Organizations are struggling to determine the optimal split for employees between in-office hours and work from home. Good employers want to build empowered teams and be intentional about setting and maintaining a culture of collaboration, they recognize the value of camaraderie and teamwork and they see the innovation that occurs over casual, unscheduled chats. At the same time, current HR trends indicate that talented and experienced employees value the flexibility to work remotely at least some of the time. The secret to a successful hybrid workplace is building empowered teams.
Remote Work Challenges
Wiley Workplace Learning Solutions, a global leader in education and research, and publisher for a number of Padraig tools, produced a white paper a couple years ago. They surveyed more than 4,000 individuals between December 2020 and January 2021 to understand how folks adapted to working remotely during the pandemic.
They reported:
- Nearly 70 percent said they struggled to maintain camaraderie.
- Staying connected with coworkers is harder, with 67 percent saying they feel isolated from other team members.
- Of those surveyed, nearly 40 percent said even basic effective communication with colleagues is challenging.
- Almost half of respondents said they feel disconnected from what’s happening with their team or the organization.
- More than 60 percent reported that having productive discussions had become somewhat difficult. (This is problematic because building good conflict — debate around ideas — is a characteristic of strong and successful teams.)
Remember these statistics don’t mean that working remotely is a bad thing. By the contrary, we learned surprising lessons during the pandemic that debunked remote work myths.
Their results uncovered that virtual teams had a gap in teamwork skills that made connecting and communicating well very difficult. The solution for leaders is to build empowered teams that are strong enough to work well together both in-person and remotely.
Bridging the Gap: How to Build Empowered Teams in Hybrid Workplaces
Here are some strategies that will help leaders build strong relationships and good communication skills for hybrid and virtual teams.
- Host a virtual meeting with staff to brainstorm and to share best practices with each other for staying connected when working remotely. (Pro tip: Check out our essential tools for facilitating successful remote meetings. There are various digital communication tools and platforms that facilitate real-time discussions, video conferences and virtual meetings.)
- Help your team members feel more connected by regularly sharing project updates, goals and expectations. Remember to acknowledge achievements and goals as they are met. Celebrate wins and provide feedback to the team to keep everyone aligned and motivated.
- Clearly define performance goals for your team, objectives and individual roles to ensure everyone understands their responsibilities as well as measurable targets.
- Implement collaborative tools and platforms for project management (our clients use Click-Up, Notion, Asana and Trello to name a few) so your team can work together towards goals, and see the progress. Using these kinds of tools also help to clearly define what each team member is responsible for and when it needs to be completed.
- Be sure to book meetings over live video with each member of your team to check-in with them and provide feedback because one-to-one meetings build a solid culture of engaged employees. Depending on the size of your team, this could be weekly, or monthly or somewhere in between.
- Dive into difficult conversations remotely with members of your team when they are necessary.
- Plan virtual team-building activities to foster connections among team members. Monthly meetings that include these activities and professional development workshops are excellent team building opportunities.
- When we work in brick-and-mortar spaces, it’s easy to gather in the break room or head out to grab a coffee, lunch or after-work beverages. Be creative and schedule virtual social events, such as team lunches or coffee breaks, so remote team members can interact on a personal level and build relationships beyond work tasks.
- Ensure that team members have the necessary resources and support to perform their tasks effectively. This includes access to technology, training opportunities and the ability to address any challenges or concerns quickly.
- Work with your team to foster effective communication skills. Our 14 strategies to avoid miscommunication with your team improve the quality of communication and how it is received. Empowered teams are more successful and efficient.
- Encourage work-life balance by setting clear expectations around work hours and promoting self-care practices. Watch for signs of overwork and overwhelm; if you see them, start the discussion to get to a manageable workload. This shows you care about their wellbeing and don’t expect those working remotely to “prove” their worth by doing twice the work they did when they worked onsite full-time.
Coach’s Questions:
What gaps do you observe with hybrid and remote team members? The biggest challenges? Are there strategies can you implement right away to build an empowered team?
