Managing hybrid teams? Don’t do it the wrong way
If you’re a manager of a hybrid team, COVID just gave you a great opportunity at being better at what you are doing by looking out for an unconscious behaviour that could well be a pitfall.
Regardless of the position you are holding inside of your company, you probably have a manager. More or less skilled at what truly living a manager’s role means, you have someone who is there to manage you, your work and your career path. They might be there to also exhibit a leader’s traits (if you are lucky) or they might not, bottom line is that even in organisational systems which advertise themselves as flat, there’s always going to be someone above you when talking about a chain of command.
A bit of background
I’m working in the IT industry since 2009 and had my first job with management responsibilities in 2013. Having found a lot of joy and satisfaction in this, I’ve went down this path while always looking for the next challenge, the next step or the next way in which I could improve what I was doing. I’ve started asking myself what’s the difference between being a leader and a manager as I’ve seen those two as inseparable when it came to my day to day activities. While some companies might differentiate between the two, I’ve seen people who are managers but not leaders, leaders who don’t manage anyone or people who wear both hats at the same time.
Ever since I took the plunge, I told myself one thing, which I am still keeping true to this day and will continue doing so until the rest of my career:
I’ll always strive to be the manager I wanted to have
This helped me build truly necessary interpersonal skills such as empathy, genuine care or selflessness (among others). Does this approach work well for all the people you are managing? Maybe yes, maybe no, but I can assure you that it brings a net positive impact.
Being in a position of leadership is not something you get promoted to, it is a choice, it’s a service that you give, it’s not a rank or a level that everybody will get to eventually if they work hard enough and put in that elbow grease. If you’re a leader, you already know this position is not about being in charge but rather taking care of those in your charge.
What now?
If you’re finding yourself in the situation of managing a hybrid team, COVID has given you a great opportunity of becoming an even better manager. But how?
Regardless of the team setup you had before, it’s an undeniable fact that while most of the teams (if not all) moved to a fully remote way of working when COVID-related news were all that you could hear or see the media talking about, these days it seems the worst is in the rear-view mirror and curfews or mask-wearing mandates are seen as a thing of the past, just another nightmare.
For our teams and companies, that means that we’re either all back in the office or enjoying a hybrid or even a fully remote way of working. Is it good? Is it bad? Depends on your perspective. While some colleagues might’ve discovered the joys that working from home brings, others were counting the days until they could be back in the office. More often than not though, our teams have naturally found their way to a hybrid setup, where some colleagues frequently go to the office while others are working remotely (often from places that are far away from the office).
New challenges for interaction and commitment
As a manager, this has brought new challenges. A lot of questions might’ve gone through managers’ heads such as: How to keep everyone still fully engaged within the team and with the company? How to make sure I am actively caring and looking out for them? How to ensure that they have everything they need in order to naturally excel at their day to day? How to guarantee that if I have a mixed team of on-site and remote people, they are all treated fairly?
This last question is key and the reasoning is very simple:
If you are not treating all your team mates as if they were remote, you’re not creating an equal environment for everyone
Having people in the office that you could have a coffee break with or just walk to their desk to pop a question is definitely very comfortable and easily one of the perks of being on-site, you do it unconsciously because it’s right there. What happens with the members of your team who are remote? How do you ensure you are treating them fairly and the same as your team members who you’re maybe going out to have lunch with? How do you make sure that you are not (even without knowing) creating favouritism?
We all can reflect on occasions where the people we sit near are the people we know the best and feel the most kinship to — Ali Shalfrooshan
It is paramount for you as a leader to develop new ways of collaborating with all members of your team as to create a level playing field for everybody. The last thing you want to do is not be aware of the ways in which you are engaging your team members, regardless of their location. Does that mean putting in the extra work to ensure all members of your team are treated equitably? Definitely, without a doubt.
There might not be a clear cut blueprint that you can just copy paste so encouraging an open discussion to see what your team mates are struggling with is advisable and could serve as a great starting point in your journey. Make sure everyone gets their opinions voiced and you are dutifully taking down notes and organising all feedback your team mates are providing you with. This is invaluable as it’s giving you the list of issues you’ll need to actively commit to solving, right there on a platter.
But don’t just draw the line there, keep your team mates well informed of how you’ve prioritised the issues they’ve taken the time and effort (and sometimes even courage!) to come up with, make sure they have full visibility and transparency on the roadmap and progress of how their issues are treated. Being able to provide them with these items will undoubtedly also further develop your team culture and strengthen already formed bonds.
In the end, it’s everyone’s equal interest to contribute to a fair workplace but it’s your job as a manager to guarantee these steps towards a high performing hybrid team are taken as quickly and as surely as possible.
What’s next?
While “visible” team mates might have had an upper hand before, it’s important to focus on objectively measuring outcomes and not on rewarding the people you spend more time in the same physical location.
Make sure that you are actively working with your HR representative in order to have diversity, inclusion, equal chances and objectivity as non-negotiable items when it comes to quarterly reviews, promotion committees or other ceremonies your company might have that are designed to support your colleagues in developing their personal and professional selves. HR processes might sometime be hard to change or influence but it’s a leader’s commitment to the team to explore all ways possible for making the different company-wide (more or less frequent) processes as impartial as possible. Wherever you see an opportunity to mitigate a possible risk, take it and make the most out of it.
Conclusion
Being a manager during these times comes with its brand new set of challenges and proactively looking out for new ways of safeguarding our team and company culture should be definitely on our list of priorities as managers and leaders (or both!).
If you’d like to get in touch on any of the subjects above or about leadership in general, I’m always reachable through my LinkedIn profile. Drop me a line! Whether you had a similar or totally different experience, I’d love to hear about it.
