Taking Care of Your Employees: Caring For Your Hybrid Team

okay so there is my cue so uh first of all thank you and welcome

everyone to ehrc’s webinar taking care of your employees today’s session caring

for your hybrid workforce will introduce my very special guest speaker today victoria miles from vision

wheel i’m marie mold and i’m the manager of stakeholder engagement here at electricity human resources canada

before we begin we acknowledge that the national office of electricity human resources canada is located within the

traditional unseated and surrendered territory of the algonquin and nishinova people

ehrc honors the peoples in the land of the algonquin anishinaabe nation and all first nations

inuit and metis peoples and their valuable past present and future contributions to this

land so before we get started i just wanted to have a few housekeeping notes that i wanted to mention

this webinar will be recorded as you just heard and available on the electricity hr dot ca website afterwards

you can use the chat feature today or unmute your microphone once we open the q a session

to ask questions for victoria and we highly encourage it

so now it gives me great pleasure to introduce victoria miles strategic partner at visionwheel

respected for challenging leaders and their teams to examine their organization from a new point of view

victoria knows what it takes to shape and deliver engagement strategies that actually move people

she’s perfected the art and science behind long lasting culture change with experience scanning every sector

as a strategic partner additionally just being unforgettable employee experiences

and memorable educational events and you won’t catch her without her clipboard this i know from experience

also note if you’re currently an erc member vision wheel is part of our roster of partners

for members and you will receive a discount when using this and any of our partner park services

so now let’s get started victoria i’m actually going to hand it over to you welcome

thank you what a gracious kind and very long introduction

i really do appreciate that and i want to jump right in because we have um not not too much time so

um i i’m going to apologize though in advance because i actually speak fairly quickly so you might want to go back and

watch the replay after in case you feel like you might you might have missed something but yeah so at vision wheel we

really focus on three different areas with our clients employee engagement which is like

measuring and motivating and values exercises we focus on employee experience which is all the life cycle

issues like onboarding which as an aside has been a huge area of concentration

organizations always looking for you know ways to become more focused on building in that whole area of belonging

and also delivering onboarding in a virtual environment and then of course our third area is

around education but bar none employee education like back that up with engaging employee

education i should say um is has would have been the area that’s seen the most growth this isn’t just

training we really focus on tapping into areas of deepest need so you know most

recently we’ve been spending time um helping leaders and their people thrive in this hybrid environment and we’ve

spent countless hours countless countless countless hours working directly with teams to help them

uh get set up for the best possible start and then counseling them along the way as they have really struggled in

trying to figure out what it means to lead a hybrid team so i believe that’s going to bring a really unique

perspective to today because what i’m sharing is what i provide to clients every day all day so it’s not just

theory it’s practice and the ideas here should be fairly practical and applicable for you i want you to leave

with some concrete next steps really really want to thank ehrc for this opportunity to speak into this very

important area it’s a model that’s getting a lot of attention and as hr professionals you probably saw the

writing on the wall too long before maybe the ceo and the cfo did you had

your ear to the ground you saw this seismic shift around employee empowering

right this pendulum has swung we are in a time that hr professionals have been

arguably longing for a time where organizations are truly truly madly

deeply like listening to their people i mean heck we’ve been working with a large property management organization

who said that their people are directing their next real estate move i was like wait what like when did that ever happen

like ever and add to that we’re entering and maybe some of you argue we’re already there

but we’re entering the caring economy maybe that’s a new term to you and if yes the caring economy basically argues

that employees are looking to their workplaces as a source of genuine concern about their health their

wellness their safety and in this new economy leadership is in the spotlight because

if you truly care for your team then you are going to find them to be more motivated inspired committed and

mentally healthy and it also takes the shape of greater focus on upskilling and learning and development in particular

now if you joined uh there was a really great little mini conference that linkedin put on called forward uh you

may actually be able to get the replay it’s well worth the hour but you’ll know that learning and

development are pretty much the keys to stemming the great resignation or great

reshuffle or whatever it’s going by these days so this is the backdrop before we look at caring for a hybrid

team we have devoted ourselves to examining this from four different areas and our

training that we do with teams is unpacking these in detail but in a nutshell it’s really around setting up

teams for success kind of understanding the pitfalls managing conflict and accountability and

