1. Hybrid teams, where employees work some days in the office and other days remotely, are becoming increasingly popular as they provide both employees and employers with flexibility and cost savings. 2. To effectively build a hybrid team, employers must get buy-in from employees, nurture a growth culture, document new processes, invest in collaboration tools, maintain open communication, and prioritize health and well-being. 3. Regular team-building activities are important for hybrid teams to foster engagement and a sense of belonging among both in-office and remote employees.

1. 1/8
February 21, 2022
How to Effectively Build and Grow Hybrid Teams in the
New Normal
process.st/build-hybrid-teams
Leks Drakos
February 21, 2022
Management, Team Building
Kevin Payne is a content marketing consultant at Leadhackrs that helps software
companies build marketing funnels and implement content marketing campaigns to
increase their inbound leads.
2020 shook up the whole notion of work/life balance – not to mention what it actually
meant to “work from home”. What had previously been a luxury available in only a few
industries suddenly became a health and safety requirement for nearly the entire global
population.
In a post-COVID world, however, not everyone has been eager to jump straight back into
the office. While employees enjoyed the freedom and flexibility their WFH setups allowed
(minus the interruptions of pets, children, and partners), employers also appreciated the
benefits of lower maintenance costs and a bit more flexibility in their own lives as well.
In the early days of lockdown, the question on everyone’s mind was: When will we go back
to work? After lockdown, the question has become: How do we want to work?

2. 2/8
While many are quite happy to stick with their fully remote workdays, the hybrid
workplace is becoming increasingly popular for both employees and employers.
In fact, according to a Gallup panel from earlier this year, about half of surveyed
employees report that they would prefer a hybrid workplace. This means they want some
days spent in the office, while other days they’re free to work from home or anywhere else.
(Source)
Why are hybrid teams the future?
It’s not hard to see the appeal of a hybrid workforce. Many workplaces that may adopt the
hybrid team setup are able to work mostly asynchronously, only meeting on designated
hours or days.
This frees up a lot of typical business hours for many things employees can now do: from
staying on top of personal errands, keeping up medical commitments, or even being more
present for family activities like school drop-offs.
Employers themselves reap the rewards of enabling more freedom and flexibility. For one
thing, operational costs like maintaining an office lease can be offset. They may move to a
coworking space with a set number of seats a day, or might only rent out conference
rooms for meetings when needed.
Employers are also building up their team from a place of trust. Because employees aren’t
tied to “body in seat productivity,” team members can feel like they’re being valued and
trusted by their managers.
They aren’t prone to feeling like their employers watch every move they take or need their
approval for every minute of the day. With hybrid work, you empower your employees to
take responsibility and to contribute as effective members of the company.
Despite the challenges it takes to transition to a successful hybrid team, it’s worth
exploring to keep reaping those benefits that keep employees engaged without risking
business productivity.

3. 3/8
In the next section, we’ll guide you through the steps to build and grow a hybrid team for
your own business.
Steps to build and grow a hybrid team for your business
Ready to transition to a hybrid team in the new normal? Follow these simple steps to get
you on your way.
Tip #1: Get everyone to buy in
The very first step to transition to hybrid teams is making sure everyone gets on board the
idea. This setup is more than just a choice that managers make and employees are
expected to follow.
Instead, everyone has to understand why this new setup is being adopted in your
company.
Some employees, for example, may prefer to stay completely remote instead of
transitioning back to the office. They may have gotten used to having no commutes or
saving money on gas, and are hesitant to go back to the office and take on these kinds of
costs again.
On the other hand, others may not wish for remote days anymore, especially if they
struggled to unplug when working from home. This inability, in addition to loneliness,
were the two biggest struggles remote workers faced according to a report by Buffer.
(Source)

4. 4/8
To successfully get your employees on board, start from a place of understanding and
empathy. Acknowledge the concerns they may have about returning to the office – or not
returning – every day and involve them in coming up with solutions. Change and
uncertainty make everyone uncomfortable, but the more agency and control an individual
has over that change, the more receptive they are.
It may even be a good idea to give employees the option. Those who want to come to the
office every day are free to do so, and vice versa. Figure out the system that works best for
your employees and your company.
Tip #2: Nurture your team’s growth culture
Every transition and change leads to challenges. But truly effective teams don’t dwell on
the roadblocks and struggles — they adopt a growth culture and are proactive about
finding and reviewing solutions.
What this means for you is to involve employees in the transition as much as you can.
Talk them through your plans, or encourage people to speak up if they have their own
recommendations about how to make things easier for everyone.
Give everyone a sense of responsibility, and they’ll be more engaged with the transition.
In fact, it may even help your team bond as they try to solve problems together and make
the new work setup better for everyone.
One hallmark of a truly efficient and strong team is the ability to grow through challenges
while also growing the company with effective team collaboration.
Because of this, make it a point to model that behavior yourself in your team, and watch
as people respond positively to this initiative.
3. Develop and document your processes
Documenting your new processes as you adopt a hybrid workplace can help you ease
everyone into the new setup without much hassle.
By having a standard operating procedure for most things, you’re able to provide
employees with a go-to guide or handbook that shows them how to proactively solve
problems.
These documented processes are especially helpful when onboarding new team members
as well. Once you’ve built them from scratch or using a template, it’s easy to make any
kind of revisions as required, such as when processes change or when new members are
added into the mix.
Check out this blog post that shows you how to create a procedure or process for your own
business.

