I was recently interviewed on the “Conquer Local” podcast about Hybrid Work Management and best practices on how to lead a hybrid team.
Click play above to listen.
Here are some takeaways from the episode with the host, George Leith (you can read the full transcript here).
Selected Excerpts of the Episode
George: We mentioned in the intro about the nine books and we wanna specifically talk about book number nine, which thank you for sending the manuscript through. I had to read through it. It’s great. “Hybrid Work Management: How to Manage a Hybrid Team in the New Workplace”. And we’re gonna spend a lot of time on that. And I’d love to hear from you at a high level, what’s the book all about
Hassan: Yeah. So post COVID, nearly every organization, got a taste of what remote work feels like and they wanted to return back to the office, but every organization realized that, well, it’s probably not gonna go back to pre-COVID times where everyone’s in the office from 9:00 to 6:00. And so the world shifted to a hybrid work model where it’s a combination of working on-site and remotely. And the book is basically about how do you transition into that and how do you manage a hybrid team in this new workplace. In this new way of working, because it is still foreign to a lot of organizations.
George: And it continues to come up. When I’m working with organizations they’re talking about in their quarterly business reviews, it’s still one of their major challenges. So we’re a long way from figuring this out. And I find it in any of the companies that I’m working with today, that management of the hybrid team is a really important component. Now in that, what you call phase three, managing the hybrid team, you’ve come up with some tactics and some concepts to help with this very important component. So let’s unpack those.
Hassan: Absolutely. And just to clarify, it’s a four-step process. So it’s analyze, plan, manage and evaluate. So it’s a simple framework to manage your hybrid team and then with step three, which is to manage your team, there’s a lot that goes on there because that’s where you’re gonna spend most of your time in terms of managing and leading your hybrid team. And there is a few tips that are gonna help you out. One is top of mind to manage fairly and avoid what’s called the two-tier system. So the top priority George of a hybrid leader is really to make sure that all employees are treated fairly. And what I mean by that is that hybrid models could create a two-tier system of first-class versus second-class employees. In other words, two different employee experiences where those who spend more time in the office are treated as first class and those who spend more time remotely as second class, and those might feel left out or that they’re missing out on opportunities. So you wanna make sure that you avoid that potential leadership bias and favoritism by constantly emphasizing inclusion. And this is sort of a recurring point in the hybrid work management field is to make sure that fairness is front and center while you’re managing your team.
George: It’s funny when you look at the data, sometimes I’ve found organizations have been saying, Hey, we’ve been doing this remote thing or maybe doing a hybrid thing for the last two and a half years, three years, and it seems like all the remote people leave and I’m like, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You haven’t set up a system for them to feel included on the calls so now they’re just talking head that usually doesn’t get a chance to participate. So you’re calling this out and thank you for doing that because I find a lot of times when people go, yeah remote doesn’t work, hybrid doesn’t work, they just end up leaving. It’s like, it’s the way you set it up.
Hassan: Absolutely. It’s really in the details. And you wanna make sure that the mechanism and the planning of a hybrid work arrangement has to factor in taking care of your employees and really understanding or setting the guidelines of what does work-life balance actually mean. And building that culture, which can be really, really tough.
For the full transcript of the episode, click here.
If you’d like to learn more hybrid teams, check out Hybrid Work Management.
