While hybrid working is enjoyed by many people, bringing benefits to the way they live and work, many managers face challenges in how they oversee their teams. Ang Brennan examines what HR and learning professionals can do to support managers of hybrid teams.
New research by Insights looking at hybrid workers across Europe and North America has found numerous benefits for managers and their teams from this way of working – including increased collaboration, innovation, productivity and performance.
Managers, however, identified key challenges, including difficulties making strong connections with their teams and struggling to provide enough emotional and professional support.
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Interestingly, when asked what support they would like, managers felt able to self-identify their learning and development needs.
They want more opportunities to connect with their team, more training in digital collaboration tools, more one-to-one time with their own managers, more autonomy and flexibility, and more help with relationship building and stakeholder management.
As organisations adapt and evolve their hybrid working arrangements, these concerns need to form part of any learning and development strategy.
Start with awareness
Simply being a manager doesn’t mean they are automatically equipped to deal with the many challenges of managing a hybrid team. However, the managers who took part in our research had sufficient awareness to know they needed support when it came to their learning and development, and the areas they needed it most.
Heightened awareness at the heart of management enables strong relationships at all levels, better-equipping everyone to navigate and mitigate the physical distance that comes with hybrid working.
Insights uses an awareness model to help managers develop their human skills, enabling them to build stronger, deeper connections with others. This is particularly important with 42% of managers saying that it is harder to build relationships because of hybrid working.
Celebrate the flexibility of hybrid
Working hybrid often offers the best of both worlds – allowing people the freedom and flexibility to work from home, while also giving teams the chance to come together in person and collaborate on important activities. The report showed that 42% of managers stated that delivering objectives is easier in hybrid teams (only 9% reported a negative impact), while half think that hybrid has positively impacted team performance and agility (only 14% reported a negative impact).
See hybrid as an opportunity worth celebrating rather than a challenge. In particular support managers and give them the freedom to use in-person opportunities as ways of investing in talent development and building relationships – both at an individual and team level.
Build trust to set clear expectations
More than two-thirds (70%) of hybrid managers said that being visible and sharing a clear vision is challenging in hybrid teams. One way organisations and HR teams can help managers is by ensuring expectations, strategy and vision are clear and that they buy into this with their hearts as well as their heads.
We recently connected leaders in our organisation with our strategy and vision through an innovative three-day gaming experience, in place of a traditional leadership conference.
Participants went away having truly experienced the strategy at a deep level. Our hope is that this will resonate with them for years to come and that they can take this knowledge and excitement back to their teams.
When managers are invested in strategy, objectives and vision, they can empower and encourage their teams to self-manage and also better identify learning and development needs to support that vision.
Mastering technology
More than a third (36%) of managers wanted more training in digital collaboration tools. They said it was key to creating more opportunities to connect with their team. It can also create more opportunities for managers to connect with their own senior leaders, providing a source of much-needed feedback and support.
Using a “try it then lead it” learning model is a great way to help managers gain experience of different digital and collaboration tools that they can implement immediately with their teams.
Once mastered, digital collaboration tools can be used to build rich relationships with stakeholders across the organisation, helping managers become more agile, connected, and productive.
Be human
At a time when 76% of managers say that making strong connections with team members is challenging and 39% would like more opportunities to connect with their team, encourage them to be highly proactive.
Give your managers space to connect regularly with hybrid teams, even if it’s just for five minutes during the day for a casual conversation and emphasise the importance of this. The Microsoft Teams chat function is a great way of staying in touch, checking in regularly and keeping things light, fun, and quick. We often encourage our people to share personal things, like “What’s your five-word weekend?”
Just remember to ensure an appropriate amount of time is split between these casual check-ins and the more formal conversations around performance.
It’s clear that managers know what they need and are hungry to learn. Supporting this with the right development and ways of working in a hybrid world will reap the benefits for all.
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