5. 5/8
Wondering what kind of processes you might be able to document in your own company?
One example may be an agency that wanted to document your hiring and onboarding
process. This serves as a guide for not only any HR staff but also teams who will be
welcoming new recruits and guiding them through your business operations.
From hiring to onboarding, down to initiating and ending new projects, you can create
clean documented processes for company-wide workflows or team-specific projects that
need to follow some kind of procedure so that nothing falls through the cracks.
Tip #4: Invest in the right tools
To truly support your hybrid team, you will have to give them the right tools that will help
them do their job better. Fortunately, if your company worked remotely because of the
pandemic, then you probably already have most of these tools as is.
However, it always helps to keep an eye on new tools that are constantly emerging in the
market, especially for solving different needs and projects.
Below, we name some important ones you’ll want to have for any activity or job in your
company:
Cloud accounting software for your accounting team to collaborate, share, and
review financial reports and projections.
Video conferencing software like Zoom that helps remote workers stay in the loop
during meetings.
Document sharing apps like Google Docs to make collaboration easier.
Team-ready design apps like GoDaddy Studio where graphic designers are able to
view projects and collaborate on the same files without having to send raw files back
and forth.
Remote employee tracking software like Time Doctor that can help employees track
and then optimize their personal productivity and performance.

6. 6/8
Documentation tools like Process Street that help your whole team create new
workflows, apply conditional logic, and get any new processes approved by
managers and authorized personnel at the business.
Communication tools like Slack that help streamline messaging between employees,
teams, channels, and even other stakeholders to your business.
To truly make sure every team has all the tools they need, you may want to have team
leaders keep in touch with everyone to see what might be missing. A totally remote
workplace is still different from a hybrid workplace, so some tools may be needed to
bridge the gap.
At the end of the day, listen to what your team tells you they need and try to find a tool
that may solve that need and keep everyone productive.
Tip #5: Maintain open communication and transparency
Just as in remote working, you need to keep your communication lines open at all times
when you have a hybrid team. This is more than just during the transition too — you’ll
have to keep up communication all throughout the workday.
Because of this, come up with important parameters for your internal communications.
We have some guide questions here that might help you do just that:
Are there any designated days where everyone should come to the office?
Will all meetings be taken in person, or can some people join in via video
conferencing?
How can employees make sure they know each other’s schedules coming into the
office or working remotely?
What should employees and teams do to make sure they’re on top of other people’s
leaves?
How should employees handle filing for leaves or times when they’re away from
their computers?
Just as it was a struggle to adjust to completely remote working, expect that these return
when you transition to a workforce that is sometimes in the office while the rest are
working remotely. But if you commit to keeping your communication lines open and
accepting feedback on how to improve things, then the transition will be more
manageable.
Tip #6: Prioritize your team’s health & wellbeing
During the pandemic, when people worked remotely, they reported more heightened
feelings of loneliness. Of course, this was a struggle remote workers faced even before the
pandemic, but social isolation during the pandemic only exacerbated these feelings —
more so in employees who may have never worked from home their entire careers.

7. 7/8
Coming off of this tumultuous time, employers must step up to make sure everyone’s
health and wellness are a priority. Your team should know that you take their mental
health and wellbeing seriously and that you also have the actions to support it.
For one thing, if you manage to save money from letting go of costly office leases, you
might pass the savings on to a wellness fund for employees. This fund might cover
anything they need to keep their health up, from gym memberships to therapy sessions or
even bonuses that let them invest in better things for their wellbeing when they work from
home.
This makes employees feel heard. And if you believe a hybrid workplace is best for
everyone, then you’ll be putting in the efforts that support these claims.
Tip #7: Encourage team-building activities
In the previous section, we mentioned that passing on new benefits for employees to
make their mental health and wellbeing a priority can help them feel valued at your
business.
If benefits like these aren’t realistic yet, you can start small. Consider having optional
team bonding activities, such as team-building exercises — whether in person or virtual,
depending on the nature of your team.
Have an open Slack channel for non-work chats and conversations, so remote employees
won’t miss out on any in-office banter and jokes. It’s all about being more human and
letting your employees know that you’re a company that wants them here.
One of the most important things to remember during this step is to let employees feel
like they belong in the team, even if they only see one another a few times a week. And if
your hybrid team has fully remote workers from different cities, states, or countries
altogether, then this becomes especially crucial to keep employee engagement high.
The most vital element of creating a hybrid team
Change is hard – especially after a pretty lengthy period of uncertainty, confusion,
frustration, and general tumult in every aspect of life from buying toilet paper to side-
eyeing the lady at the bus stop who just coughed.
It’s been rough on your team – but it’s been rough on you, too. Share that with them. Let
them know you understand what they’ve been through and how this new transition will
affect their work, their family, and their home. Reassure them that they have your
support, even if the transition is a little rocky at first. In fact, tell them straight-up the
transition will be rocky (it will) but you’re prepared.
At the end of the day, you’re a team. You may lead them, but every individual is essential
to the success of that team. You rely on each of them for different skills, abilities,
responsibilities, and experiences. Making the transition to hybrid work is no different;

8. 8/8
treating it as a collaborative team effort will make your – and your team’s – experience
much, much better.