boy there are different ways to handle conflict with hybrid teams as well as trust in the hybrid workplace

which a lot of people are saying is kind of the backbone of what makes a great hybrid team we also look at productivity and the

heart that’s attached to it all of a sudden productivity is tied to people’s sense of meaning and purpose which never

had been before and then the last is becoming emotionally intelligent hybrid teens so that’s kind of the way that we’ve been

we’ve been thinking about it in all these different dimensions but we have very limited time so we’re going to

drink from the fire hose together i’m going to leave time for questions at the end which is always my favorite part so

save paper questions i love the hard ones um and if not you can always connect with me afterwards i’ve got my

contact information here you can not take a peek all right so you’re almost there or

you’re there now welcoming your teams back to the workplace earning the commute

as they say have you heard that expression earn the commute like what is going to make the workplace different now than it used to be what is going to

take your employees and make them feel that sense of wanting to go back how are you going to earn that commute as they

say finding ways to keep them engaged on track accountable dare i say productive

all right let’s do some level setting what is a hybrid so a hybrid is something that’s made by

combining two different elements or a mixture it could be the offspring of two plants or animals or different species

or varieties such as the mule this is a hybrid of a donkey and a horse now mules

are one of the most commonly used working animals in the world they are highly prized for their heartiness their

intelligence their docile nature overall they tend to be healthier and sounder and live longer than horses and

mules are less prone to injury because they’ve got a really good sense of self-preservation which if you’re

hanging onto the back of one on a cliff in spain you will appreciate and fun fact mules have good strong feet and so

they don’t require shoes now while both are very strong the mule has greater physical strength for its

size and more endurance so here you can see that this hybrid resulted in something

stronger more intelligent more efficient and highly prized isn’t that how you’d like to describe

your team i think so now don’t go around calling them mules now hybrid team can take many forms

full-time co-located workers full-time royal teammates teammates who may be co-located on one day flex as needed

co-located on specific days but in general i think some of the characteristics of your team will look like everyone else there’s difference in

location time and task responsibility and every organization is sort of saying

the same thing right about now they want to test and evaluate option speed business needs maximize employee

experience promote opportunities for connection innovation the support stuff into your company name goals

and most companies by now and if you haven’t you should be probably serving

a lot and hopefully you know in that survey and you’re gathering that information on your people’s

expectations and needs regarding remote work and returning to work on site and in that process you may have or you

may be thinking about conducting and maybe you should if you haven’t job suitability assessments here you want to

identify those best options suited to balance that on-site and remote work

things like work duties processes operational outcomes internal interdependencies and for those of you

in hybrid or maybe piloting i want to give you this practical tip though like survey okay i can’t see you all but i

can feel the eye roll survey again yes but prepare your people in advance tell

them you’ll be asking them for their input and then tell them to keep an

ongoing record here are some questions you might want to be asking them to think about on an ongoing basis is my

team meeting work goals am i um is my team collaborating well how is

the level of commitment on our team what do i feel do i feel more engaged what am i noticing how’s my personal well-being

how’s my team what would i change and the reason why this is a practical pointer is because i want you to prepare

your people to be surveyed one of the biggest mistakes we make is sending up the survey and assuming everyone’s going to

answer it the same way but they don’t it’ll be their worst day it’ll be the day when they if you’re in ottawa the

lrt is not working you know you’ve you’ve it’s taken you forever to get there you forgot your indoor shoes as if

you need undershirts anymore right like you forgot your indoor shoes you’ve got your lunch you get the survey you’re like oh

and so you put zero zero zero one one one zero zero zero you know in all these different areas

but then you could have the opposite effect you could be you know everything was going well uh none of your kids were

sick you actually made it to the office on time you were all planning to go for lunch it was a sunny day they get the

survey and they’re like everything is awesome and they fill it in and then you think

oh and you’ve got five fives four buy fives now if somebody has their ongoing record and it’s as simple as a word doc

or even literally sticky note on their computer just those little things what are they noticing and then you ask them

in the survey you’re more likely to get a true response you’re more likely to get those notes of the things that went

good and the things that weren’t going so well so survey but prepare your people in advance for that

now common to all the models in hybrid they all include this element of choice and

right off the start the first thing you need to consider is that your mindset your people’s

