Together apart

How to keep dispersed teams conneCTED

- Scott Wharton

Over the past four months, the working world as we once knew it drastically shifted. Prepared or not, businesses were forced to flex their work from home protocols. This dramatic, virtually overnight, change disrupted more than just the way we work—it disrupted how we interact with our colleagues.

Humans are innately social beings. As we shift from working in the office to solely working from home, or in some cases, a new hybrid of the two, it’s important that we strategize and prepare dispersed teams to stay connected.

And that’s the key— accessibility. Whether employees are at home or in the office, the systems need to be available and, more importantly, easy to use.

We believe this hybrid model will emerge as the predominant workforce model, but it’s not without some unique challenges in terms of connection and cohesion between employees. By design, hybrid workplaces are intended to be flexible and provide employees with the ability to work in an environment that is most convenient for them, whether that’s the office or at home. However, when a team of six needs an impromptu meeting, and four people are in the office and two are working from home, it’s easy to forget to be inclusive of the work-from-home employees. We tend to balance the old habits of bumping into someone at the water cooler and the new habits of scheduling every meeting. Therefore, managers will need to plan for, strategize, and implement new technologies and workplace policies that will encourage full team participation and inclusion.