How to Lead a Team Working With a Hybrid Model?
After the Covid-19 pandemic, chaos started in the world, a number of businesses were closed, some of them changed their working style, and others decided to fight and overcome all the challenges.
The situation was different with the employees. Most of them started to look for other jobs, to change professions, finding one that could also be done remotely.
The hardest part at this stage was for team managers. They had the task of retaining the team, carrying out all the assigned projects and at the same time they had to take into account the interests of the business and possible financial fluctuations at that stage
Now that the epidemic situation has stabilized relatively, the managers have a new task to lead the team. Now teammates are starting to work on different schedules: some of them spend the whole working day in the office, some spend half of the day, and some work remotely.
Here, a problem arises in leading the team correctly and productively in such a situation.
However, hybrid work has already entered our lives and it is time for leaders to start planning what their hybrid organizations will look like and how they will be managed.
Motivation and psychological needs
A major challenge facing hybrid teams is physical space. A leader who succeeds in bringing people together may struggle to achieve the same cohesion when 60% of their employees work from home.
As a rule, to restore the level of participation in the office environment, it is necessary to return to the basic activities that ensure high engagement. In other words, it requires returning the level of satisfaction of basic psychological, mental and physical requirements of employees.
Effective work requires the satisfaction of three basic needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
Without them, productivity, motivation, and engagement will decrease. More specifically, teams whose leaders do not provide these basic needs are doomed to failure.
If these 3 basic needs are not met, the team quite often loses functionality very quickly.
Strategies and solutions
For managing hybrid teams, it’s ideal to have a robust suite of solutions in place.
Generally, it is necessary to make changes to meeting procedures and arrangements that support the resolution of emerging issues.
Monthly, weekly and daily strategies help the team to work clearly and planned, regardless of location.
Autonomy
Autonomy can be defined as the need to feel ownership of one’s work.
The main challenge of promoting autonomy in a remote work environment is the same as in the office employees need realistic and personalized goals, strong support and clear responsibilities. However, a hybrid environment adds another layer of complexity, as it is easy for someone outside the office to be disconnected from the team both socially and operationally.
The best solution here is to create useful boundaries within which employees can discover their own potential.
First: Start working with team members by setting new and realistic work schedules that take into account their time demands.
Second: set specific short-term goals so that individual team members have the opportunity to self-determine.
Third: openly discuss appropriate forms of supervision, support, and accountability. Finally, it can be helpful for employees to set their own standards for success when working from home.
Eligibility
Competence has two main characteristics: a sense of control over immediate outcomes (such as a single project, meeting, or task) and professional expertise.
Both are enabled by leadership best practices, the most fundamental of which is to provide opportunities for small to large wins.
They can arise from the initial work of the program, on condition that it can be broken down into regular (e.g. daily) chances of success.
Offer the “individual changes for success” formula: independent research, solving complex problems or side projects to support the team. This will help them develop responsibility and the ability to treat work with greater love.
A second important support for competence is perhaps the provision of apparently positive feedback both privately and publicly.
Spend enough time on this to make feedback truly personal, recognizing talent and potential alongside experience and productivity capabilities.
Third: work with other elements of the organization to provide clear pathways for personal and professional growth. This may include training, development programs, additional financial support and similar tools.
Relations
In hybrid work scenarios, perhaps the most dangerous psychological need is relatedness, a basic sense of connection with colleagues.
Leaders have an important job here. setting aside meeting time to discuss work and non-work topics of personal interest.
There are clearly defined days and hours for discussing work topics, and communicating individually with teammates can help not only in the implementation of working relationships and functions, but also in better understanding individually, finding common interests and, thanks to them, creating strong and quality interpersonal relationships.
Besides, you should ensure that team members have an active voice in both decision-making and team building. This can help in developing new ways of conducting meetings to take into account the characteristics of hybrid work. However, it also means soliciting input and feedback from every member of the organization on a regular basis, resulting in a team where employee schedules don’t matter, as the team connection and environment will inspire everyone and increase productivity.
Thus, the hybrid model allows leaders and teams to move forward more easily through difficult times, thanks to a shared understanding of each person’s role in physical and virtual environments, as well as investments in the processes and management systems mentioned above.
The hybrid work model gives organizations a powerful tool to organize their work. However, leaders must soberly assess organizational performance and develop team effectiveness via motivation, evaluation, and coordination tools.
