3 min read

What the hell is hybrid working?

We’re all using the term as if we know exactly what it means, but most of us are basing our understanding of this new way of working on a set of assumptions. 

My own associations with the word hybrid aren’t entirely positive. When I hear it, I can’t help but think of my old bike. It was meant to be multi-purpose: light enough to use in the city and robust enough to take off-road. In reality, it didn’t perform that well in either environment – as if its terrain-specific parts had been bolted together without much thought for its overall functioning. 

Like any hybrid, blended home and office working is great in theory, but its potential will only be realised if we give it enough time and attention in the design phase. The reality is that this is new for everyone and like any change or transformation, the transition needs to be planned carefully and supported well.

What to do?

Ideally, you’d get your team together before or just as you start working in a hybrid way, preferably with a skilled facilitator to support you, and find out what successful hybrid working means for your team and what each member needs to enable it to be that way. Then you can design a blueprint that will work well for everyone.

Here at We Are Clean, we’re working with teams to help them prepare for this change with workshops. We use the Clean Set-up - a series of simple questions that lead, step-by-step, to a way of working that allows everyone to be at their best and takes into account everyone’s differences.

The first step in this process is to create a shared understanding of exactly what hybrid working means for your team. You might begin with asking something as simple as ‘Hybrid working is like what?’ One team members’ assumptions about this might be completely different from another’s, especially if they’ve been geographically isolated from each other. 

Some might respond by saying ‘It’s like a dream come true, I can get the dinner on and pick up my kids from school while staying productive’. Someone else might say ‘it’s like a prison sentence. I’m really lonely and demotivated. I miss the freedom of chatting to colleagues and the routine of going in everyday’. Once you understand the different contexts each team member is working from, that first layer of assumptions can be brushed aside and replaced with connection and empathy. 

What next?

The next task is to build a clear picture of what works and what doesn’t work for your team. In our sessions, we do this by asking everyone to look back at how the team has been working together, asking: ‘What’s worked well in the past and what hasn’t worked as well?’ Through this process, people gain insights into each other and spot patterns across the team. You can build a clear picture of what you need to do more of and what can be left behind. 

Then you might need to think about any restrictions you’ll be working under. Some companies may have downsized their office space, for example, which might mean negotiating desk time with other teams. At this point, we’ve got a solid foundation of shared understanding to build on. Using what we know now about what’s worked and what hasn’t worked in the past, and taking into account new restrictions, we can make a plan for the future. 

Design phase

This design phase begins by asking: ‘When the team is working at its best it’s like what?’ Metaphors can be invaluable here because instead of listing behaviours you want to see or outcomes you want to achieve, you can create a shared vision for what you’re aiming for. If, at its best, the team is like an orchestra all playing together, ask what kind of orchestra? If it plays symphonies, those symphonies are like what? 

Once you have a clear, shared image of how the team can be when it’s at its best, the next question is: ‘What needs to happen for that to be possible?’ Or perhaps ‘What do we need to do differently to make that happen?’ Tangible details and actions emerge here. Certain parts of the team might need office space earlier in the week. Meetings might need to be scheduled to improve lines of communication. You can apply what you’ve learned about what’s worked well in the past by ensuring you put in place rhythms and formats that allow you to work in that way. Out of all this will emerge specific plans for how you’re going to work, when you’re going to be together and where.

Final step

The final step of the process is to book in regular reviews, which would be similar but smaller in scale, so your hybrid design can be refined continually to deal with fluctuations in workload, changes to the shape of your team, or the needs of team members.

It’s important to acknowledge that though we’ve all shared the experience of living through the Covid pandemic, on an individual level, our realities have been very different and we’ll all respond in our own ways to this transition.  A session like this can put a bit of attention on that and can extract meaningful learnings from our recent past and support us in our very novel future. 

As well as helping you prepare for the year ahead, this kind of process is also a great way to draw a team into learning to put attention on itself. Once it’s got used to focusing on how it does things, it’s easy to move towards an understanding of why it’s doing them. The next question you can ask is: ‘When this team is working at its best, then what happens?... And then what happens?’ This line of questioning takes you eventually to your purpose, and a shared purpose is one of the attributes that will keep a team running smoothly, however bumpy the road to hybrid working turns out to be.

We Are Clean can facilitate teams sessions virtually or for you and your organisation in- person or virtually, working with groups of 6 - 30 people. Depending on your specific needs sessions can be designed to last from 60 minutes to a full (away) day. We also speak at events. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help your organisation embed a feedback culture, book a discovery call