Employers' New Challenge: Managing a Hybrid Team

Stay-at-home orders may be easing across the country; but chances are you have staff members either hesitant to return to the office or unable to do so with children in virtual school. While some employees may already be back in your physical location, the legacy of the pandemic may be the hybrid team: a dispersed workforce that’s split between in-office and remote workers.

Many managers have certainly gained experience directing a completely virtual team these last several months. It’s when a higher percentage of employees continue to work remotely that the challenges will be different. Here are some tips for staying on track:

• Acknowledge the new normal. This is a time like no other, and its effect on workers will be lasting. Don’t stop expressing your appreciation for everything your team is doing to keep in good spirits and contribute to the company’s bottom line. After all, it’s your strong and dedicated teams who ultimately will get your business through this crisis.

• Help teams stay connected. During video calls, update off-site staff on key takeaways from meetings held at the office that could impact their projects. Another idea could be to simply continue to make all meetings virtual.
• Don’t stop remote nonwork conversations. One way employees in some businesses are keeping their spirits up is by having short chats, like previously done when everyone was in the office—including checking in to see how people are doing, whether they’re working in the office or from home.
• Pay attention to employee behavior. Don’t overlook the fact that some remote workers may start to feel left out if they’re not physically returning to the office. Out of sight shouldn’t mean out of mind. Look for signs that remote workers aren’t performing at their best, such as missed deadlines, lack of communication or decreasing interest in their assignments.

Flexibility is key

Another lesson of the pandemic is the importance of being agile. Your ability as a manager to prioritize tasks and reassign staff resources will remain key. Directing the projects of people working both in an office and at home will require strong coordination skills, creative thinking and a willingness to adapt and pivot. Prepare for rearranging staff resources and reprioritizing projects yet again if stay-at-home orders are reissued.

You’ll also need to focus on maintaining a dynamic blend of full-time and interim staff to address changing business conditions. As business begins to improve and you need to hire new staff or reinstate furloughed employees, you’ll need to be better than ever at managing a mix of resources.

Hiring challenges

Although a high-quality labor pool is emerging due to rising unemployment, the sheer number of applicants means that locating and bringing on board the best of the best is going to be increasingly tough. For every attractive job posting, there will likely be a sky-high stack of resumes to sort through.

And the rest of the hiring process won’t get any easier either: Once you’ve vetted resumes, you’re looking at a series of initial phone interviews, video interviews for your top choices, skills testing, reference checks and other steps. Plus, all this comes at a time when you’re slammed with juggling the staff management and technological challenges of guiding a remote team—and just trying to keep your business in business.

A specialized staffing firm like Robert Half can help navigate this process. We have a pool of highly skilled candidates whose skills and experience have been evaluated, and we are able to handle the time-consuming details of the hiring process for you.

Retention concerns

With the economy slowly rebounding, now-lean businesses will look to start hiring again. Make sure your best people aren’t on their target list. As more companies realize that many formerly in-office positions can be handled just as well by employees working remotely, candidates will not be limited to just the jobs in their immediate area. Again, the whole world, in theory, is now open to them. Consider these retention strategies:

• Pay your top performers well. Even in times of relatively high unemployment, if you aren’t meeting or exceeding what other companies are paying for similar work, you risk losing your most valued employees.
• Focus on employee wellness. Help people get through this time emotionally. Consider wellness webinars for your team on topics such as coping with uncertainty, living through change, stress management and mind-body relaxation.
• Be flexible. Allow a wide degree of latitude in working hours and deadlines. This will allow people to arrange their lives as the pandemic continues to erect barriers even to everyday tasks and services they once took for granted.
• Reinforce the importance of their work. Office perks like all-you-can-eat snacks, cool collaboration spaces and on-site gyms mean much less now. What many members of your team will want most is work that is meaningful and reassurance their contributions are valued. Make it clear they are critical to the firm’s rebound and are supported by leadership.

Whether you’ve reopened your physical office or are still in the planning stages, the lesson of COVID-19 is that the central workplace has been redefined. Home is now the primary choice for many. Although things may look dramatically different from company to company, letting employees know you don’t expect them to return to the office until they are ready is essential in boosting morale and loyalty.