For leaders who have become used to working from home, as restrictions ease there comes the opportunity to return to the office. If your organisation is supportive of flexible working policies, you might see yourself working in the office two to three days a week and working from home for the rest.
So how do you get used to a hybrid working model, and make sure that it delivers for you? To avoid creeping burnout, there’s a need to structure your week in a way that maximises the family and lifestyle benefits of hybrid working and still allows you to deliver on your key work priorities.
Based on discussions with our clients across different cities, here's how we see people are best adapting to the new trend of hybrid working.
1. Structure your day
At a point long, long ago, somebody decided that the most productive way to structure work tasks was for everybody to work from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. Of course, now we know that work tasks blur across time zones and that certain roles have peak busy periods at different times of the day. Additionally, our understanding of human psychology and energy levels means that we know some people are simply more alert in the mornings, while others are more productive working at night.
So what does that mean for you? You might try to cluster your thinking and creative time at the point in the day where you're most alert. You could schedule your meetings in the middle part of the day, where most colleagues and clients are available. And you might take breaks at times that your family lifestyle – after all, the eight hour work day doesn't have to mean eight continuous hours in a row.
2. Match your tasks to your environment
For some people, one of the benefits of working from home can be a quieter workspace with less interruptions. If that's the case for you, schedule tasks that require greater focus – such as writing reports, reviewing documents, or creating content – during times when you'll be quietly focused at home.
Tasks that require collaboration, such as meetings, brainstorming and evaluations, could be better scheduled on office days when you'll be around colleagues and can bounce ideas around together.
3. Don't crowd your diary
One of the temptations on office days would be to cram your diary full of face-to-face meetings, in order to leave plenty of free time on your work from home days. This just makes your office days frantically busy, leaving you with little informal catch up time to have casual conversations with colleagues.
We know that a lot of innovation and creativity stems from the spark created through casual and informal interactions. Social conversations also give the brain a much-needed breather from intense concentration, and make the workplace a more enjoyable and productive space. Leave plenty of room on your office days for those crucial chats, coffees and catch ups with your colleagues.
4. Set boundaries around your availability
When working from home, it's very easy for work tasks to bleed into family time. The absence of a commute means it’s harder for the brain to know when work time has ended and evening relaxation has begun.
Just because you're home in the evenings, doesn't mean work emails need to be checked and responded to at all hours. Make sure you put clear boundaries around family time and work time to avoid the burnout that comes from an ‘always-on’ mindset.
If working late at night does happen to suit your personal energy levels, you might consider the impact on your colleagues and the example you’re setting. Some of our clients add a simple note to their email footer, pointing out that even though they send emails late at night, they don’t expect colleagues to respond at hours that are inconvenient for them.
5. Agree team rules
For hybrid working to function effectively for your team, you'll need to set up some rules of engagement. This might mean agreeing on a common day of the week when everybody's in the office, or scheduling team meetings during agreed hours that work for everybody’s home commitments.
Some of our clients adopt an all-in or all-out rule for their team meetings – that is, either everybody attends in-person, or everybody dials in remotely. This rule makes meetings a level playing field, ensuring that remote participants don’t feel forgotten.
You might also want to be explicit about how often you’ll schedule team drinks, morning teas or lunches to ensure that feeling of connection, support and camaraderie exists even if you’re not together five days a week.
For a hybrid model to work, you’ll need to draw on that adaptability and agility you practised in 2020. Things will shift and change and short notice, and you can flex your work patterns to suit. Start with an open mind and an intention to experiment with different diary structures and routines that you think might work, and then adapt as you go.
For further help: If you’re moving to a hybrid working model this year, you might be interested in attending our Leadership Masterclass on Managing Remote Teams or Running Hybrid Meetings.
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