The Shift to Hybrid Work

Before COVID, we usually called this a “blended team,” or a “dispersed workforce,” or “just kind of a mix.” And now, we’re left with “hybrid work,” a more official-sounding term for this new norm.

What we call things matters, and most of what we call hybrid work actually isn’t true hybrid work. Rather than a strategic set of decisions that are about maximizing work outputs and getting the best from people, most of these arrangements are a compromise. Put frankly, it’s more like a hostage negotiation than a strategy.

Why did your team settle on three days a week in the office, two remote? Is it because you sat down and decided that would get you the highest quality work while attracting and retaining the best talent? Most likely, it was a negotiation. Employers asked, “How much can we make them come into the office before they quit or won’t come work for us?” Workers wanted to know “How much remote work can we ask for before they fire us?” The answer was an agreement that probably didn’t satisfy most people, but it was something everyone could live with.

What Makes Hybrid Work Effective

The word “hybrid” has a very specific meaning. In biological terms, a hybrid is a result of blending two sets of genes and creating a new entity. The classic example is a mule: it’s the offspring of a donkey and a horse, but if you know anything about farm animals, you know that while mules have some attributes of their parents, a mule is definitely its own thing.

When the structure of your team is the result of finding an answer that won’t make people quit, are you getting anything really new? Is this new entity better, faster, and smarter than the old way of working? Odds are, it defaults to an office-first mindset. Since everyone still needs to be within commuting distance, you haven’t widened the geographic scope of the work or your talent pool.

There are also problems that are unique, or at least particularly acute, with hybrid teams that aren’t carefully planned. Cliques can easily develop. The people who are in the office most are sometimes pitted against the people who are mostly remote. The remote folks feel excluded from the team when there’s pizza at the meetings. Proximity bias can become a real problem, resulting in overworked, stressed-out people in the office, and disengaged, disappointed remote employees.

True hybrid work is not just what work gets done where. It includes the element of time. It balances synchronous and asynchronous work to achieve the best outcomes. Have trouble concentrating on tasks in the office? Maybe that’s not where you’re able to accomplish your best work. Don’t want to spend all day on Zoom meetings when you’re working from somewhere else? You might handle meetings best when everyone’s already together in the cube farm. A true hybrid work strategy takes into account the needs of employees and usually means choosing where tasks occur but also when they are done best. Does everyone need to be working in the same time zone or work hours? Why?

By turning the way your team works into a strategic plan, rather than finding a way to just get things done as they’ve always been, you can leverage new ways of working for the best results.

HR’s Role in Creating a Hybrid Work Strategy

What’s HR’s role in this? HR can play an important role in making hybrid work a success by

• Creating metrics and assessments that measure outputs rather than activity.
• Creating development plans that ensure those who aren’t in the office are given opportunities to develop their skills and maintain a career path regardless of their location.
• Ensuring performance evaluations are equitable regardless of location.
• Helping leaders understand the dynamics of the new workplace and are able to overcome proximity bias while actively including remote workers in the everyday work of the team.
• Helping facilitate a “one team” approach throughout the organization.

The first step is assessing if the way you’re working is truly a hybrid approach or just an uneasy truce. Only then can you be intentional about building the culture and company you want.

Join me for my webinar, Do You Have a Hybrid Work Strategy or a Hostage Negotiation? where I’ll share how you can successfully implement a hybrid work model in your company.