If your company is adapting to working in a new hybrid environment, you are in the right place. Let’s learn about the key to a successful hybrid workplace, and how leaders from around the country are using communications strategies to develop stronger and collaborative teams across the workplace.
Give Your Employees Options
Jae Pak, Founder Jae Pak MD Medical
When switching from an in-office working environment to a hybrid model, your employees will probably need to find out which days work best for them to work from the office, and which days are best for them to be home. For an efficient hybrid workplace, most employees work three days in the office and two days from wherever they work best. This could be at home, at a coffee shop, or anywhere that your employee can be the most productive. Be sure to give your employees options when it comes to making their schedules, while also ensuring that teams set aside some specific days where they can still all come together in-office to collaborate on projects.
Promoting Collaboration
Jason Boehle, CEO QuaGrowth
When navigating a hybrid workplace with employees working from different locations, it can be more challenging to create a sense of community amongst employees. This is why it is critical to promote collaboration and communication across the company. Make sure to give your employees the means to share their work in real-time, even from different locations, as this will enable them to interact, communicate, and create the best product or idea possible. This will help to maintain a positive and close-knit company culture despite the distance between colleagues.
Set Clear Expectations
Cody Candee, Founder and CEO Bounce
The key to creating a successful hybrid workplace is about setting clear expectations upfront and letting your employees know what the expectations are for both in the office and while working from home. Holding group meetings with both sets of employees present is a critical way to keep your team united and will let them see how a successful hybrid work environment will function. Be sure to set guidelines, as you want both sets of employees to feel valued. This can be done by setting the expectation that performance and results are the same across the company. This will help to keep your employees accountable and will prevent anyone from feeling undervalued.
Redefine Productivity
Jeremy Gardner, CEO MadeMan
Productivity is all about the amount of, and quality of work that is done. For many employees, working from home can save hours of commuting time, which can now be time spent getting work done. Also, some people can get easily distracted at work. Whether it’s from socializing or the constant meetings, working from home in a hybrid model could help employees to stay focused and to get the job done sooner. This is not only more efficient but can also lead to higher productivity on a massive scale. Remember to focus on objectives and not the hours.
Promoting a Culture of Inclusion
Dylan Arthur Garber, Co-Founder Audien Hearing
Working from home or in a hybrid workplace can do wonders for your employees. Whether it’s a mom who now has the time to spend with her kids and cook them a healthy dinner, or a disabled individual who is going through health challenges, working from can provide wonderful opportunities that your employees will appreciate. In meetings, live transcriptions can be turned on, and meetings can even be recorded so that employees can watch them again later if they see fit.
Use Technology and Tools to Your Advantage
Ryan Rottman, Co-Founder & CEO OSDB
When creating a hybrid workplace, it is important to give your employees the necessary tools for success. Whether this is by offering new software training sessions to get all your employees caught up on the latest technology, or by creating a virtual office space where employees can ask questions and receive feedback, this can encourage remote collaboration among employees and help them to feel up to date on the tools they use for work. Be sure to take advantage of tools such as Microsoft Teams, Google Drive, and other cloud sharing software so that employees can give real-time feedback to each other
Focus on Communication
Marc Atiyeh, CEO Pawp
When you’re setting up a hybrid workplace model, you’ll quickly find that communication is a deciding factor in most of your successful outcomes. Be sure to carefully select both a project management app and a messenger tool, so that your team has access to all projects and can quickly and simply reach out to one another. Then, always train each team member on the features and specifics of each tool, so that they feel confident and supported when using them.
Have Top Security
Brandon Amoroso, Founder and CEO ElectrIQ Marketing
When it comes to working in a hybrid model, you must be sure that security is a top priority for your company. With hybrid work, your company’s information can be easily spread and shared through different devices, work locations, and connections. This is why you need security that can help to decrease your company’s risk exposure, by protecting all of the private information.
Create an Online Community
Jason Wong, CEO Building Blocks
The workplace is one big community and hub for employees. However, if your company decides to go hybrid, this does not mean that the community should go away or be distanced. Instead, this provides opportunities to build an even stronger community online, where employees can use tools like Slack to communicate and to form bonds with teammates.
Hold Weekly or Bi-Weekly One-on-Ones
Jared Hines, Head of Operations Acre Gold
In a hybrid work environment, it is important to spend time regularly checking in on your employees. This will help to nurture your employees and will help to keep communication strong throughout your company. If employees see their leaders making an effort to stay connected and communicate, this type of thinking will spread and will be better practiced by all. Holding weekly or bi-weekly one on ones is a great way to ensure that there is always an open line of communication amongst leaders and employees, and this will serve the people in your company well.
Encourage Visibility
Jeff Meeks, VP of Sales and Marketing EnergyFit
With the pandemic changing the way people work, Zoom has played a large role in businesses during the past couple of years. One way to help your employees to get the most out of a hybrid workplace is to encourage visibility. You can do this by normalizing web-cams during in-person meetings. Exposure and face-to-face contact goes hand in hand with inclusion and making people feel a part of something. Not to mention, this will help to level out the playing field in regard to fairness. This will also help to ensure that every person is equal, whether at a meeting in-person, or virtually.
Be Flexible
Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft
Over the past year, no area has undergone a more rapid transformation than the way we work. Employee expectations are changing, and we will need to define productivity much more broadly — inclusive of collaboration, learning, and wellbeing to drive career advancement for every worker, including frontline and knowledge workers, as well as for new graduates and those who are in the workforce today. All this needs to be done with flexibility in when, where, and how people work.
Give People Freedom
Sir Richard Branson, Founder Virgin Atlantic
We like to give people the freedom to work where they want, safe in the knowledge that they have the drive and expertise to perform excellently, whether they’re at their desk or in their kitchen. Yours truly has never worked out of an office, and never will.
Final Words
All in all, remember that the key to a successful hybrid workplace begins with communication, and is all about staying flexible. Be sure to take time and listen to your employees, and create a schedule that works well for your team. If you follow these tips and tricks, your employees will enjoy the change of having a new hybrid workplace and productivity levels should increase like never before.
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