Collaboration between employees and teams is essential if you’re trying to stay flexible, competitive, and profitable. Yet getting everyone to work together without friction can be challenging, especially if you’ve moved to a hybrid working environment where people may not have regular interactions with each other.
This isn’t to say that hybrid arrangements are the problem. Far from it. Hybrid work is generally practical and welcome. On the whole, hybrid employees like being able to have the autonomy to control where and when they do their jobs. As Gallup observed in 2022, 71% of hybrid workers said they appreciated having a better work-life balance. Nearly as many felt hybrid work styles were more efficient. However, they weren’t shy about sharing the challenges they experienced when straddling the at-home/in-office fence.
Among the top five hybrid-related problems identified by Gallup survey participants, four related to interpersonal or social issues. Almost one-third cited decreased collaboration with coworkers and feeling a lack of connection with their company’s culture. About a quarter found it hard to maintain relationships with colleagues and function fully across silos.
If you have a hybrid workplace—and 90% of companies are moving in that direction, according to McKinsey & Company—you can’t afford to see these findings as just statistics. They’re indicators of how important it is for leaders to take a proactive stance when it comes to bringing together their people. Without collaboration, your organization will have a difficult time moving forward. After all, team members who eagerly and effectively work together will always row faster and farther than those who don’t.
To help you nurture hybrid team collaboration and improve your overall productivity and performance, try these strategies. They’re aimed at fostering stronger ties between your workers—regardless of where those workers may be.
1. Train employees to value their coworkers’ preferred communication styles.
We all have preferred communication styles. Some people like to receive jam-packed, descriptive emails. Others would prefer to receive succinct texts. Plenty would appreciate audio memos in an effort to cut down on their need to look through written content. Knowing this, why not allow your employees to communicate in a way that values each of their colleagues’ personal communication styles? This may sound like an impossible task, but business leaders like Juan Betancourt, the CEO of collaboration tool Humantelligence, say it can work with the right mindset and advanced resources in play.
“The quickest and easiest way to understand a person’s communication style is through a brief assessment that measures behaviors, motivators, and work styles,” explains Betancourt. “Once you have that information for an employee and an entire team, it’s fairly easy to put that info to work, especially with developments in generative AI and plug-in integrations. Take the example of writing emails to fellow employees. If someone is very detail-oriented and writes a lot, but the receiver of the email is conceptual and does not like detail but summarized bullet points, you can imagine how generative AI tools can now rewrite the email for Person A to Person B, taking into account these differences.”
By taking steps to show your team how to accommodate everyone’s unique working styles and communication preferences, you honor your people as individuals. At the same time, you give them more skills to build bridges and essentially learn to speak each other’s languages.
2. Put a premium on clear employee expectations and accountability.
Nothing short-circuits collaboration faster than finger-pointing between workers. However, finger-pointing isn’t always a matter of an employee trying to “pass the buck.” In hybrid work arrangements, people aren’t always clear on who owns a task. The result is that responsibilities are murky, which can lead to confusion, frustration, and blame.
The way to stop this destructive cycle is by putting a premium on assigning accountability for all projects, duties, and initiatives. It is critical that every employee knows the go-to person for a specific task or campaign. Otherwise, to-do items may sit for long periods without any movement, which is a surefire way to lose momentum and opportunities. As a side effect of your efforts, you may find that your employees feel less stressed and more respected when they’re authorized to take charge. A study by the American Psychological Association showed that 71% of people close to burnout don’t feel they have meaningful work. By empowering your team members to be accountable, you’re essentially saying, “You play an important role and have a purpose here.”
Using project management software is a great way to keep tasks moving along, as well as accurately assigning people to all elements of a goal. Don’t just think that your tech can do it all, though. Hold regular team meetings (these can be video calls) to go over upcoming objectives and deadlines. During the meetings, be sure everyone is on the same page before signing off.
3. Celebrate inclusion and diversity among your workers.
It’s hard to put your best foot forward when you feel like you don’t belong. Unfortunately, many hybrid workers start to feel like outsiders because of their “come and go” presence. This can eat away at their belief that they’re just not nameless, faceless employees but respected and valued individuals.
Tony Bond, executive vice president and chief diversity and innovation officer of Great Place to Work®, has written that belonging has a direct connection to collaboration in the workplace. “Employees who feel treated as an ‘insider’ and are encouraged to retain their uniqueness within the workgroup feel a high level of belonging. If employees don’t experience a sense of belonging, they are more likely to feel insecure about their place in the organization and feel less freedom to be their authentic selves. And that insecurity—that fear—undermines their performance, their creativity and their ability and willingness to collaborate.”
To promote a stronger sense of belonging, strive to call out the unique contributions of workers. Be sure to ask for differing viewpoints, too. But don’t just request feedback and let the feedback fade away. Take all ideas seriously. Frequently, “off the wall” concepts and brainstorms are the seeds of innovation.
When your team members collaborate, your organization is in a much better position to achieve its objectives. While collaboration among hybrid coworkers can be a bit challenging, it’s a prudent goal to set and reach.
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