Where do your people do their best work?
Adjusting to remote and hybrid teams is still a significant challenge for many professionals. Collaborative activities, training, and mentoring usually work better when everyone is in the same room, but they can still be effective through Teams or Zoom. Transmission of corporate culture and team-building take place more effectively when people are physically in the same space. It’s easier to stop by someone’s desk to ask a quick question, and to keep situational awareness of who is working on what, and how that work is going. People who are working in the office are more likely to be seen as “on the team,” and they are probably more likely to be seen as dedicated professionals who should be developed for future promotions.
But some stuff just does not require being in an office. Remote work is better for self-starters and for people working on designs, analyses, writing content, etc.—basically any task that requires the sustained focus of a single person. With no need for a time-sucking commute, people either devote more time to productive work, or they keep their work/life in better balance, or both at the same time, which is good for morale, productivity, and retention.
In an ideal situation, leaders would schedule full-team collaborative activities for times when the whole team are physically in the office, but allow a lot of flexibility for people to work in whichever space is more effective for them to complete their tasks. Not all business activities can be done remotely, of course, and unless we run the company, we might not be the person who decides how much remote and hybrid work is allowed, but when we can give our people the ability to work in ways that improve their performance, we should use that option.
(image source: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=712348301069709&set=a.410180007953208)