divided their sample into two groups – flexible-work leaders vs. flexible-work laggards – they found that training in the management of hybrid/remote teams was a clear differentiator between the two. The research showed that flexible-work leaders were “more inclined to recognize the importance of some additional training on how to successfully manage flexible-work employees.” Thirty-seven percent of flexible-work leaders said they offered additional training for managing employees in a remote environment, while forty-three percent of this group offered additional training for workers in a hybrid setting. This compares with just thirteen percent of the flexible-work laggards who offer additional training for managers in hybrid or remote environments.

Observing these differences with respect to training, the authors of the study offer the following key recommendation: “Training managers are associated with greater success in managing flexible work arrangements….Consider building this into your organization’s leadership development.”

Companies that are excelling in this unfamiliar environment appear to have jumped ahead of the curve. They realize that hybrid and remote teams raise special questions that impact disparate aspects of performance, such as:
 

Based on research regarding the challenges companies face in hybrid/remote work environments, we recommend that training cover the following general topics:

It is never a bad time to review the basics of employee engagement, but this moment requires managers to be very intentional with their actions. One of the unseen benefits of the pandemic was an increase in belonging for companies whose managers expressed interest in the personal well-being of their employees. Showing you care pays dividends. So does providing access to developmental opportunities aligned with your employees’ professional aspirations.

Getting work done while working remotely is hard. Fostering a culture that rewards, not punishes, individuals for speaking up and voicing their opinions and concerns is essential. Managers must make it ok (and role model) to share their personal situations and challenges to effectively plan work schedules that account for each individual’s challenges and needs while getting important work done. Leaders must deliver on what they promise to (re)establish trust.

While this topic is focused on the need to increase both the frequency and transparency of communications, learning to communicate effectively in a hybrid/remote working environment with both introverts and extroverts takes some attention. Ensuring that the team has the tools they need to connect and collaborate is essential.

The most challenging aspects of the pandemic were the separation of team members and the ability to work when it worked for you.  There was no separation of work and life boundaries.  This has led to not only a lot of burnout but also missed expectations as calls for input or feedback were not immediately answered and people got left out of the loop when quick decisions had to be made. Establishing a formal team contract sets the standards for things like how quickly calls should be returned and how to keep everyone in the loop, as well as the team’s working hours, and agreements about hours when you are not expected to reply to workplace communication.

Managing proximity bias will be one of the most significant challenges for operating in a hybrid work environment. Ensuring that those in the office are not getting better opportunities than those working remotely will require managers to be very intentional about what types of developmental opportunities they provide to employees. This applies to big opportunities – such as working on cross-functional project teams with lots of visibility – and to small opportunities like receiving impromptu coaching because you happen to be in the same location.

The “new normal” characterized by hybrid and remote work, and other flexible arrangements are here to stay. The ability to manage teams and lead in this brave new world is a key capability. Training builds new skills that help managers operate more effectively in this new environment. If your organization has not yet improved this capability, the time to begin this journey is now.