mindset around approaching the hybrid team model is really key this isn’t a decision this is the change effort so

you must start with your mindset because that will help reframe the effort that will be required and make no mistake

hybrid requires effort especially at the beginning if you’re going to see any benefit long term

now i want to talk about uh about change a little bit here because i want to be

able to use this uh something you’ll be very familiar with if you’ve done any change management i want you to show you

a tool but i want it to be really practical for you because you’re going to be going through a season of change

and you want to care for your people you’re going to be thinking about how they adapt to change now

you’ve probably seen this before as i said especially if you’ve done any change management training but this is the kubler-ross change curve this was

introduced in 1969 it’s also known as the five stages of grief it’s a model consisting of the various levels or

stages or emotions people experience by a person who is nearing death or a survivor of an intimate death but what

was interesting and maybe this will be new for you if you really didn’t know how it ended up in business

is that the model after some experimentation was held to be valid in a majority of cases in situations

relating to all kinds of change so in other words it held true for people with

cases of injury disability work issues relationship financial problems and this

model will be really helpful for you in this next change season you can’t be considering just improvements to your

systems and moving to hybrid you need to seek change changing your people because if your people persist in their old ways

all of the investment you made is going to go to waste now leaders play a really important role they need to support the

employees in this process of making the transition and that’s going to include merit issues so the easier it is for

people to move along the journey on the curve the quicker everyone will be back to functioning at that high level because ultimately that’s part of the

equation right we’ve come to expect this great level of performance from our mostly remote team and now for honest

we’re hoping that productivity is not going to wane and we want to try out this new model so i want to dive in a

little bit further because this is actually a practical tool not just a theory i want you to

know and anticipate how people react in general to change so you can know and anticipate how to support your teams and

how to have your leaders support their teams all right i’m grouped this together to make it really simple and hopefully

pretty speedy like i said you’re going to want to watch the replay i’m sure because we’re going to go quick so number one stage one you and your teams

potentially going through that first shock and denial many people not able to digest the fact they have to undergo

this change and adapt to something new many people may need time to adjust to the changes and for a long time may deny

they need any why can’t i just work from home forever that’s all we hear here it’s helpful to over communicate

all your key messages to help them understand the why why are we doing this what are the expected benefits what is

this going to look like you’ll see in this stage over communication is the theme but please do not overwhelm your

people many organizations you might be one of them you’ve circulated maybe a package that has a lot of q and a’s most

i’ve seen are no shorter than 30 pages q and a’s lots and lots of detail what to

expect how it breaks down what the cover protocols are you know have your leaders of your and

your managers just take that package and break it down for their teams a little bit guide their communication choose a

few of those q and a’s each week and include them in an email to the team i can tell you teams are not reading 30

pages and when they are they are getting overwhelmed please please break it down make your communication simple over

communicate as much as you can but i said don’t overwhelm number two stage two the gravity of the

situation settles in the reality becomes clear hybrid is ultimately the workplace of the future

i’m here to tell you if you don’t already know most organizations are moving in this direction and in this stage of the curve

you may be there now or you’ve traveled through this you and your team may begin to feel fear from what lies ahead and

that can turn into anger and resentment and you and your team have been in a comfort zone for a really long time

i’m just saying some of you even right now are working in slippers knowing that your people need to learn

and change and adapt and put on belts and shirts of buttons that can make people feel angry and upset so this

stage has to be managed really really carefully by you because some people tend to vent their anger just a little

too harshly this is why so much planning needs to be done in advance if you can taking time

to think about everyone on the team and how they’ve adapted in the past practical suggestion

here have your leaders and if you’re one of them create a list of your team members just a word or a piece of paper or your

favorite clipboard write down each of their names and then a quick note beside each one how did i

see them adapt to change in the past what were their reactions what did i have to know

what helped them this is going to go a long way because this is going to help you shortcut some

of those things in going back and rediscovering or watching somebody go through it again and you’re thinking huh

okay this is reminiscent of when we got sent home what did i do last time if you just have

a little bit of foresight and do some of that planning in advance it’s really going to help you out

okay number three make room to explore now it’s stage three here this is when you and your teams finally start to

embrace the change and realize how to adapt this is the time when your team might try to find the best possible

scenario to fit in and adapt and start experimenting but what happens here and if you’ve done

