How To Manage A New Hybrid-Working Team Successfully By Claire Crompton

Possibly the most popular business transition over the past 19 months was employers adapting to the hybrid-work model. But how smooth of a transition was it?

Co-founder and commercial director of a digital marketing agency, The Audit Lab, Claire Crompton is passionate about data and how it can help in marketing. Her appetite for online commercial results is what drives the business forwards and why The Audit Lab has seen impressive growth so quickly. Keen to create a positive workplace culture, she’s always keeping her leadership mind open, looking out for innovative tech and providing unique work perks for her team. Claire shares their tips and what they’ve learned when it comes to running a successful hybrid-working team.

Get the right communication tools in place

With so many tools and platforms, it’s easy to confuse employees and clients. One meeting could be done on Zoom, the next on Teams. Clients will have their own preferences but making sure everyone in your company is using the same tools is so important for a smoother work process. Lost time builds up quickly when people are sitting around waiting and confused as to which platform they need to download. Google Meet is a firm favourite for many and so convenient. No one gets cut off and you can even merge the Google calendar with other platforms like Slack to show when you’re in a meeting. 

Speaking of, Slack is a fantastic work communications tool where you can create channels to separate projects and communications. You can update your status to show when you’re at lunch, in a meeting or out for an appointment, which is very useful when employees are working remotely.

Ensure all workers are catered for

Just as in the office, employers still have a legal duty to provide a safe working environment for their employees. Obviously, it all depends on the set-up that individual workers have in place, but if they are struggling to acquire the essentials they need to carry out work safely and efficiently, you need to accommodate. A good office chair is so important to help with posture and keeping screens at a healthy eye level; a chair that’s height-adjustable is ideal. Bear this in mind when managing a hybrid team, as you want to make sure they are able to carry out work productively at home.

Keep staff morale up, even virtually

When you move to a hybrid work model, one thing you need to maintain is staff morale, especially for employees who value social interaction very highly. When living through two pandemics, that of COVID-19 and of a mental health one, it’s vital to ensure all your employees feel valued and comfortable enough to share humour as well as worries.

You can introduce some informality in the form of a WhatsApp group or even make a Slack channel dedicated to fun communication, like weekly quizzes, memes, jokes and general light-hearted chit-chat. Depending on your business and expenses, you may run monthly socials too, and it can be a mix of virtual and face-to-face events. It doesn’t always have to be a round of drinks, you could join an online murder mystery experience or organise a team sports day. 

Carry on with progression

Don’t lose track of your one-to-one sessions with employees, especially when it comes to their progression. For instance, if you have regular meetings where you book in more face-to-face time with staff, try to schedule these for office days. These are so valuable as you can have more insight into your workers’ day-to-day, whilst providing a safe space for them to express any worries or even ideas. By having that direct communication with each employee, you can keep  a constant eye on everything and can better provide for your workforce. 

Slack productivity

As mentioned, Slack is a great tool for communication for a hybrid or homeworking team. Some tips for productive use of the platform is to create client channels to keep projects separated and only the right team members informed so everyone isn’t inundated with notifications. Book in a training session to show how employees can get the best use out of it too, as not everyone takes to new technology easily. For instance, people can create private channels for themselves to drop ideas/notes in. They can also organise their channels into groups, e.g. internal communications and clients. 

BrightHR is a good platform for managing and overseeing all absences, holiday requests etc. and Harvest helps account managers track department hours to help with resourcing, invoicing etc.