Highly connected remote teams
Many organisations have five generations working together, with flexible working hours and hybrid or remote working locations.
Our needs and expectations can be hugely varied, often resulting in friction that, if unresolved, gets in the way of high-performance in teams.
We help teams understand each other’s context, motivations and needs and navigate the tension between individual preferences and team or organisational requirements.
We help managers and leaders build the emotional intelligence, skill and confidence to create highly connected, productive and healthy teams. Wellbeing and productivity are mutually beneficial and fuel performance over the long-term, without stress and burnout. Modern managers know how to create this ‘fly-wheel’ and use it to achieve outstanding results.
Evaluate and improve
When ways of working have become the norm, it is essential to create space to stop and reflect on the causes and impact of current practices.
Engaging everyone in dialogue about the current ways of working is key: whether wholly office-based, remote, or hybrid. Understanding what people like and dislike about the different environments, how they impact on tangible performance metrics such as efficiency, costs and productivity, as well as the intangibles such as a sense of connection, belonging and team identity.
In addition to understanding the impact of current practices on today’s engagement and performance, it is key to appreciate how team ways of working need to be fit for the future, whether that be increasing agility, improving decision-making or adapting to expectations of new generations of talented people.
We provide you with
- A short organisational survey to collect quantitative and qualitive data confidentially
- A Team Conversation Guide to review and reflect locally in a safe, inclusive and effective way
Sharing personal change journeys can help people feel comfortable talking about their experiences of hybrid and remote work
Guiding principles and team game plans
Many hybrid working approaches centre around stipulating a fixed number of days in the office per week.
In our experience this rarely creates optimum results and overlooks important factors such as the impact on customers’ experience and the changing needs of employees through their lifecycle at work.
We work with you to use the insight from the Evaluate and improve activity to establish a small number of guiding principles that set mutual expectations across the organisation.
Our Team Game Plan and Conversation Guide enable each people leader to apply these principles in a way that is appropriate with their team.
The conversations reach alignment on behaviours and working practices that, first and foremost, will help the team achieve their outcomes, at the same time as working for each individual as far as possible. They unpack how to create a sense of belonging and connection for people, respecting individual differences and diverse needs.
There’s no one size fits all: the ‘best’ approach will depend on the nature of the work and the business.
Team performance relies on both productivity and wellbeing, compromises are often needed for the whole team to perform at its best.
Teams must review their Game Plan frequently to reflect openly on what’s working and what’s not.
Feedback should be gathered from people impacted by the team such as other teams and external stakeholders, to fully understand how working practices are impacting productivity, wellbeing, profitability and customer experience.
Temporary changes may be needed, for example to quickly and effectively on-board new team members.
Leading hybrid teams does not come naturally to everyone. Leaders at all levels may need skills development to create the team culture they need.
Leading hybrid and remote teams
Leading teams who are not entirely office-based is a relatively new experience for many people. The characteristics of high-performing teams still apply but how to put them into practice needs a fresh perspective.
The good news is that teams that have operated remotely since long before the Pandemic have tried and tested ways of
- aligning teams to common goals
- enabling creativity and innovation
- focusing on outcomes (instead of activity or presenteeism)
- ensuring fair distribution of effort
- having difficult conversations
We use this best practice and our own experience to develop confident, emotionally intelligent and skilled leaders so they can build thriving teams regardless of their location.
Team working practices may need to adapt in response to a changing environment
