Balancing the collaborative benefits of working in the same physical space with the focussed time and increased life balance of working from home, hybrid working seems like the ideal option for many staff and employers.
While there are opportunities, it doesn’t come without pitfalls. Whether it’s conflict over diary issues, managing individuals who have a preference for one way of working rather than the other, meeting the needs of clients and suppliers and making sure communication isn’t missed when people are coming and going, it can create an extra burden for managers to carry.
This practical 90-minute webinar raises awareness of the benefits of hybrid working, what goes well and things to be aware of and avoid. Participants explore scenario-based discussions, peer sharing and facilitated activities to improve their confidence in managing people who are hybrid working.
This session can be supplemented with targeted follow-ups including Remote Management, Staying Connected when Working from Home and actor-led practical workshops like Virtual Performance Conversations.
- Understand what hybrid working is and how it works
- Articulate what successful flexible working looks like
- Build strategies to communicate effectively with a hybrid team
- Explain key considerations for creating and maintaining effective hybrid teams
- Analyse levels of motivation and engagement and take action
Webinar outline
Designed as a highly interactive 90-minute webinar.
1. What is hybrid working and how does it work?
- Facilitated discussion of the benefits and opportunities for hybrid working
- Participants share their experience and consider what a good hybrid environment looks like
2. Considering the pitfalls
- Participants explore a series of scenarios to identify common problems that come up when hybrid working, eg, missed communication, reduced team time, managing performance and diary management
- In groups, participants consider how they might manage some of these situations effectively
3. Communicating in hybrid
- Making sure you don’t communicate only with those whom you can see
- Running effective team meetings when some are physical and some are remote
- Creating a consistent way of communicating that everyone is happy with
- Group discussions and sharing
4. Performance in hybrid
- Being clear about what good performance looks like and managing this when people are in and out of the office
- Ensuring you set expectations for hybrid working and role-model the behaviour, eg, giving enough notice, not missing important meetings, not booking face-to-face meetings on remote days
- Raising performance issues virtually
5. Checking in with your team
- Is the hybrid balance working?
- How are levels of motivation and engagement?
- How to check in with your team and make changes to improve the working balance and harness the benefits of hybrid working
6. Next steps
- Participants discuss how to take their learning forward including how they could learn about effective hybrid working approaches from other sectors
