It’s no secret that the professional workscape is changing. So many companies have moved to a hybrid setup where people can work from home or in the office, and some even work a little bit of both. Companies are spread out further as they don’t always need the employees to be there in person anymore, and it’s opened up a lot of opportunities.
With these opportunities and changes in the workplace, management also has to adjust. Working with a hybrid environment likely isn’t going away any time soon. So, how can you adjust to properly manage your team with hybrid capacity? We’ve got you covered. In this guide, we share tips to help you adjust your management style in this hybrid era. Read more below.
Table of Contents
Effective Communication
One of the most critical things that you need to adjust is communication. As a manager, you need to be able to effectively reach and communicate with every member of your team. How that looks could be different, but investing in the right tools is an important part of the process.
You need to be able to chat quickly and effectively with your team members, but you don’t want to have to Zoom every time you need to touch base. Email chat, such as Spike offers, is a great tool for this. Email chat basically gives you the ability to chat in an email interface. You choose your chat contacts from your email address book and chat directly through that web email service.
You can still send your typical emails too, but with the option to chat when you need to have a quick conversation, it just gives you more access to effective communication options.
Flexibility and Trust
With a hybrid design, your workspace is going to look a little bit different. Your employees will have some added flexibility, and so will you. It is important to hold your team accountable while also allowing them to do their job. You’re not breathing down their neck, and you can’t physically see what they are working on, but you trust that they are doing what they should.
This part of management is heavily about trust. You will need to check in and ensure things are getting done, but you also have the ability to be more flexible with your team members. Choose your staff carefully so that you can trust they are doing what you hired them to do.
Set up some markets and follow-ups so you can check in without feeling you are constantly monitoring or micro-managing. Building trust comes from finding reliable staff members, accepting their needs and abilities, being open with each other, and following through with promises. Create trust that works both ways so your team members can feel comfortable reaching out to you when they need to.
Take Time to Engage
One of the challenges of a hybrid workplace is that team members can start to feel disconnected from each other. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You will want to establish designated team meetings and conferences so that everyone can stay engaged as a team.
How you do this will really be up to you, but the idea is to bring everyone together. If you have the ability, try to meet in person from time to time. And if that isn’t an option, put video chat capabilities to use. Spike also has this ability in their applications.
Host regularly scheduled team meetings, and don’t make them all about business. In those meetings, take the time to connect with each other and just be present with each other. Everyone has to engage for this to work. Catch up with daily lives, play games, and have fun. Talk about business and projects some, but don’t make that the focal point here.
Ideally, everyone will turn on their cameras and be responsive at these meetings. It’s all about being present and engaged even when you can’t be together.
Final Thoughts
When it comes down to it, managing in a hybrid era is not all that different from a traditional workplace. It simply requires minor adjustments to manage tasks, build relationships among the team, and effectively communicate as well. Learning how to adjust your practices to accommodate this will make a huge difference.
Employees appreciate management that cares about their needs and strives to accommodate them as much as possible. Offer support, encouragement, and trust between yourself and your team members to make the most of working together in a hybrid world. After all, this is the new normal.