Hybrid working – and the difficulties of getting it right – have been thrown under the spotlight again in recent weeks thanks to plans to introduce a new “right to switch off” bill.
The planned legislation would see organisations and employees agree set hours during which they could be contacted, with any communications outside that time leaving the employer open to potential tribunals and expensive compensation bills.
Four years on from the pandemic, remote or hybrid working is the norm for many desk-based workers but, as this move by the Government shows, it’s still a complex and difficult issue for many organisations.
In this blog I’ll take a look at why it can get tricky, and what leaders can do to ensure their staff are having a positive experience both inside and outside the office.
The challenges of leading a team remotely
For me, hybrid working is about far more than how many days a week you spend in the office. It’s a fundamental shift in changing our working lives to fit better with the society we now live in, the technology we have available to us and the balance we are all seeking.
It should create happier, more harmonious workforces, as people are able to adapt their work to fit their lives.
But, I think we need to be honest about the challenges as well as benefits, particularly for those who are leading remote teams.
A CEO I was speaking to summed it up well when they said to me ‘leadership is a contact sport’. They were referring to the importance of being in the office when it comes to building relationships, not only within your immediate team but also the wider organisation.
I’m a big advocate of remote working, when it’s possible and when it’s necessary. Flexibility is undoubtedly a key requirement of any good employer these days, if the job role allows it, but leading a remote team is tough. Things are much easier when you see people every day. Keeping people engaged and inspired, and reading the temperature of the organisation, is difficult when you’re not having regular face-to-face contact.
Building – and maintaining – trust
Maintaining a great culture remotely requires a lot of ongoing effort and persistence. It also requires trust, on both the employer and employee’s sides.
Technology that enables someone to be contacted at any time of day, or work from anywhere they choose, is great but we also need to be aware of the downsides, the potential blurring of boundaries, and the difficulties it may present for people when they want to ‘switch off’, both literally and metaphorically.
If working relationships are good, then the odd email arriving after 5pm might not be too much of an issue (if no reply is expected until the person is next back at work) but it’s when trust breaks down that issues like calls and messages outside of agreed working hours can become problematic.
We hear a lot about the fears that employees will use remote working as a way to hide from their responsibilities, that they’re not doing the hours they would be if they were in the office, but I think we also need to reflect on what it means for leaders, and the measures we need to be taking to ensure we’re meeting our responsibilities too.
Remote working is often blamed for poor culture in an organisation, but this cannot be used as a way to side-step leadership responsibilities. Poor culture comes from poor strategic leadership, no matter where people are (or are not) working, and leaders need to be accountable for this.
Communicating with remote and hybrid workers
There’s no denying it’s easier to build relationships with people when you’re in regular face-to-face contact with them.
Remote or hybrid working forces us to cultivate relationships, and the trust needed for them to be successful, in different ways.
Most of this comes down to boundary-setting. Employees have a more positive experience when they know what’s expected from them and what they can expect from their leaders. Any deviation from this is where distrust and discontent can begin to appear.
Other things you can do to keep trust levels high include:
- Be clear about why you’re asking for things – whether it’s a conversation or a task that needs doing, make it clear why you need someone’s time, and try to make it clear exactly how much time you’ll need. People often assume you’re going to be asking for a lot more than you are so will delay calls, meetings etc.
- Embrace differences – Ensure your team is working in a way where everyone’s strengths and weaknesses complement one another. When leading remotely these differences can sometimes make things tricky, but remember your team is your team because of the different skills they bring to the table.
- Give yourself time to build relationships – We can often be guilty of not giving ourselves the time to build relationships. Schedule time with people, even just 15 minutes, so you can say hi and understand more about what they do and how you can help. Approach these meetings from the perspective of what you bring to the relationship and how you can help them.
- Be careful not to micro-manage – Micro-management is one of the classic signs of chaos in an organisation. If you find yourself micro-managing, ask yourself why and what’s making you want to have that constant confirmation. When we feel out of control can often want to manage everything.
The importance of flexibility
Remote or hybrid working only works when there is true flexibility.
This is not about doing the same things we’ve always done, just from a different place some of the time. It’s about fundamental change in our organisations and embracing a new working era.
To get this right you must ground things in your values and behaviours and invest in line managers to help them lead.
People need to be trusted to work wherever they need to as long as tasks are delivered and relationships are maintained. Creating the trust within your team to enable them to do this, and to feel supported, requires leadership skills grounded in good communication and structure.
Policies and procedures need to be adjusted, and tools and technology need to be invested in to make this work well.
There also has to be one rule for all. We often see managers interpreting ‘rules’ differently which can lead to broken cultures, a feeling of unfairness across organisations and more distrust.
Invest the time in helping line managers get consistency as a team across the organisation while maintaining their own individual style. Help them navigate these conversations with training and development in difficult conversations and leadership skills.
My top four recommendations for helping embed hybrid working for the long term are:
- Identify the problems and understand what they mean
What are the biggest issues within your team? Frustration? Lateness? Never coming to the office? Could it be that people are struggling to get to the office because they have moved or due to childcare? There are lots of symptoms that may start to cause friction. You need to understand what is driving them on an individual level. - Align to your values and culture
Every individual, every team and every organisation are different. We cannot try to standardise by industry because there are simply too many variables. Are you guilty of trying to apply a ‘one size fits all’ approach to the flexibility you offer? Take time to work out, together, what people want and need, and what the organisation needs to be efficient. - Think about how your organisation has changed
Are you still trying to work in the same way but with some minor tweaks? Could you think differently about the options available to get work done? Just because it’s how it has always been done doesn’t mean it should be that way now. - Give everyone a voice
I always talk about ‘freedom within a framework’. Give people the chance to share their ideas about what they need. Make sure you obtain this information without a bias on hierarchy, team or individual, and really listen. Make sure your line managers are equipped for these conversations too.
For more excellent insight into this topic I’d highly recommend the book Remote Work by Chris Dyer and Kim Shepherd.
If you’d like some help improving the communications with your remote and hybrid workers drop our team an email on info@redefiningcomms.com
