Hacking Hybrid
This week we ran a hack as part of Learning at Work week to explore with 20 managers how we can manage teams in the hybrid world with the introduction of the Dorset Workplace framework.
Like many other organisations at the start of COVID, 2500 people relocated from the office to work from home and are still there 14 months later. Through the pandemic we’ve been surveying staff to understand the challenges and what’s working, and want to retain the benefits for our workforce going forward.
The Dorset Workplace framework sets out that work is a thing you do and not a place you go, and that we want to support more hybrid working so collaboration and working in real time can be done regardless of where colleagues are working from.
Personally I prefer ‘dynamic’ workforce rather than hybrid or agile which are the main terms being used at the moment, I think dynamic better reflects that there no longer needs to be a set routine in how, when or where we work.
Pre COVID, we had a traditional workplace with some people working flexible hours/days, working from home on occasion for quiet time, and working on the move. COVID changed our culture as we learnt to navigate the virtual world, experiment, and become more human-centred. Now we are creating something new, blending those two worlds together and this comes with uncertainty and might feel uncomfortable at times because we haven’t done it before.
At the hack session
We explored the new challenges we are faced with as managers, how do we:
- meet and collaborate with people inclusively?
- keep people connected with each other and the organisations values
- make sure as managers we are available equally to people?
- manage service and individual expectations?
- problem solve and learn when there is no-one sitting nearby to ask
- interpret feelings, emotions, and wellbeing when we can’t physically see people?
- ensure the technology works for us?
- manage productivity rather than presentism?
We identified what we wanted to keep from the virtual world as people felt:
- more included and able to participate
- improved harmony between work/life
- saved time from reduced travel – meetings, conferences, events
- trusted and empowered to get on and do their job
- able to have go without fear of the consequences of failure
- able to connect with teams and other services quicker and more easily to share messages
- better understanding of each other
Social contact is important for humans and people are missing face to face contact. Now it’s about determining when that really needs to take place and where it needs to take place as we no longer need to be bound to an office. One service is using the 3C’s to guide this – when you come to a crossroads, need to collaborate, or celebrate.
There are challenges around the pace of the virtual world, back to back meetings with no time to reflect and think. We need to learn to set boundaries and form new habits to manage our wellbeing as well as new ways of working.
There were some initial thoughts of what we can do as managers:
- Role model – be the change
- Trust first
- Talk to teams about what works for them – be open and transparent
- Encourage informal and formal communication channels (Teams/Whatsapp)
- Block out focus time in calendars and respect time of day for meetings
- Continue to regularly check in with colleagues
- Discuss where teams could meet up socially to start to interact in person again
- Share learning with other managers
- Continue to think about and experiment how to use technology to help
Real life user stories are being produced to help demonstrate the different ways people might work and share what is working well, but we don’t have all the answers. It’s going to be different, and we know we are going to need to have a go and approach the future with a different mindset.
We want to help managers be confident working in this hybrid world and are using the learning from the hack to develop a session with the help of Adapt2Digital and our managers to do just that.
