Best Practices for Hybrid Team Collaboration

How can you have equal collaboration when half your employees are in the office and half are around the world? A hybrid team can get up and running quite fast, but you need to be willing to set them up for success. Today, we’re going to take a look at some of the best practices for remote team collaboration, how you can design a hybrid work strategy and how you can more effectively lead virtual team collaboration.

1. Invest in your technology first.

Your team has to feel like they’re a part of the same office, and your technology will be that office. Invest in technology such as MS Teams. Make sure everyone is on equal footing in terms of their work process. Someone sitting at a desk in the office and sitting at a desk at home should have the same overall experience of interacting with projects and interacting with each other.

2. Establish core hours and manage your calendar.

Realistically, people won’t be on the same schedule. Establish core hours for work and manage your calendar appropriately. You aren’t going to be able to ensure that everyone at home is working at the same time, especially if people are in different time zones. Having core hours also gives your in-office workers more flexibility.

3. Be clear about when you have flexibility.

Don’t just assume that people are going to be as rigid or dogmatic with their work hours as possible. Instead, make it clear when people can have flexibility or not. Let people know when crunch times will be, when they need to put their 40 hours in and when there will be times when they can just finish their work and that alone will be enough. Most people crave flexibility in a hybrid environment and will work much harder in a hybrid environment.

4. Communicate as much as possible.

There’s no such thing as over-communication. Hybrid team collaboration demands that everyone communicate not only effectively but plentifully. Because some people aren’t in the office, they may miss things or may miss nuances. Because people are communicating one-on-one in chats and on video calls, they need to be able to communicate everything they’ve thought of, learned or decided upon.

5. Be flexible when issues come up.

With people working all over the world, occasional issues can come up. Plan to be flexible. Know that plans aren’t always going to work out. You should be aware that sometimes something might pop up. Internet might be down; someone might just have an emergency. Don’t have everything so strictly scheduled that there isn’t a buffer of time. You will need to be more flexible, but, at the same time, you can get more done.

6. Encourage team members to communicate.

Team members should be able to freely communicate with each other. They should know how to access each other, whether it’s via a platform such as Slack or MS Teams or whether it’s through text messaging and email. All team members should communicate with each other freely, because it’s a great way to build camaraderie and make sure that they can work with each other effectively. Build a directory of how people most commonly want to be contacted.

7. Don’t be all work all the time.

In the office, people have water cooler talk and relax with each other, and that’s how they develop a good environment and a solid work culture. But out of the office they may start to feel disconnected, especially if people only ever talk about work. Make it so that people are able to discuss holidays, exciting plans and more. Set up water cooler hours and let them communicate about things that are just fun during office hours.

8. Make sure everyone feels welcome.

Good management trickles down from the top. When managing your hybrid team, make sure everyone feels welcome by connecting with them, communicating with them and always ensuring that they are praised for the job that they do. If you’re open and communicative, other people will be, too. Foster a culture of recognizing people for their strengths and their wins and you’ll be able to create a culture of doing the best work — wherever an employee is.

Ultimately, creating a hybrid team means that you need to encourage open, honest communication. Hybrid collaboration can be very effective as long as everyone is communicating through the same platform.

MS Teams and MS Office 365 are incredible solutions for collaborating remotely. Contact us at Red River to find out more.