Hybrid Teaming – Distributed teaming in the new world of work
Blog 164: Hybrid Teaming – Distributed teaming in the new world of work
A tidal wave of change is occurring that makes the way we work almost unrecognisable from what we knew at the start of the year. With the global shift to rapidly evolving flexibility, economic challenges and Covid19 workplace compliance requirements—all shifting concurrently—change is not only constant but also exponential in its pace and scope. Companies in all industries are experiencing the effects of the Covid19 Crash Course in not just working but especially teaming at a distance. Many teams and their leaders have shifted from being co-located to remote to nowadays a shuffle between the workplace and working from home – requiring a hybrid mode of teaming. This shift has placed greater importance on evolving our techniques to support hybrid teaming to break down silos and strengthen organisation-wide innovation.
Taking insights from recent work surveys, Be Confident has distilled four common themes in this tidal wave of change.
Four Change themes
1 Shaping the new role of workspace
2 Introducing hybrid teaming and creating organisation-wide cadence
3 Continuing to attract talent and onboard meaningfully
4 Taking learning and development to the next level across the workforce
The first two themes address the opportunities of change in the way we organise our people as we consider which new behaviours arising in the crisis, we want to make permanent before we loose the benefits of the prolonged experience that occurred in lockdown. Returned teams asking – What I came to the office to find isn’t here anymore -Where did everyone go today?– may leave people unsure of the purpose of the workspace and emphasise the need for revisting team cadences.
1 Shaping the new role of workspace - Enlightened flexible workforce revolution
With the possibilities of flexible working being experienced by many rather than a few during lockdown, we are now in the midst of an enlightened flexible workforce revolution requiring a mindset change on a workplace not required full time.
Albeit Covid19 have a vastly diminished presence here, NZ organisations are sense-checking for lower density to support workforce wellness and provide a safe environment while also taking a pragmatic look at their overall workplace footprint requirements. With the new level of choice and flexibility for 2 -3 days a week - How much workspace do we really need now? There is high awareness of real estate and rent review negotiations to better position a fixed overhead. With this shift in space use and size, encouragingly comes a real desire to make smarter use of the workplace where people have a compelling reason for how they return to a new normal.
2 Introducing hybrid teaming - our human craving for a sense of team
This compeling reason to return needs to be clear on how the workplace enhances how we team and has us looking at better ways to avoid unintended silos and work across the business. Setting out how collaboration face to face enables us to make complex business decisions with the right pace. The business is operational but productivity seems to be dropping – how do I check this?
A feature of lockdown was our human craving for a sense of team. Faced with sudden lockdown, we scrambled to tech and upskill and connect as teams virtually. Looking beyond talking heads, that online exchange of information in a virtual team environment, studies highlight a gap to truly being able to collaborate and innovate at distance without new techniques and tools. We have known for some time that the strength of teaming is key to reducing the time to bring innovations to reality (1). As we respond to the economy challenge’s, we need great teaming to accelerate innovation, to quickly regain productivity and competitiveness.
There are large shifts in the ways business value is generated. Beneficial advances in digital productivity come with a degree of complexity. In response to Covid19, organisations have put a premium on flexibility and innovation and truly understanding customers(5) Negating distance issues with tech, reducing tolerance of silos, and supporting virtual ideation practices, businesses considered successful through this Covid19 period of time are innovating and being competitive. They are reacting quickly virtually and pivoting operations through enhancing collaboration across stakeholder groups and keeping decision making at pace.
Force – The sudden Covid19 acceleration of tech based collaboration
The force of collaboration tech and human capabilities has been accelerated thanks to Covid19. Data informs us of high levels of collaboration success for some work types and for those with enhanced remote working skill levels.(6a) Research challenges convention with some finding, when done right, virtual brainstorming can be twice as effective as brainstorming face-to-face.(6b)
To ensure the smooth running of operations and keeping the level of connection high, more people now need to have transparency as to when is team time and the best ways to work with each other.
Cadences - opportunity to continue to stretch what is possible in the virtual world
We’ve been working seperately in 50/50 split but we now want to explore the best ways for teams to share space cross-functionally? Curating shared spaces and creating cadences are ways of best enabling hybrid teaming, addressing cultural impacts and maintaining productivity. Ways that ensure teams maximise benefits of returning to the physical place of work while ensuring the economics of space stack up for the finance team.
In creating cadences for people to be in the presence of each other with the view to reducing cross-team gaps, there remains opportunity to continue to stretch what is possible in the virtual world.
3 Continuing to attract talent and onboard meaningfully
4 Taking learning and development to the next level across the workforce
The third and fourth factors address changes in the demand and skill growth experience of talent. The brave new world reshapes which talents are required , and where they exist now. The virtual ease of pulling talent into our organisations and the best ways to upskill our existing workforce, in particular those in leadership and management roles. And its not just about ability to use remote working tech and digital systems, it is mostly about mindset – both collaborative and creative – in order to work in new and different ways, generate new ideas, and deliver results. More and more, the emphasis on being able to solve and create through teams, and capturing the collective wisdom, and as leaders embue a sense of connection and belonging amongst a valued and engaged workforce.
