Time Managment
If you and your team have scheduled days in the office then it is best to try and structure your working week with that in mind. While it may seem obvious the majority of people don’t plan for this with their planned work, they just come into the office on ad-hoc or scheduled day and continue with their work.
Planning to utilise the time efficiently from each location will help productivity and hopefully reduce the time needed to produce the same output. As a manager making these decsions openly with your chapter and being intentional about the structure that makes sense will help to build credibility and trust.
The following are suggestions to consider when managing your Chapter and how they deal with stakeholders to make the most of both their time.
Work and Life – blended or seperate?
Everyone is individual and one of the first questions to consider asking all of your team is how do they like to spend their working life and home life? Do they prefer a blended approach where they work together or do they prefer seperation.
For those that prefer to mix bother together, working hybrid means that they may well want to do the grocery shopping or exercise during quieter times during the day but prefer to work early or late outside of the traditional 9-5 because that’s when they are more effective.
For the seperate group it might appear more straight forward but it may be a traditional 9-5 is swapped for an earlier start of finish and the transition (maybe commute) between the work and homelife is critical to ensure this is not disrupted
Getting to understand when your chapters operate at their best will help to understand how best to structure the hybrid environment. Prior to covid we didn’t have the opportnuity to ask some of these questions, we just assumed that everyone is productive in the office. We should be making the most of the change – and measure the productivity wth meaningful feedback.
In the office
For some coming into the office is face to face time with colleagues and meetings while working at home allows for focus time. For others it might be the opposite if they have interruptions at home.
Scheduling Meetings
While there is always a reluctance to put in more meetings than necessary if the answer you are looking for is more than a simple yes or no then it is always best to schedule a meeting with stakeholders or your chapter. The key however to being effective is the planning ahead of time.
Considering each of these points and trying to schedule when you and your stakeholders are in the same location allows for efficient face to face collaboration but also reduces the need to just tap someone on the shoulder because they are there in person breaking their flow of work and reducing their productivity. While the office might be the place you come to interact with colleagues it might not be the case for the person you are interrupting, this could be there time to focus away from a young family at home.
Collaboration
As a Chapter Lead you should have the higher level view of what your teams are working on, something they might not. This insight can lead to highlighting collaboration opportunities between teams, generating meaningful engagement.
Working from home
As a leader get to know your chapters individual strengths, not only does this build the personal relationship but you should also share each other strengths with the rest of the chapter. By understanding how you all work best you can ensure that continues while everyeone is remote. .
It is also important to ensure that you do not unintentionally bias against those that work from home more than those that work in the office, especially if you have a personal preference for being on site. Studies show that more face to face interaction is likley to increase how much you you bond with somsone and it is therefore importnant that you don’t unintentionally start to treat those that are more remote differently than those you see more regularily.;
Over communication
For those working in the office there is more opportnuity to pick up information from colleagues in the kitchen, or adhoc announcements. It is therefore importnant to be aware that you need to over communicate to staff that are remote. Check in more often than you might with others and ensure that all information is provided.
This can be an easy trap to fall into if you don’t want to be seen as a micro manager but the result is the chapter member actually feels isolated. Always check in without an agenda on a regular basis so you and them don’t feel like a micro manager.
While we discussed above the importance of scheduled meetings face to face where possible in the office – it is important that if anyone is remote in a meeting then you should consider them first. This means setting up meeting rooms so they can dial in and talk and clearly hear what is going on. etc. Also consider using virtual whiteboards so everyeone can interact with a device as opposed to a whiteboard in a room that is hard to view for those dialling in remotely.
Productivity
For some post covid there is a push to get everyone back to the office and the ‘tradional’ way of working. It is importnant to consider that this hard approach is not shared by most employees and a hybrid way of working is the preference. As a result you run the risk of losing key talent to organisations that are embracing the hybrid approach.
By putting in clear measurable results or OKR’s that your chapters sign up for means that you shouldn’t need to worry about where they are working as long as they work is getting done. If it isn’t then this is not a discussion about location but about meeting expectation.
For those that have the opportunity to work remotely consider which projects are best suited to that time and location. If it is an opportunity to get some focus time away from interruptions then consider how you can make the most of that. Putting in blocks of ‘Do Not Disturb’ in your calendar to ensure you are meeting free and turning off window notifications.