Since the pandemic, a myriad of companies have seen their management practices disrupted and the “remote work” option expand. Many managers thus found themselves (and still currently find themselves) managing teams both remotely AND on-site. The time employees spend in the office and their remote working days, being different from one individual to another, lead managers to put in place a new organization to achieve the same objective: fostering company growth. These various locations have given rise to what is called “hybrid management.”

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Hybrid management: two management styles in one!

Understanding its dual nature

Let us first define what we mean by hybrid management.” This management mode combines employees’ presence in the workplace” and outside the workplace”. An employee is considered remote if they carry out their duties from home, in a coworking space, or more generally from spaces that are not their company’s premises.

Hybrid management is actually part of what is called NWOW. This acronym, which stands for New World Of Working” or Nouveau Monde du Travail” in French, refers to all the newly developed techniques in the professional sphere where the human element is central. It therefore entails the deployment of shared workspaces, new collaborative tools, participative management, etc.

Staying informed about employees’ organization

This system encourages the manager to provide different supervision, but above all to stay informed about which employees remain at home and which come to the office. To make organization easier, they can follow a schedule indicating “on-site” and “remote,” and even ensure this calendar is shared with all teams so that everyone can adjust their remote workdays according to the information visible in the calendar.

Let us assume you are a Project Manager and work in a pair on a specific assignment; it would be preferable to come to your company’s office on the days your colleague is there. To do this, you could discuss it with them beforehand to agree on common in-office days, or consult the team schedule (if it is shared with everyone, as recommended later). Beyond team organization, the manager may require teams (or only part of them) to be present at the same time, on the same day of the week, or during major events. The more advance notice they receive, the more they can prepare to be present at those times.

The consequences of hybrid management

The limits of hybrid management

When experimenting with so-called “hybrid” management, both positive and negative elements are highlighted. Because it is always better to end on a positive note, we chose to first present the limits of this method. Among the most frequently raised points are:

• Hyper-connectivity

  With the generalization of remote work, the risk of hyper-connectivity is greater. For fear of missing a call, a notification, or an email when going into another room of one’s apartment or picking up a package at the door, there may be concern that superiors will form a negative opinion of one’s work. To prove that we work just as efficiently remotely, the risk is developing a dependency on work. This is referred to as “workaholism.”

  This hyper-connectivity increases workers’ mental overload. Whether at home, in transit, on weekends, at the end of vacation, they cannot forget the little things that make them anxious: being on time for a video call even though they have children to drop off at school, ensuring logistics are working for a file presentation in front of their bosses, finding a date when all team members are available... Mental load can be observed both in managers and employees. The latter know they must respond to colleagues and their superior in under 24 hours because requests may be urgent. On their side, managers know they must be available to employees and thus: quickly validate one of their requests at the risk of slowing their work progress, intervene as early as possible when they see them heading in the wrong direction, support them if they are learning on assignments.

  In fact, mental load is that feeling of being in two places at once. Applied to hybrid management, it is that feeling of having to perform equally well on-site and remotely, that feeling of having to be equally available for teams in Paris with you and for those working remotely.

• Blurring

  With hybrid management, workers no longer associate company premises as the only place where they can work, making it possible to work anywhere: at home, at friends’, at parents’, in a third place, in transit, etc. Since every space potentially becomes a workplace, private places lose their main function related to personal life. The boundary between private life and professional life shrinks, becoming blurred. English speakers use the term “blurring” to describe this thin boundary between the two worlds.

  When we are not in the official premises of our company, no longer have the habit of going home at the same time as colleagues, and can carry our work computer everywhere, setting a specific end-of-day time becomes less easy. Should we stop working at the same time as when we used to leave the office on on-site days? Or should we finish work at the time we would normally get home on on-site days? Or do we choose to end our workday when it is time to relieve the nanny? Or rather when our partner finishes their tasks for the day or comes home?

  Blurring also creates a fear of missing out on something or being perceived as unavailable. This thought sometimes pushes employees to respond to emergencies, emails, and calls outside their “usual” hours, even during leave. According to a PageGroup survey conducted among 1,600 employees, 48% of them reportedly work during their rest time (reading and/or replying to emails, taking or making work calls, etc.).

• The feeling of isolation

  As humans are social beings, they build themselves as individuals through contact with others. With remote work, employees no longer see each other in person, sometimes no longer speak directly with colleagues, no longer gather around coffee, no longer chat during lunch. As a result, they think less about reaching out to each other, or if they do, it is more for urgent or important matters. Whether chosen or imposed, remote work removes the worker from social relationships and encourages the feeling of being left to fend for themselves.

• Over-solicitation of the manager by employees

  If employee hyper-connectivity is often mentioned when discussing hybrid work, it should be remembered that managers also face it, if not more, because their responsibility is greater. With employees’ desire to show they are just as effective remotely as in person, they may want to provide more evidence of their work and ask for their manager’s feedback more regularly. The manager therefore ends up with a list of actions to review, modify, or validate. This list is more or less substantial depending on team size.