grief counseling this is when bargaining comes in people bargain because they don’t want to feel like they’ve compromised too

much you might get can i bring my dog to work probably not can i work 10 to 6 6

a.m to 1 to avoid traffic talking to your teams about what those options are and you know what you cannot

rush this part of the process to learn quickly or adapt to change too fast and you cannot expect 100 productivity

during the space this experimental phase this learning phase it may not always be a very happy

and comfortable zone for your team and you know you leaders you might expect to see low energy due to dipping

morale and excitement and getting worn down listen if you’ve got kids this is like being asked a million questions

every day have you seen this meme yeah this is me this is how i feel some days

once i became a parent i finally understood the scene where yoda gets so tired of answering questions questions he just dies

you could feel yourself getting worn down during this phase now stage four this is the stage

everyone loves finally beginning to embrace the change accepting the situation people are building new hopes

and aspirations huh maybe i do love a good podcast on that morning commute you

know or i didn’t realize how much i missed in my case planet coffee which is local a little coffee shop

everyone is realizing and understanding the importance of the change and while some may accept it because they don’t

have any other option others may actually accept the reality in a positive way which is what you want right you you should start to see your

team showing improvements and overall productivity starting to rebound and i always say now is a great time to

celebrate some small wins even so really really practically send out that weekly check-in email include a

couple q a’s write that list of team members noting reactions of things that happened in the

past what helped keeping an eye on your personal wellness and then the last one just is kind of a

fun little thing celebrating maybe some fun we call them like little fake awards

uh one of our clients did this these were these were actual examples they had some really a really good fun time doing

it not taking themselves too seriously in the beginning you know there’s a lot of stuff that’s going on but they were

taking time to celebrate any small win they could so they had these fun little motivational things where they had

imaginary recognition awards like um matching socks for five days in a row you’d be surprised when you’re digging

in your closet and you’re like i have to go back to the office i need to find matching socks most coffee consumed in a day or

remembered their power cord and mouse award boy oh boy one of the big things

what you forget what you forget when you have to go back now heading back to the workplace

and hybrid you know or full-time is going to be scary for some of your people it’ll be a joy for others and

i’ve been comparing this workplace re-entry to the experience of returning maybe from a mission trip or a

humanitarian project you know there’s this initial culture shock when we go abroad in our case it was stay at home

and then there’s the reverse culture shock the return the recovery the reintegration and so how can you minimize that shock

and the one thing i can suggest to you is that you want to normalize the change as much as possible and that happens

through preparation and communication for example in the early return days and you some of you may be in that phase now

in missions we talk about pre-departure preparation and getting closure and so

as teams start to prepare for this return process first encourage that conversation around the things that they

want to hold on to and the things they want to let go of they might want to say goodbye to the

dining room table which has been their office for the last 22 months they may want to say goodbye to the easy access

to the refrigerator all day this is fun examples but there will be

things that they will want to move on from there will be things they want to say goodbye to and that will be part of

the process of getting them ready to come back and really embrace this hybrid but the second thing to remember is pay

attention make sure you are picking up on all those cues from your team you’re offering more grace you’re looking for

opportunities to intervene the attitude that you hold is that everyone has permission to be okay with what they’re

experiencing in this adjustment phase now there’s lots of stats out there ipsys did a poll that showed 49

were comfortable and excited with 51 reporting the opposite and you know what

leaders you’re prone to think about the 51 a lot but i would love to advise you

do not neglect the 49 they are gold if you are one of them and that’s you your

contagious enthusiasm is high priority because that will be part of driving

that successful return to work that will be part of the caring that is going to be required really really really really

neat that contagious enthusiasm all right so i hope that none of you are under the assumption that the hybrid

will actually be an easier way to do business the reality is in the short term we’ve got some mules that are going to need some pushing and pulling right

so we’re actually adding complexity so we spent a good amount of time unpacking change you should be getting the picture

this will have some challenges now i’m going to stop share here and i’m i’m going to uh just speak

to the end of uh to the end of our time and then look through the questions as well um

and there’s a really good question that’s actually come up here thank you for asking about the uh inequalities and

the fairness i actually have something perfect coming up for that in just one second so we’ve talked a lot about change and

the variety of emotions and one of the areas that deserve some special attention is around belonging part of

