How is Collaboration Changing in a Hybrid Work Environment?
Collaboration among employees is a pressing matter and subject to constant change. Since hybrid working is somewhere between remote work and office work, collaboration in this environment has seen more of a morphing in the past few years, not least of all due to COVID-19 and new ways of communicating with team memebers, than in other work environments. Because of this, HR practitioners, people analytic teams, and business leaders need to be diligent and understand the change to ensure that their company continues to see the benefits from a workforce that collaborates well whether working from home or working from the office.
What Are the Challenges With Collaboration in the Hybrid Work Environment?
For every circumstance that your employees may be working in or with, they face a set of challenges, including how collaboration among employees and teams is handled. For a hybrid workforce, this is the same. According to Gallup, with 42% of people working hybrid and 59% of the workforce wanting to work hybrid, understanding the challenges they face in their unique situation can improve the chances of meeting their needs. Preparing for hybrid work is crucial especially from an HR perspective.
Collaboration is challenging. It takes time to build teams and for relationships to form. It takes time to coordinate with all the people involved and get it up and running smoothly. The biggest challenge comes from how people interact in virtual environments. People interact differently with each other when scheduled work times and places people work fluctuate from remote to the workplace throughout the week.
Potential distractions - Children or pets can pop up unannounced or at inopportune times and disrupt the collaboration process.
Multiple variables - Different people can be at different places at different times, depending on their current obligations - doctor appointments, child's recital, or parent care. When people are not sitting in their habitable seats, it changes the dynamics of the team.
Perceived unfairness - To have employees come together, they need to see that they are compensated fairly for their work. But if one person views the days worked remotely as a perk and saw that others are working more days remotely than they are and doing the same job, resentment can creep into the mix, causing collaboration to break down.
The Mutual Knowledge Problem - Coined by Catherine Cramton, this means that when employees sit down for a meeting and are not in the same room, they do not have the knowledge they would have if they were in the same room together. They would need to find out whether one person is having a bad day, whether someone is struggling with a project, or whether a manager needs to step in to help.
Hindered Workplace Psychological Safety - Because of the unexpected need to be more transparent about their lives, employees may feel less psychological safety because they feel obligated to reveal more personal information to explain why they are asking for a particular schedule.
So, with a flexible work arrangement in the top 3 reasons people would seek employment elsewhere, according to McKinsey & Company, it makes sense to address the changes and challenges to create a compelling hybrid work environment.
How to Address the Changes With Collaboration in a Hybrid Work Environment
Companies that have good collaboration among their teams see higher success rates with projects, lower fatigue levels among members, and higher engagement. Forbes reported that members of a collaborative team stayed focused on their task 64% longer than their solitary peers.
Due to the unique circumstances of hybrid work, there are several steps to ensure effective collaboration continues in a hybrid work environment. Leaders can stay one step ahead of the changes coming down the way. In a series of podcasts hosted by David Green, experts were asked about their insight into collaboration in a hybrid work environment.
Understand the Hybrid Work Experience
The environment of a hybrid workforce is different from that of a traditional office space. For leaders to make policies regarding teams and collaboration, they need to know what everyday life for the hybrid workforce is like.
Mark Mortensen, Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD, stated on our Digital HR Leaders podcast:
"As a leader in a hybrid environment, the most important thing you have to recognise is the heterogeneity of the experience of the people you're dealing with, your employee, the people in your team. We often fall prey to this assumption that we know or have a pretty good sense."
Imagine working on designing a new team structure or a new approach to the work, such as setting up meeting times early in the morning, only to find out that most team members prefer to work later in the day. Having a clear understanding of the perks and challenges your workforce faces will improve your chances of developing structures that meet your employees' real needs.
Think About Your Employee's Need
Regarding collaboration, the needs of the management or the company are only one of the factors in the equation. There are the needs of the employees to consider. Due to the nature of hybrid work, employees want to embrace the perks of working remotely.
Ronni Zehavi, Co-Founder and CEO of people management software HiBob, was also featured on the Digital HR Leaders podcast and stated:
"I think this is the compass for every leader these days, especially when remote is a fact. There is no turning back. Companies will continue to work in hybrid. You will have to take into account that your employees if you really care about their wellbeing. There will be periods in their lifecycle that they will have to slow down because they have issues at home: their elderly parents, their relationship with their friends."
Many employees need flexible scheduling, adaptable technology, and supportive leadership.
Actively Listen to Your Employees
Even if you are confident of what you think employees need for effective collaboration in a hybrid work environment, there may be things you need to be aware of that comes out with honest conversations.
Jacqueline Brassey, Chief Scientist and Director of Research for People and Organisation Performance at McKinsey and Co. discussed the importance of listening to employee feedback:
"It doesn't matter whether you actually work face-to-face or in hybrid settings; people want to be heard, and people want to be seen. And in the hectic life that we're in these days, it is often forgotten. We're running and running, we have a lot of to-dos, and we forget to see people and hear people, not because we're bad people ourselves, but just because we're taken by the stress of the day and the fast-moving pace that we're in."
It is essential to set time aside for the day to ask employees critical questions such as "What's happening" or "How can I help?" And make sure that when issues are brought up, they are timely addressed. By letting problems linger, there is a higher chance of frustration and a breakdown of collaboration
Make sure there is psychological safety when having conversations with employees. Nothing worse than putting in time and effort to make improvements with collaboration only to find out that employees were not being truthful in fear of repercussions.
Continue to Learn and Adjust
Challenges and issues will continue to change with hybrid work and collaboration. Because of those variables, adjusting to those changes will be necessary.
Microsoft's Head of People Analytics, Dawn Klinghoffer pointed out:
"Continually listen and learn, because even that team agreement that you had could become obsolete in three months, depending on new team members joining the team, depending on different aspects of your life that you are going through. So, just understanding that this is an ongoing dialogue and that the more you can be transparent with one another, share your voice, listen and learn and obviously measure to understand whether or not you're making the right type of progress."
By monitoring all the moving parts of teams among the hybrid workforce and adjusting when situations shift, CHROs and people analytic teams can stay on top of the changes and adjust.
Be Deliberate and Intentional
It would be pointless to say you want to address the changes happening with team collaboration within the hybrid work environment and do nothing meaningful with your actions.
Anna Lundstrom, Spotify's VP of HR, has this to say:
"You make sure that you decide on the things that are super-important for your organisation and that people need to be able to rally behind your business. What we've done is make sure we are super transparent about our business goals, our strategy, and our culture. We invite everyone to the Intro Days, as I mentioned, and then we have an international approach and policy around when you also meet in person versus work you can do virtually to make sure that you really are creating that long-lasting relationship."
Putting in hard work is the only real means of having tangible results. Just saying to teams, "you need to collaborate", is not enough. People's behaviour should be continually researched and evaluated. Policies should be put in place and enforced. And leaders need to be an example, showing the workforce that collaboration is essential through their actions.
What HR Can Do to Navigate the Changes With Collaboration in a Hybrid Working Environment
The key is to acknowledge that the hybrid work environment is in continuous flux, and it is essential to stay on top of the changes so you can be an asset. To be diligent, HR practitioners and people analytic teams need to remain data-driven, business-focused, and experience-led. By making it a priority to base decisions on evidence from the way people work in a hybrid environment and keeping tabs on current trends, businesses can avoid making costly mistakes that disrupt collaboration and the hybrid work environment.
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