Hybrid work environments, for many organizations, are the new norm. Some team members might come into the office some days (or most days) while others work from home or around the world. Some organizations have been doing things this way long before they needed to. But now, it’s become a necessity for many. It’s by no means a perfected art, especially for those who are relatively new to this way of doing things. But we’re here to help! Today, we’ll share some of the top tips we’ve heard for creating hybrid work environments that are successful, productive, and functional for your organization.
Tips for Hybrid Work Environments
Encourage socializing
“Encourage people to engage socially. Despite the numerous advantages of remote work, the most common complaint from workers was loneliness. Fostering team relationships via social hours, video chats, and virtual team-building events will keep your remote workers motivated.
Assign mentors to new recruits so that they have someone to turn to with inquiries and to help them become oriented throughout their first year. Plan in-person team or business getaways and excursions, if feasible, to deepen such bonds.”
Derek Warburton, CEO/Media Entrepreneur/Celebrity Stylist, https://mrwarburtonmagazine.com/
Make sure your hybrid work team has what they need
“Provide workers with the resources they need to succeed. Improving employee engagement and performance requires ensuring that people feel secure and empowered to accomplish their best job no matter where they are. Make sure your remote staff gets the tools and training they need to get the job done, whether they’re new hires or seasoned veterans.
Hardware or equipment requirements, such as laptops or corporate cell phones, aren’t the only resources and facilities available. Do your workers have a home office where they can work efficiently? Do they have access to opportunities for growth?
Don’t be scared to use your imagination. You may provide workers who don’t have a home office stipends for coworking spaces, or pay the expenses of sending them to business conferences and professional development courses.”
Dr. Michael K. Newman, CEO & Plastic Surgeon, http://www.drnewmanbeverlyhills.com/
Don’t overdo meetings
“You can’t book too many of them, and you certainly shouldn’t schedule them unless someone at the office needs to be in two places at once. I’ve found that scheduled meetings are effective for those brief bursts where we need to meet and discuss something. However, I’ve also found that when people feel like they are not being listened to, they tend to tune out and wander off into their thoughts, which is not productive. With a remote team, you need to be extra careful about making sure your group is focused.”
Lynda Fairly, Co-founder Marketing, Numlooker, https://numlooker.com/
Utilize the right tools for the job
“In order to keep both remote and in-person teams properly engaged and connected in a hybrid work environment, you need to make sure that you implement policies and make use of the tools and software that can benefit and can be used easily and efficiently by the members of both teams.
Putting the right policies into motion helps make sure that your remote and in-person teams are both given the attention and opportunities they need while the right software and tools make connection, communication, and collaboration easier to achieve.
To really use these tools to their full potential, you need to make sure that you choose and master all the right productivity, collaboration, and video conferencing tools effectively. Knowing how to set tasks and goals, control the volume of messages you send on communication and collaboration tools, or using features in your video conferencing apps will help maintain engagement and connection in a hybrid work environment.”
Simon Elkjær, Chief Marketing Officer, avXperten, www.avXperten.dk
Motivate your team
“As the one handling the employee engagement team in our company, I try to create fun things to do to motivate our small team. We’ve implemented monthly rewards where we do shoutouts and provide gifts or tokens for their job well done. We also have quarterly recognitions together with our big bosses.. Furthermore, we introduced incentives and game time., where we create daily incentives either by giving out simple tokens, vouchers, rewards points, or shoutouts.
We also do weekly games and provide prizes. We try our best to send out positive vibes to both our remote and hybrid employees. And we do have pets roaming around the floor on a daily basis for those who come to the office. Pre-shift meetings help to boost morale, especially when there are shoutouts from managers and coaching using the SMART method to establish clear goals.
We also like to provide quarterly feedback. We do send questionnaires so employees can freely answer and put comments in ways we can improve or what are things that made them happy. Our communication is very open. Agents can freely approach or message their supervisors, managers, and directors. We use a communication app that is easy and secure. Being in a telesales account needs to have an upbeat and happy environment. Motivating agents needs to be done daily and make sure to listen to their needs. This will help you to create more fun things to boost the team to be productive.”Jesse Thé, President & CEO of Tauria, https://tauria.com/
