Creating Connectedness in a Hybrid Environment

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Creating Connectedness in a Hybrid Environment

In his new Rise Course, our trainer and partner Peter Grabuschnig shares all his knowledge on Hybrid Leadership. It offers a reflective look at your leadership behavior in times of new work, work location, and increasing flexibility.

In this blog article, we will delve into how to create connectedness and a hybrid culture. Enjoy reading!

Flexibility and its downsides

Is hybrid work really to blame for the decreasing connectedness that employees feel for the company? In recent years, the employees’ sense of belonging in the company has decreased more and more. According to a recent study by the consulting firm Gartner, only 25% of employees feel a strong sense of belonging to their company.

Generally speaking, a distinction can be made between two different areas of belonging. On the one hand, clear vision and orientation are important. If people know where the journey is going and the direction is right for them, then they feel a sense of belonging.

Connectedness to the company

Simply put, I know what the culture and strategy of my company are, and I also believe it’s the right one. The second area would be connectedness to the company. This relates to the fact that the culture of the company I work at is important to me and that I also identify with it.

So if you want to create a high sense of belonging, we have to create clarity about the direction and the goals, but also a culture in which the employees feel comfortable and with which they can identify.

Gartner’s Study Findings

If we look at the numbers and the study, and only 25% feel a strong sense of belonging, you could link that number to the fact that people work at home and they don’t feel connected because they don’t see each other as often anymore.

Gartner looked into this with an exciting result: Companies that allow radical flexibility regarding when, where, and how they work, received the highest rates of connectedness with up to 53%. In turn, companies that allowed little to no flexibility had only 18% of employees with a high sense of belonging.

The more trust we give our employees when it comes to flexibility, the more connected they feel to the company.

Other Side-Effects

This has other much-needed side effects. Employees with high connectedness to the company have up to 30% higher performance and are 36% more likely to stay within the company.

In the past, companies have often tried to build an emotional connection through nicely decorated officesand frequent interactions with their employees to make people feel at home where they work. They believed this could create a certain connectedness with their employees.

That didn’t work before the pandemic and continues to be ineffective today in the hybrid set-up. Few who have a nice workspace at home go to the office because it’s so modern or because it has coffee.

So what are ways to create connectedness with your coworkers?

I have three tips for you.

1. Emotional Closeness

It’s not about physical proximity – your employees need to feel that you are there for them and available if they have problems. This will give them the feeling that they are important to you and they feel seen.

Make sure you always know what’s going on with your employees. In a hybrid work environment, it’s easy to overlook when conflicts between employees arise. Be close to your people and be there for them. It doesn’t always have to be a video call, you can just make a phone call and ask how they are and if they need anything from you.

Availability doesn’t mean around the clock, though. Define with your team when and how you will be available to each other.

2. Microcultures

Alignment is important. Company values are important. A well-communicated strategy is important. But these are mostly things that come along on a very high level and are not always easy for your team to graspand implement.

That’s why it makes sense to define yourself as a team. Consider together how you interact with each other. But also, what contribution you can make to the corporate strategy and how you live the corporate values or even prioritize them for yourself.

A micro-culture in a team has nothing to do with separation. Quite the opposite actually – the goal is to ask yourself what identity and integrity you have as a team and how you can contribute to the overall success of the company.

This includes working successfully with other teams and departments. A sense of belonging to the company always starts with a strong connectedness to one’s team or department.

3. Spread culture through work and not through the office

Whether it’s a new office with modern furniture, a picture with the company’s values with a hundred signatures on it, or the company logo above the main entrance – our company is always present.

At home, things look a little different. That immediately raises the question – how do I perceive my company when I’m sitting in front of the screen at home? My physical environment doesn’t have much to do with the company. Whether I’m sitting there with a laptop from one company or another makes no difference, does it?

We have to think about how our employees experience our company at home. On the one hand, this can be possible through haptic objects, but also through individual work processes. A virtual background with office space, logos, or slogans is a start.

Strengthen your connectedness

But small gifts to employees can also be supportive. One participant recently told me about a birthday gift she received from her company years ago – a beach towel with a slogan on it, which she still uses when she goes on vacation. After all, there are no better brand ambassadors than our employees, right?

Think about how your company is perceived by people at home and above all, how it becomes more visible. Processes should always reflect the company’s values. For example, if your company claims to be innovative, your employees should not be troubled by slow and bureaucratic work processes.

It’s also important that our employees continue to see their impact. In the office, this often happens through informal hallway conversations and social interactions with each other. There, you often automatically got feedback when you had changed something for the better.

Today, you proactively convey this appreciation and the feeling that we have contributed something. As a last task, define at least one measure for yourself that you would like to implement to strengthen your connectedness!

We are very excited to experience this new adventure with you and delve more into the complex and exciting world of hybrid leadership!

You can contact us if you are interested in this Rise course or follow along on our blog, where we have shared a few snippets of the course as well.

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