In the blink of an eye, the pandemic has changed the way people work across the globe and brought about challenges for organizations and employees. One such challenge is an unprecedented hybrid work model comprising a geographically dispersed workforce. Building a bond and cohesiveness between all in such a set-up is crucial.
About 73 % of employees want greater flexibility, and 67 % seek in-person activity and collaboration post-pandemic, according to Microsoft’s 2021 Work Trend Index. However, hybrid teams are more challenging to manage than all-remote or entirely in-person ones.
As people slowly return to some form of the hybrid workplace, bonds that tie them to one another must be rebuilt and requires conscious steps from the part of the organization that goes beyond the usual employee engagement activities.
Here are four ways to address this issue:
- Make meetings more equitable: Organizing and running a meeting is easier when all the employees are in the office or working remotely. However, it gets tricky in a hybrid workplace, where by default, in-person attendees draw more focus. Due to this, there is a high chance that the virtual attendees are unable to actively participate. Hence, the responsibility rests on the shoulders of the meeting facilitators to ensure that all the voices are heard.
- Schedule interactions: When employees are physically present in the workplace, there are plenty of opportunities to have the water cooler talks. And such informal conversations are quintessential to improving the bonding between employees and also for cross-functional collaboration. In a hybrid workplace, such interactions can still happen, but they must be more intentional. In other words, hold ‘non-meeting meetings’ where the team could have the same ‘watercooler’ talks in the hybrid context.
- Plan for periodic offsite: Informal settings, away from the routine of the office space, can provide an incredibly conducive environment where the staff can interact and enhance cohesiveness between them. Organizations should encourage the offsite culture and have team offsite events regularly.
- Allow for vulnerability: One of the after-effects of the pandemic is that it has blurred the lines between work and home. The virtual meetings were often interrupted by kids barging in and dogs barking. They have helped in breaking the barriers between team members and managers. Giving employees space to improve their work/life balance is crucial to cohesiveness.