The strengths of hybrid management

• Reorganizing work methods

  This half-remote / half-on-site management is an opportunity to establish new habits. To prevent the previously mentioned limits from setting in or growing, new habits can be applied. For example, to avoid being overwhelmed by fear of missing a call, an email, important information, or an emergency, each employee can indicate their unavailable time slots on a shared calendar. This transparency will help colleagues understand the reason for their “silence” and feel reassured, since they will not be seen as an “unavailable” person. To break isolation, one solution could be setting up short informal video check-ins (5 to 15 minutes) with colleagues each week.

• Planning tasks according to on-site and off-site days

  Hybrid management requires defining the days when one is physically on-site with colleagues and those when one works off-site. To remain effective, it is preferable that certain tasks be carried out on company premises and to consider whether certain actions can be done remotely.

  Do you have “tele-robust” tasks, that is, tasks which, when carried out remotely, do not degrade the quality of your work, and in some cases even improve it? Most often, these are individual tasks and ongoing projects that continue or resemble previous ones.

  If your task is writing a long document, being in a quiet place at home (if possible) will allow you to be faster than if you were on-site hearing colleagues’ conversations. Conversely, do you have “tele-fragile” tasks, meaning tasks that slow you down when done remotely? In this case, these tasks should be planned on days when your teammates are also on-site.

• Finding a balance between private and professional life

  In practice, nothing prevents an employee from working outside their working days if they wish or deem it appropriate. The only obligation is on the employer: they must not require an employee to work on designated rest days. Since these days are meant for rest, disconnection, and personal activities, no work obligation should be requested. However, in reality, some employees and managers cannot resist checking and replying to emails. Managers, having greater responsibility and having to supervise one or more employees, are more likely to see their professional life spill over into their “rest” days.

  So how can we achieve this much sought-after balance? First, by self-discipline: set times after which you no longer respond to professional messages, emails, or calls, turn off notifications from professional apps while on vacation, and plan time to see loved ones and/or do activities you enjoy. This last example leads to the second point: managing your time and your overall calendar (professional and personal). Have you planned non-professional lunches during the week? moments to see family or friends? sports sessions? reading time? If not, is it because you have difficulty saying “no” and are used to helping others? In that case, it is important to listen to yourself, pay attention to signs of fatigue, and ask yourself whether the task entrusted to you brings you value and motivates you.

• Recruiting regardless of employee location

  With hybrid management, city of residence is no longer a recruitment barrier. Hiring employees whom one will rarely or never see is growing. Remote recruitment therefore offers two main advantages: a larger number of candidates and lower recruitment costs. Consequently, implementing an onboarding process specifically designed for remote arrivals should be documented.

Actions to experience hybrid management with peace of mind

1. Adopt the 6 perspectives from Bono’s theory to foster communication

• Encourage employees to share how they feel

  Hybrid management can be perceived more or less positively by employees and managers depending on the situation they face. At Seven, we encourage the participants we support to share their feedback with their teams. To do so, we present Bono’s hat theory, created by a psychologist and cognitive science expert. De Bono supported the idea that there are six main ways of seeing the world. So that they are easier for everyone to remember, he associated each with a hat of a different color.

  1. White represents an objective, factual view of things. Here, facts, evidence, and concrete elements are needed to make a decision.
  2. Red represents a subjective vision. Letting emotions speak and acting with one’s heart are key principles.
  3. Yellow refers to perceiving opportunities in every situation. It is positivity no matter what!
  4. Black, on the contrary, refers to observing limits, risks, and worst-case scenarios that could potentially occur.
  5. Green embodies creativity, finding original alternatives, sometimes far-fetched ideas, without any self-censorship.
  6. Blue concerns organization, the ability to synthesize and anticipate actions or the course of events in order to reach the set objective.

• Identify your communication profile and that of your colleagues

  Having employees discuss the same situation by adopting several viewpoints (factual, emotional, disadvantage, opportunity, organizational, creative) will allow them to detach from their main colors (because we all have 2 to 3 perspectives we regularly adopt) and understand viewpoints they know less well. In this way, they will be more able to show empathy and adjust their personal behavior.

  Imagine an employee who naturally anticipates worst-case scenarios does not understand why their colleague disagrees even though their assignments are identical and the advantages and disadvantages of a situation are the same for both. By identifying their own perspective (certainly the black hat here), as well as that of their colleague (more yellow for them), they can engage in meta-communication and practice adopting the other person’s perspective in order to communicate. Without this process of putting oneself in the other’s place, there is a risk that each person remains entrenched in their position, preventing progress in the discussion.

• Let the manager open up

  For managers too, using De Bono’s theory is an opportunity to open up. Hybrid management represents a real mental load for them, because on the one hand they must know where each employee is working (at the office or at home), and on the other hand they must be able to organize according to unexpected events (contact cases, covid, travel, etc.).