keeping hybrid teams working seamlessly really involves a deliberate effort to ensure individuals from diverse

backgrounds experiences and cultures really feel included loneliness will happen and so

inclusivity is even more important and kindness and consideration they are essential to mitigating loneliness and

enabling inclusivity and belonging i think one of the silver linings of the pandemic is that it has focused

businesses on employee wellness with i would say most top employers we work with are implementing explicit policies

to boost not just morale and engagement but also psychological and physical well-being and the pandemic has really

led to i’m sure you would agree a rapid evolution of human resources growing

urgency for what people are calling this reset remember that caring economy i mentioned earlier and you probably know

that the definition of a leader has expanded leaders now hold a greater responsibility to ensure that they those

they serve are well not just well paid or well regarded

we cannot ignore what we have learned about our teams who they are outside of the office is

critical it’s a critical part of who they are period and we now have this unique opportunity to invite the whole

person back to the workplace make sure they feel not only they belong but also

they’re cherished and they are valued for the whole person they represent we’ve we’ve kind of masked ourselves but

unmasked our lives and that is personal it’s emotional employees need to know they are valued even more today because

we know them in a deeper way we’ve seen more of their lives and now we know we have more to offer and they have more to

offer than we ever realized before but there’s more because in hybrid we rely a

lot on written communication as opposed to just working exclusively in the office where we’ve got face-to-face

like our teams not only have to collaborate on projects but also they’re responsible for building

relationships and trust and rapport with their other colleagues and they’re doing it through a computer screen

i would argue that to build trust with a team you need to understand how they express their emotions to others through

all these various tools but think about it when it comes to some of the other eq basics like self-awareness and

self-control and positive outlook and achievement and empathy and influence you know when we’re just behind a screen

we’re missing out on some of these elements going into hybrid is going to get us back into a much more empathetic

attitude and when it comes to caring for your team stress when working in hybrid manifests

itself in in very different ways compared to working exclusively in person instant messaging heavy dependence on

technology people are getting overwhelmed by communications and overloaded and in the

office we lean on our colleagues for venting our conversations around stress triggers which for some is a really

great coping mechanism in hybrid it’s important to find time to speak with colleagues not only about

work but also how people feel about work so the last thing i’ll say on this is that

working remotely as you all know means you live where you work and when we work from an office it can be easier to leave

the office than stressors than the day behind when we work at home it can be more difficult to leave work at home because we’re right here

hybrid who straddle both they need to find ways to switch off from work from technology and put the work situations

aside to prioritize themselves and their responsibilities outside of work i’m probably not telling you anything that’s

new here i just want to remind you that hybrid is going to add a new dimension to this now continuing down the emotion

past one of the last things i’ll touch on in caring for your people is an area we’ve seen cropping up thank you for

saying andrea fairness there are myriad issues linked to this one idea some are more obvious

than others like hey i’m in a role that can’t work from home yet my colleagues can or

jim and sue their team are on high bid but we’re all remote and i wanna jump teams

so i’m actually gonna post a link into the chat to a really fantastic article it

tackles some of these thornier issues i’m just gonna put it here so everyone can see it

please don’t read it now but please save it for later um and this really tackles things at a deeper

level i think this will be helpful for you interview as you’re thinking about this because it will go beyond just the you

know the the sense that you know some can and some can’t it really gets to the next level down it describes that

employees have different access to resources and different levels of visibility also with hybrid and these

two areas resources and visibility are key sources of power and influence for people so it makes sense

employees actually can feel threats real and perceive threats to their mobility to their status to their growth

all right we’ve covered a lot of ground i know i’m out of time um because i want to have time for questions but just let

me leave you with one more thing i’m having a flashback of like against you knife commercial right now you know act

now receive the second set bonus chop block so here’s the bonus gift three very short guiding principles just

remember first you need to remember that equal access to your people in hybrid does not mean the same it’s okay

to say to your in-person team members i’m gonna have a meeting with each of you and that’s your time but when you’re

in the office those people can also still grab you at the coffee pot they can bang on your door they can see you in the parking lot they can walk with

you to grab lunch remote teammates might not have that same access so the best practice is remember

equal does not mean the same find ways to ensure remote people have the exact same feeling of access maybe it’s

