After years of tossing and turning between RTO mandates and resistance from remote workers, hybrid work is here to stay. But flexible working comes with its own challenges, and managers may be letting their employees down when it comes to preparing them for the new normal.
According to a recent report from workplace consulting and research firm Gallup, only 21% of hybrid employees have received any kind of training on how to best work in a flexible work environment. And managers who lead teams working from home aren’t much better off—only 28% have received training on how to manage hybrid employees.
“I wish I was surprised that the numbers are so low. Unfortunately, this trend has been stable since 2022,” says Ben Wigert, director of research and strategy for Gallup’s Workplace Management practice Assets. “We are not providing training for individual employees to work effectively in a hybrid environment. And perhaps worse, we are not preparing managers to lead hybrid teams. That is worrying.”
Training hybrid employees to work effectively is unique to each team and company, but it’s all about making sure everyone is on the same page. This includes making sure everyone is using the same work and communication tools and maintaining a constant flow of information about what’s working and what’s not. Bosses should also proactively have casual conversations with their hybrid teams about how they’re working together – instead of conversations around the coffee machine that would otherwise have taken place in the office – and make sure they’re conducting regular performance reviews.
For now, employers seem to be taking a chance. Much of the advice employees receive about how best to work in hybrid mode is rather informal. Wigert says managers have established more formal rules for working hours, but this is more administrative than synergistic in nature.
“While organizations typically have an organization-wide policy, it’s likely to be very general,” he says. “A policy doesn’t unite your team in what you expect from each other: who we want to be, what we want to achieve, and how we want to achieve it.”
When employers actually have a flexible workforce plan that goes beyond work-from-home policies, they can reap huge benefits. Hybrid employees who have been trained on remote teamwork are 2.2 times more likely to say their company’s policies have had an extremely positive impact on how their team works together, the report says. And that positivity comes with productivity benefits—about 66% are more likely to be engaged at work and 29% less likely to be burned out.
“The simple act of creating a plan together will improve teamwork and each employee’s commitment to their work, and reduce their stress and burnout. Teams that prioritize activities like collaboration, feedback, and team building well are the best indicator of how engaged that person is. It doesn’t just improve their teamwork—it empowers them to do their best work,” says Wigert.
Until business leaders understand the potential deficiencies and problems that can arise from untrained hybrid teams, Wigert recommends flexible workers ask their managers for formal training on the skills they need to work more effectively with their colleagues. And managers should hold regular meetings about how their employees can best work together.
“I would recommend every team to do a reset – to develop a team charter that renews commitment to the mission, goals and way of working together,” he says.
Emma Burleigh
[email protected]
Around the table
A summary of the most important HR headlines.
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Water cooler
Everything you need to know about Assets.
Coin toss. Leading technology companies believe that AI will deliver unprecedented productivity gains in the long run. but others say the efficiency will be more modest than expected. —Lionel Lim
Tag team. Amazon is reviving a pre-pandemic hiring practice to have an employee from another team or a “benchmark setter” participate in the interviews as an objective third party. —Sydney Lake
Come back. After stock prices fell following a less than stellar US jobs report, They have started to recover. —Stan Choe, AP
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