There’s more urgency than ever before for organisations to transition from hierarchical, siloed structures to supporting hybrid teaming as we increase our flexibility at work (4). With the economic rebuild challenging every company, emerging technologies transforming how work gets done, and customer expectations on the rise, hybrid teams offer a faster track to innovation.
Hybrid teams with the ability to balance face to face and virtual are able to easily flex in and flex out of the workplace can cross functional boundaries, and go beyond siloed structures making sure that skilled employees from different teams are brought together to work in a cohesive manner both virtually and in person.(6)
Teaming by Design
Now is the time to reframe the way we support leaders and managers and develop intentional flexibility programmes. The role of the workplace has changed, we now face the challenge of adapting the way we work to suit a diverse range of working styles and mixed work modes in our new connected work environments.
Be Confident offers Teaming by design – Independent expert diagnosis to inform work decisions today and design of work for tomorrow. We focus on optimising the teaming experience in this hybrid way of working to provide a more human work experience.
Reference materials
1. Deloitte report a 53% significant improvement in performance using team/ networked groups – Refer article
Organizational performance: It's a team sport
Specific product results from cross-functional team work by :
2. Positive productivity from cross functional work
3. Roche
Organising for breakthrough innovation
New Approach to Strategic Planning: the Impact of Leadership and Culture on Plan Implantation via the three Cs: Cooperation, Collaboration and Coordination. 2011 Zomorrodian
4. A recent study by McKinsey & Co found that the diversity of teams positively impacts creativity and performance by up to 35%.
https://www.jll.nz/en/trends-and-insights/research/covid-19-global-occupier-perspective
(5)
How innovation and flexibility helped Allbirds shoes, & small NZ businesses thru Covid-19
https://www.alizila.com/how-innovation-and-flexibility-helped-allbirds-during-covid-19/
(6) A University of Otago study of 2,595 New Zealanders working from home during lockdown suggests that most people were equally or more productive (73 per cent)
https://www.otago.ac.nz/news/news/releases/otago737417.html
More than two-thirds of workers say they are more productive working at home than in an office and one in three believe the switch has made them less stressed. A new bread of teaming is emerging. A new survey of 5000 workers in Australia, France, Germany, Italy and the UK reveals most believe remote working will become much more important when the COVID-19 pandemic ends.
https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/careers/it-s-more-productive-to-work-from-home-20200401-p54fwc
Willis Towers Watson research found that 63% of companies believe their culture has improved, 55% believe their employee experience is better, and 52% believe employee engagement has gone up. The COVID-19 Talent Implications Survey included respondents from more than 200 employers across multiple industries, which was conducted during the week of April 13, 2020. Respondents employ nearly 2.5 million employees
https://www.waggl.com/covid19-pulse-hr/
(6b) According to Frans Johansson, author of The Medici Effect, some of the most innovative ideas happen at “the intersection” – the place where ideas from different industries and cultures collide.
Game based learning - Handbook of research on collaboration teaching in virtual learning - Italian National institute of innovation, education research
Be Confident clients benefit from :
- Our track record of co-creating workspace purpose and change, in particular the creation of collaborative, connected and culture-aligned spaces and work practices for organisations seeking greater productivity through flexibility.
- We bring the science of Work Design
– Team workstyles, cadences , strategic adjacencies, and organisational psychology to our thinking
We’re specialists of integrating cross functionally:
- strategic purpose envisioning with senior stakeholder engagement- property place & space and the pragmatics of ROIs and facilities management- consideration and input to collaboration force especially in areas of ideation thru virtual tools, communications and cadences
- linking the culture thru people involvement virtually and in person and a success measure of lifting employee engagement through change,
- The analytical approach we bring matched with strong stakeholder engagement and representational workforce involvement.
- A developed Flex in/Flex out methodology already in use with clients
FLEX IN & FLEX OUT
Greater flexibility is seen to benefit an organisation’s ability to better support project-based teams, mobile teams, and modern leaders, as well as accommodating more flexible workforce resourcing models.
To better define Split modes of working Be Confident has coined the phrase FLEX IN & FLEX OUT where we talk to Flexibility of work.
Where FLEX IN is flexibility within the walls of the office environment and FLEX OUT as being flexibility beyond the office environment. FLEX IN considers the provision of movement inside the workplace between teams, moving to perform a particular activities for teams and individuals.
Case studies of organisations successfully utilising this methodology can be seen on our work, our client testimonies , or LINKEDIN page.
Author: Stella Green Be Confident Ph 021 812 232 stella@beconfident.co.nz