virtual coffee pot at 15 minutes at 10 and 3 or holding some of that time is precious and and important so treasure

treasurable time the second thing is as a leader it really is your responsibility to make sure there are appropriate opportunities

for people to work anywhere now unfortunately a lot of this pertains to knowledge workers uh people who are

probably more prone to being in the office i know there are field staff and other types there’s production facilities we work with and they’ve got

lots of things going on but for people who you are straddling who have um office type responsibility or knowledge

or or computer type responsibilities things where they have to be tied here there are a few things worse than

knowing an opportunity is really only geared for someone who has to be fully in the office or fully remote so when

you think about promotions and project opportunities the best practices take the extra step of trying to make them

either universal or have a really really really really really really really good reason why they only work for somebody

who’s only in the office or only out of the office and the last last last promise

in hybrid work to avoid all those exclusionary opportunities now this may

be something you think is not important but trust me the all dreaded all team email

all team we’ve got pizza we’re bringing lunch on tuesday or there’s cake in the break room that can leave people feeling

excluded and there’s a best practice and this may happen and that’s okay remember what signals you’re sending

pay really close attention to how you’re creating inclusion and trust me if what somebody on your team is making that

world famous banana bread for your next meeting or training i mean not only consider inviting me along but

don’t just have it show up in a virtual meeting everyone is sitting around in the meeting room as they get yummy it up and

then they’re looking on screen the people aren’t screaming like i’m getting virtual banana bread all right so thank you again the fun

part your questions i’m anxious to see what you’ve got to come at me um and i’m

happy to stick around for as long as the questions come in so thank you very much and i look forward to answering them now

thanks victoria so while people are doing that i’m going to queue up um one question for you um

and that was like really insightful thank you very much i learned an awful lot actually today from that

so at the very beginning you talked about the employee survey and so i had a

question in regards to that and it kind of goes back to andrea’s comment as well um

what would be a best practice after you’ve actually done that engagement survey do you share the responses with

the team uh do you actually go into action or do you do a communication and if you do a

communication with the whole team do you segregate it by audience so field maybe

versus the employees that are working in the office

good question uh let me think about that for a second i think as a best practice actually after a

survey is deployed oftentimes we hold or we recommend holding focus groups um and

we do that to unpack the results with groups of employees because sometimes you need to contextualize the results a

little bit you need to ask the questions as follow-up almost like what were you thinking when you answered this question not like what were you thinking like

what were you thinking about as you answered this question can you provide some specific examples and those focus

groups those that time can be really constructive because it can help formulate a better action plan than just

relying on survey results themselves so that’s one thing i would say and it doesn’t have to be done by a third party

it can be done by somebody somebody on your team the second is yes i mean yes absolutely

share the results back um normally there’s some sort of executive summary that’s written around what it is you

were trying to achieve uh it’s normally presented to teams in a variety of

different ways and making those results accessible but you know the reason why people fill

in a survey in the first place there’s two reasons right one is that they think it’s anonymous and confidential and the

second is that they think action’s gonna result so if you tell them in advance something’s gonna happen after you

better do whatever you said you were going to do after and yes sharing the results back um

for sure that would be best practice okay great thank you very much um so

does anybody want to unmute their mic for a question i’ll leave that for now and see if there is anybody

we’ve got a quiet bunch here um i can tell you one of the questions i get asked all the time about around

around this as soon as i mention the word conflict people say like why is conflict different in hybrid

and i i can tell you that the nature of conflict in the workplace has changed significantly over the last

uh as we’ve been working virtually uh the virtual environment has um well let me just back up there’s

two types of conflict generally right there’s interpersonal conflict and there’s task-related conflict and both

are going to happen in your team the thing is that task-related conflict is usually very healthy be resolved

interpersonal is much more difficult in the virtual world we’ve seen a rise in task conflict and a decrease in

interpersonal which is great and that’s happened because people are actually spending less time with each other

they’re focusing more on the task and so they’re not interacting and creating interpersonal but we have seen tasks

kind of devolve into interpersonal and so what happens in the virtual environment is that the urgency to

resolve conflict has become lessened significantly lessened because we’re not

having that face-to-face contact it’s not like you and i have a disagreement and then i have to see you in 15 minutes

