Hybrid Work: How Leaders Build In-Person Moments That Matter
As hybrid work programs continue to grow in popularity and full-time office work declines, many leaders and companies are still struggling with a tough question: What are the right patterns for getting people together?
Free-for-all approaches that depend on individuals and managers to self-organize hybrid work norms don’t succeed — the coordination tax is just too high. I’ve seen this up close in my work with dozens of organizations. These ad hoc models result in people showing up to quiet offices, retreating to conference rooms to be on Zoom all day, and commuting home with a bubbling resentment about having traveled in for no clear reason.
What does work, then? While headlines make it sound like it’s a battle to get people out of their home offices (even if the office is a closet), three years of data from Future Forum shows that the vast majority of people want to gather together, anywhere from a few days a week to once a month — but they want that in-office time to be purpose-driven.
These selective moments are built around activities that blend business work with social time. They’re most successful when they’re designed around specific workplace goals and events that include team development, onboarding and training, new-team formation, project kickoffs, and specific times for function-specific roles, such as sales. The benefit? Companies get the upsides of deeper connection and engagement without all the downsides of RTO mandates.
Office Attendance Doesn’t Equal Engagement
Mandates to be in the office “just because” have faced a lot of employee resistance. Blanket policies increase the risk of losing top talent and a diverse workforce, disproportionately cause women to leave, and negatively impact productivity. We’re seeing that one-size-fits-all approaches don’t work for the majority of teams that are now distributed across cities and even countries, and they don’t fit the distinct team rhythms in realms such as sales, finance, or engineering. As a result, leaders have generally been loath to go hard on enforcement of RTO policies.
Four Essential Times for Building Moments That Matter
- Team development: Get people together three or four times a year, with a 50-50 mix of business and social.
- Onboarding and training events: Use face-to-face time to get to know people and to build ties across functions.
- New-team formation and major-initiative kickoffs: Grapple together over the objectives and norms of a project.
- Business-function-specific activities: Let teams figure out the best in-person schedules for their needs.