  By sharing with employees the responsibility they carry (not transferring it), employees may better understand them, sometimes even developing a form of empathy. They might decide to solicit their manager less and provide solutions themselves to their superiors when unexpected situations arise: “I won’t be able to run tomorrow’s meeting, but I have just passed all the necessary information to Marie so she can lead it in my place, with full confidence.” With this example, solutions are proposed to the manager, avoiding them spending time searching for a replacement, and allowing them to focus on their high value-added tasks.

2. Adopt the five stages of a group’s life to strengthen team productivity

• Follow the five stages defined by Tuckman

  Regardless of where a company’s different members are located, they still form one or more team(s), meaning a group of employees working toward a common goal. In fact, all go through different stages, which psychology professor Bruce Tuckman identified as five in number. According to him,a group is productive if its members successively go through five phases: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Let us clarify each of these stages below:

  1.Forming represents the moment when the different members making up the group meet.This could be associated with a newcomer’s first days, the start of a project, etc. At this stage, each person discovers others and relies on first impressions (in the absence of reference points).
  2.Storming is when group members begin sharing their opinions and ways of proceeding.As expertise, experience, and personalities differ, the probability of divergences in viewpoints emerging is high. In some cases, disputes may break out. These exchanges are not inherently bad, since they allow employees to reveal themselves (which they still did not dare to do in phase 1). Discussions with colleagues can, in some cases, foster ideas.
  3.Norming makes it possible to concretely define the actions that will be carried out during the next phase.Who does which action(s), with which tool(s), with which means? This is when processes are built to enable everyone’s autonomy.
  4.Performing is truly the stage where each employee carries out their actions effectively and independently.They know their roles and those of colleagues, allowing them to know whom to contact whenever needed. This is considered the most productive phase because people are in execution mode. Of course, reflection phases and differing viewpoints can still occur, but they are shorter.
  5.Adjourning marks the end of a group project and therefore the dissolution of the group.The members who made up the team separate and turn to new projects.

• Take care of the beginning

  If there is one stage to prioritize among the five phases mentioned, it is forming. If done well, this phase will positively impact those that follow. If an individual senses a good atmosphere from the outset, feels enthusiasm from managers, and can be themselves, all these elements will help give a good first impression.

  Then, remember that we more easily remember our first meeting with someone dear to us, our first day in a new position, our first impressions at the start of a new project, etc. First impressions tend to be more deeply anchored in our memory.

  Consequently, onboarding or the welcome process experienced by an individual at the start of a project must be carefully designed. Prior reflection by those initiating this new group should be carried out. These project leaders can then map the different moments experienced by the employee: from recruitment to departure. Thus, the stage before group members come together is already a moment that should be handled with care.

3. Delegate by adopting “Delegation Poker” to lighten responsibilities

• Become aware of the different delegation levels

  With part of staff on-site and another off-site, the manager sees requests increase: validation requests, participation in follow-up meetings, etc. To focus on high value-added tasks and above all optimize time (since they too only have 24 hours in a day), delegation is essential. To explain this concept, we rely on a tool inspired by management 3.0 and developed by Jurgen Appelo: “Delegation Poker”. It presents 7 levels of delegation, represented by 7 different cards:

  1. Tell: The manager alone makes the decision regarding the action in question and asks the employee to follow it. This card has the advantage of reassuring newly arrived talent or those who are not experts in the mentioned topic.

  2. Sell: The manager also makes the decision alone, but takes time to explain to the employee why it is important to implement it. The objective is for the managed employee to build skills on the topic.

  3. Consult: The manager asks the employee’s opinion on the right action to take, but ultimately decides alone. They are free to take their colleague’s opinion into account.

  4. Agree: Manager and employee discuss to agree on the best possible decision. Each has equal weight in the final decision. The downside is that decision-making may be long.

  5. Advise: The manager gives their opinion to the colleague on the action that seems most appropriate, but ultimately the managed employee chooses.

  6. Inquire: The manager no longer shares their opinion with the colleague, but still wants to be informed of the decision that was made.

  7. Delegate: The managed employee chooses the action to take, carries it out, and does not even disclose it to the manager. Strong trust from manager to employee must have been established.

• Move from one card to another progressively

  As you can see from the card descriptions, there is a clear difference between card 1 “Tell” and card 7 “Delegate.” Moving from one to the other cannot be abrupt, but rather requires a step-by-step approach.For the employee, it is important that the delegation level rises gradually as they build skills.As for the manager, they know they must learn to let go and offload certain responsibilities by progressively delegating them to experienced employees on the topic.

  An essential action for the manager is to encourage the employee and congratulate their progress. In this way, the managed employee will gain confidence, increase performance potential, and in turn prove to their superior that they are capable of making the right decision.