Formium Development

Tag: remote working

  • Hybrid working: three gurus tell us how to thrive.

    Hybrid working: three gurus tell us how to thrive.

    The shift to hybrid working raises a wide variety of challenges and opportunities. Read on for some great ideas from business leaders that you can apply, and some questions for you to reflect on.

    “Working from home makes it much harder to delineate work time from personal time. I encourage all of our employees to have a disciplined schedule for when you will work, and when you will not, and to stick to that schedule.”

    Dan Springer, CEO of DocuSign to Fast Company, 2021.

    The discipline required for working from home is a new skill for many of us:

    • Would schedules help you combat the always-on culture?
    • What can you do to role model this best practice?
    • What else can you do to maintain this work / homelife balance?

    “The most important keys to remote work at a startup have been weekly stand-ups. At Hive, we all get on Zoom once a week to chat and give shoutouts to the team.”

    John Furneaux, CEO of Hive, in the Hive.com blog, 2022.

    Communication has been a key area of challenge for leaders:

    • How can you structure your stand-ups so that they are productive? The key is in the name ‘stand-up’ – keep it quick!
    • Would a weekly meeting suit your team, or do you need it more frequently? Many places have really short daily check-ins.

    “Success in a hybrid work environment requires employers to move beyond viewing remote or hybrid environments as a temporary or short-term strategy and to treat it as an opportunity.”

    George Penn, VP at Gartner, in HRExecutive.com, 2020.

    So many organisations are enduring hybrid working, hoping it will go back to how it was – or they are relying on the short-term fixes that got them through to now:

    • What’s your attitude to hybrid working – do you see it as an opportunity, a short-lived innovation or the long-term future? What impact does your thinking have for you and your team?
    • What about your team and your managers – what is their position?
    • Are there any opportunities that you are not yet realising?
    • What temporary fixes are you still relying on, that you could replace with better long-term solutions?
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  • 5 proven tools for leaders to break through the barriers of hybrid working

    5 proven tools for leaders to break through the barriers of hybrid working

    I’m going to show you how leaders can start to break barriers between teams with proactive methods.

    To be successful, we need our teams to work across our organisation: collaborating for innovation, communicating for efficiency and understanding different perspectives and roles.

    Problems had been identified well before the pandemic hit; I was regularly asked by clients to provide strategies and tools for addressing the internal obstacles.

    Unfortunately the rapid increase in remote and hybrid working has exacerbated the problem, and rebuilt the barriers that many organisations had begun to tackle. Survey after survey shows isolated teams, not appreciating the big picture, competing with each other.

    Some companies have responded by mandating a ‘return to office’ which have often been unpopular. Others assume that the approach they are taking for maintaining contact within a single team will also work between multiple teams and across divisions.

    In my experience, leaders can take action to break through barriers and build working effective relationships between teams. Here are just five:

    1. Coffee roulette

    Create a virtual water-cooler. There are loads of apps or technology solutions that will randomly pair up colleagues for a breaktime chat to recreate those happenstance conversations. Or just have an open in video conference call running at break times so people can drop in when they want.

    2. Touchpoint mapping

    Get teams to work together to review their interactions: explain the processes and revisit the information transfers from both sides. In just one short meeting, they’ll understand why George in Finance isn’t “just being difficult” and maybe they’ll find efficiencies and improvements.

    3. Point of contact

    In many offices you used to wander over to a team’s desks and ask questions of anyone who was around. For remote and hybrid teams, you could designate a contact point for general internal inquiries.

    This could be a specific person, or a duty system, but either way, publicise this internally so other teams know how to reach your team.

    4. Create a sense of purpose

    People, especially new starters, need to see the big picture and understand their contribution. Can you revamp your induction so this is clear? Can people shadow other teams? Undertake virtual site visits? Can teams provide video introductions to explain their role and interactions?

    Can you reiterate the organisation’s purpose and vision through one-to-one and team meetings – and explain how the success of an individual team is tied into the success of other teams.

    5. Charity activities, sports teams, interest networks

    When they are started from grassroots interest, these all have a great track record in breaking down barriers between teams.

    I’ve worked in places which had a wine club (!), netball team, table tennis competitions and regular charity cake sales. Organisations can help by promoting the activities internally, providing sponsorship / equipment or just giving a little time and a space.

