While hybrid work brings many organizations the best of both worlds, it can also bring double the challenges—especially for people managers.
Communication, collaboration, alignment, engagement—these are all key for high-performing teams. But they’re certainly trickier when you offer a mix of remote and in-office work. Perhaps some employees are fully remote while others work in the office. Or maybe some days everyone is in the office and other days they work remotely.
Whatever your work policy is, managing hybrid teams comes with a unique set of challenges. But today, you’ll be able to walk away with the five essential leadership skills for navigating hybrid work and ensuring your team remains happy and productive.
Let’s dive into each skill and how it can elevate manager impact.
Communication
Communication has always been a critical skill for managers, but in a hybrid work environment, it’s much more nuanced. With some team members working remotely and others in the office, there’s a lot more room for miscommunication or missed communication, which can lead to misunderstandings, lower morale, isolation, and reduced productivity.
A good rule of thumb? Strive to make all team members feel informed, heard, and included. Here’s how:
- Get comfy with async communication: If your team spans regions or time zones, asynchronous communication is a great way to keep communication inclusive. Use video recording tools and messaging apps to ensure that everyone feels in the loop, no matter where they’re located.
- Focus on clarity and consistency: Find out where your team likes to communicate and try to stay consistent. If your team prefers Slack or Teams, share all important announcements in your team channel. Keep messages clear and succinct. (But an emoji or two never hurts!)
- Remember to listen: Listening is a crucial part of this equation—and sometimes, it requires managers actively booking time to do so. Regular one-on-ones with employees gives them space to share their needs, challenges, or whatever else is on their mind!
Team building
In hybrid and remote work environments, cultivating a strong team culture is much more challenging—but oh-so important for creating connection and trust. When people develop a sense of belonging, they’re much inclined to go the extra mile for their teammates and the organization. If they don’t, they’re left feeling isolated, which leads to disengagement and lower productivity.
Managers: You play a pivotal role for building team cohesion! Here are some strategies to try with your team:
- Keep meetings virtual: Unless everyone is in the office at the same time, host team meetings on your video call app. This avoids feelings of isolation for the team members working from home.
- Start your team meetings with an icebreaker: Carve out time at the beginning of each call with an icebreaker question. There are lots of fun ideas you can find online! What’s your funniest travel story? Favorite meal? Worst haircut? The list goes on!
- Get feedback on team-building activities: Let’s face it—nobody likes forced fun. But it doesn’t feel forced when your employees provide ideas! Perhaps it’s meeting for dinner when everyone is in office. Or maybe your team loves a good Kahoot quiz. Ask them to find out!
Project management
A great manager is a great project manager. This skill is the backbone of team productivity. If you can help your team members—who might work at different times or in locations—stay on top of tasks, deadlines, and resources, you’re well on your way to maintaining a high-performing team.
Effective project management helps streamline workflows, reduces redundancies, and ensures that projects move forward smoothly. Here’s what you can do to get the job done:
- Adopt project management tools: Let’s face it, behind great project management is an even greater project management tool. Tools like Asana, Trello, or Monday.com can help you track tasks and deadlines across the entire team.
- Assign responsibilities to team leads: Boost accountability within your team by assigning project management tasks to your senior reports. For example, you can have someone manage a specific workstream or monthly reporting.
- Conduct regular check-ins: Check in with your team members during meetings or asynchronously on their workload. Proactive communication will reveal any bottlenecks or roadblocks early on—giving you the opportunity to provide support.
Strategic planning
Driving alignment across a hybrid organization can be hard. But if each manager does their part, teams can work in lockstep towards the company’s shared goals.
One skill crucial for boosting alignment is strategic planning. It’s easy for team members to lose sight of the bigger picture or feel out of sync with organizational goals. As a manager, creating a clear, strategic roadmap ensures everyone is aligned, motivated, and working towards shared objectives.
Here’s what this skill looks like in action:
- Hold quarterly strategy meetings: The beginning of each quarter is a great time to discuss short- and long-term goals—and how each member contributes. While you provide the big picture, don’t forget to ask them to share feedback and ideas!
- Build habits around reporting: Reporting on your team’s performance isn’t just your job. It’s everyone’s job! But as a manager, you need to build these habits. Having this data on hand will also help you with next quarter’s strategic plans.
- Transparent updates: Sometimes, your team isn’t involved in high-level strategic meetings. Keeping them informed on wider organizational strategy (as best you can) will build trust, which also boosts alignment.
Goal setting
Goal setting in a hybrid environment helps maintain motivation, direction, and accountability. When team members understand their individual and team goals, it’s easier to stay focused and track progress, even when working from different locations. Goals also provide a benchmark for evaluating performance and help keep everyone motivated and engaged.
If you’re good at goal setting, your team members will also be good at setting them—and executing them! Here are some top tips for goal setting:
- Align with your performance management program: Your HR team will likely keep you in the loop on your organization’s performance management program. Stay in touch to ensure your process aligns with theirs.
- Refer to the SMART framework: Using the SMART framework (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) ensures that you don’t miss crucial details when setting goals.
- Regularly revisit and adjust: During one-on-ones, revisit your employees’ goals. First, make sure they still align with changing priorities. If they do, check in on their progress. Don’t forget to document your conversations so you both can refer back to later.
You’re on your way to leading thriving hybrid teams
Leading a high-performing hybrid team requires intentional development in both soft and hard skills. By honing communication, project management, team building, strategic planning, and goal-setting abilities, you can create a cohesive, motivated, and productive team—regardless of where people work!
If you’re a manager, go on and get ‘em. You’ve got this.
If you’re an HR or People Ops pro looking for more manager enablement resources (and other valuable information for the HR function, too!), we recommend taking a peek inside the Oyster Hybrid Handbook.
About Oyster
Oyster is a global employment platform designed to enable visionary HR leaders to find, engage, pay, manage, develop, and take care of a thriving distributed workforce. Oyster lets growing companies give valued international team members the experience they deserve, without the usual headaches and expense.
Oyster enables hiring anywhere in the world—with reliable, compliant payroll, and great local benefits and perks.