at the next team meeting or see you at lunch you know when we’re virtual you’re off screen you don’t have to interact with

them again and so you don’t have that urgency to resolve it or to you follow up even on it really well and

in hybrid the problem is that you’ll always be struggling or you can be struggling to

find the best way to resolve it but do we wait till we’re in the office together do we try to do it on screen

you know the permutations of doing it on screen right so you’ve got leader in the office two employees who are at home or

you’ve got one employee in the office with the leader and then you got someone on screen terrible you’ve got all these

different scenarios that can play out and how to even have the conversation just at a technical level um so hybrid

does add a complexity around the area of conflict and i get i get asked someone quite a

bit great thank you there is another question up on the chat sure

um so it says what are the best arguments to convince our executive committee about the need to prepare to

come back to the office of our employees when they think it is not a big deal at all oh my goodness what is the best

argument i can’t tell you i mean oh what is the best argument that’s good

uh you know what that is a good question it is we’ve been the funny thing is like we’ve been

working with or like government agencies who have no plan to come back anytime soon but still have the foresight to

want to train their people like i’m telling you four half days of training around how to be a great hybrid

employee um to major corporations and not-for-profits who are also and leaders

we’re doing lots and lots like we’re booked solid because people are seeing that if they don’t prepare their

people then they’re going to be in a world of pain that like i don’t know the best way to describe it but you could point to

some things like you know there’s this thing called the great resignation that’s happening like

you know people have more choice employees are feeling more empowered than ever uh don’t you think it would

make sense for us to invest a little bit in preparing them for this this re-entry

um oh gosh i can’t think but you after as soon as this is over i’m gonna like 15 arguments in my mind

and they’re all fired up about what to say um that’s fine you know if you do we can

share that with the participants yeah maybe we’ll uh maybe i’ll do a linkedin post on this

specifically i’ll take a great thing ahead of time that where our whole month of june for vision wheel is going to be

all around hybrid so we’ve got a new paper coming out a bunch of stuff yeah okay

i have one other question as well so you talked about uh you have the image of yoda up

there and talking about questions and how somebody can get really worn out which was a great analogy

um do you have any tips on how somebody could recover from that like i mean are

besides just the fact that you could just walk away and leave for an hour and then come back

is there any other tips that you could provide for everybody that’s on the session today on that

um well yeah i mean there’s there’s a number of different tools that you can use just self-care tools that you can

use um you know there’s and i think next week uh in our next session you’ve got somebody who’s going to speak

specifically to wellness as well yes that’s right yeah absolutely there will be some tools that are introduced there

um but you know my point is more just be aware of what is happening during that phase

for yourself you will have your own strategy whether that’s um you know

exercise or outlets or conversational um you know therapies or

uh you know taking time stepping time away and things like you’ll have your own things my point is just notice start

by noticing what you’re noticing in yourself are you getting more frustrated resentful angry you know are you

uh noticing those things in yourself and i think also which is helpful is asking your team to reflect back to you

right it’s giving them permission to say oh i have a great book um

you know what it’s always this always happens um you know

giving people permission to say to you i’m going to call you out on something that i’m noticing in you now one of the

areas that leaders are struggling and this this could be part this could be part of that is trying to figure out what it means to be authentic you know

we’re throwing us around like i am the authentic leader i was like what’s that mean this book why should anyone be led by

you it’s a little bit older um but and it doesn’t necessarily talk about virtual or hybrid but boy oh boy why

should anyone be led by you uh what it takes to be an authentic leader really breaks down some amazing great stories

you always love maybe you can get it as a podcast or something along those lines um but well worth the investment i

always say to leaders don’t leave it on your desk you don’t want your people saying yeah

right you should be reading that book um but you know this this talks to some of

those things like how do we find ways to communicate authentically with our team how do we give them that permission to

uh to feedback to us when they notice we’re not as you know um happy or

or engaged or whatever that is so okay great thank you and i know that uh

somebody had just made a comment on that last question i understood to bringing up the risks of not doing it thank you

fantastic so i’m going to actually i think i’m going to wrap this up so i’m just going to share my screen once again

because i love this picture i want to thank victoria very much so

and all the participants today if you would like more information as a valued member and how to benefit from

some of these partner perks please get in touch with me at one of the email addresses listed here and you can also

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