     

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  • How to overcome the three key challenges of hybrid working

    How to overcome the three key challenges of hybrid working

    Of the many leaders I’ve worked with who are adopting remote/hybrid working, the vast majority wanted to explore the same things.

    • Logistics, space and technology
    • Delivery and performance management
    • Communication challenges

    Now these are of course central points which do need to be addressed. But working without being together every day has much wider implications for organisations, leaders and their teams.

    Here are three issues that I think many organisations should be considering, and some suggestions.

    1. Proximity bias: out of sight, out of mind?

    We have a natural tendency to like the people we spend more time with – but in a hybrid workplace it can be a big problem.

    There’s a risk that decisions on development opportunities, high profile projects or promotion chances are affected by the frequency/intensity of in-office contact with managers. This leads to poor decision making and damages morale.

    Also, if there is an overlap between team members who primarily work from home and those who are disabled, carers or anyone who doesn’t already feel included, then there is a significant organisational risk around equity and inclusion.

    Solutions: Avoid proximity bias by keeping everyone in mind.

    • When making decisions about allocation of work and development opportunities, don’t fall for the bias of ‘most in sight, first in mind’
    • Focus on individual strengths. What is the unique combination of strengths that each person has? Who is best placed to meet the task requirements?
    • Communicate opportunities fairly. Give everyone an equal chance by telling them by email/messaging and giving a deadline.

    2. Isolation: home working or lonely working?

    Plenty of people love remote working and cherish the self-determination and flexibility. For others however, the lack of consistent social contact can be isolating and impact on their wellbeing.

    Solutions: Tackle isolation proactively

    • Ask questions. Don’t end at ‘How are you?’ ‘Oh, I’m fine’ – be prepared to go deeper. Each person’s circumstances are unique and ever-changing, so don’t assume everything is always okay.
    • Use work activities to build and maintain links. Develop sub-teams, special projects and assignments, inter-team challenges, build mentorship pairs and triads. Align activities with people’s strengths for maximum effectiveness.

    3. Loyalty: are your staff connected and motivated?

    As teams are no longer consistently all together in the office, many staff – and the younger or newer ones in particular – report a lack of connection to the organisation. This disconnection can damage motivation, loyalty and staff retention.

    Solutions: Take steps to encourage engagement

    • Make people feel part of the organisation to increase motivation, empowerment and staff retention.
    • Communicate the purpose. Tell people how they fit into the big picture, what role they play in meeting goals – for the team, department and organisation.
    • Explore positive meaning. The organisation is not the building, it is the people who work there or benefit from it, or use its products and services. Actively talk to your team about the collective and individual contribution they are making and the difference their work makes.
    Photo credit: RF Studio on Pexels
  • Successfully manage hybrid team performance with 3 proven strategies

    Successfully manage hybrid team performance with 3 proven strategies

    It’s the big problem that everyone is talking about, according to surveys, research and my own conversations with managers. How do you ensure your team is performing now you no longer see them daily in the office?

    A common mistake is building over-complex top-down monitoring systems. The more you check on people, the less trusted they feel, and this impacts negatively on how they feel about you and their work.

    So how do you balance performance, trust and accountability?

    1. Clear targets so everyone knows what is expected

    It sounds pretty basic, but I’m still finding managers who struggle with doing this consistently and effectively. Get into a regular pattern (e.g. weekly 1-1 calls) where you agree the what, the why and the when.

    Using SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-limited) may be commonplace, and that’s because it works – but only if leaders put in the effort to define the sought outputs properly, enable high performance and define success criteria.

    2. Upward reporting to maintain accountability

    When it comes to monitoring the output, the key is for the team member to be given responsibility for telling you how they’ve done. This builds trust and accountability.

    You’ll need a simple structure so that you’re not bombarded with feedback from all your team members, and you can track performance consistently across the team.

    3. A coaching approach establishes and supports the culture

    A coaching approach is about people being more proactive, creative, engaged and empowered. Managers get great results from using non-directive conversations, focused on helping team members generate their own ideas and solutions.

    What have you found to be particularly effective in leading for high performance?

     

    Photo credit: Anna Shvets on Pexels