Virtual and hybrid teams

We all know how important it is to get hybrid working right.

Everyone is in new territory when it comes to figuring out what works for hybrid teams.

How do we handle communication and identify problems when we can’t ‘see’ the whole picture? How do we engage people and bring everyone together? Why does it sometimes feel like something is missing, even though the work is getting done?

We’ve done the research and the results are in.

Individuals can be more productive – and even more engaged – when they’re remote.

But even with the best of intentions, we know that team engagement can suffer in hybrid working, especially for newer teams.

Remote working is not a new concept. But organised, large-scale hybrid working is relatively new.

For hybrid working to… work, we need ‘real teams’ of collaborators: engaged, purposeful, self-aware and autonomous.

Covid-19 ushered in a new way of working. Prior to the pandemic, remote working was the exception rather than the rule.

The virtual teams who used Belbin before this point were generally virtual out of necessity: they were primarily international teams working across different timezones and grappling with cultural differences. 

Now, hybrid working has become the norm. Harvard Business School reports that 81% of workers either don’t want to go back to the office or would prefer a hybrid working schedule. 

According to Gallup, it’s 90%. What’s more, they’ve discovered that 56% of U.S. full-time workers say they can do their job effectively from home and 50% want their work and life blended.

Even organisations who might otherwise have resisted the transition are discovering that they need to adapt to hybrid working in order to attract and retain talent in a competitive recruitment environment.

The highs and lows of hybrid working

The advantages of hybrid working are well documented. It:

• Adds (or returns) valuable talent into the workforce, including those with caring responsibilities and people with disabilities.
• Is more cost-effective for many businesses, since less physical office space is required.
• Allows employees greater freedom in choosing where to work and gives people more control over their work/life balance.
• Promotes flexible working – workers can use their time more efficiently and work more productively, with fewer distractions.
• According to a recent poll by IWG, hybrid workers derive greater health benefits. On average, they take more exercise, get more sleep and eat more healthily.

What is a workplace… and what is it for?

The question of how to manage and support hybrid teams takes us back to the fundamentals of what teams are, what they need for success, and how managers and leaders can reconcile the needs of the individual, the team and the organisation.

Until very recently, office space has been a place to monitor people working, and a culture of presenteeism has prevailed.

However, it isn’t all bad. Office working offers fewer barriers to the kind of informal communication which helps knowledge sharing and innovation. It is easier to build connections with fellow team members – something which has to be done more consciously in remote and hybrid teams.

Our own research here at Belbin, conducted in 2020, demonstrated that while productivity increased in the first six months of UK lockdown, before ‘rules of engagement’ regarding hybrid working had been established in most organisations, employee engagement and innovation both suffered from the imposition of siloed working.

In Belbin Team Role terms, those with Implementer strengths (who follow processes and enjoy maintaining the status quo) and those who were self-starting and preferred to work alone (Specialists) were more engaged than those who liked to build networks, relied on interaction and preferred to work with others (Resource Investigators).

X Managers

X managers posit that workers are lazy, unambitious, tend to avoid responsibility and are self-interested. They believe that the workforce needs close supervision and intimidation, and use rewards and punishment as motivation.

By contrast, Y managers believe that employees are valuable assets – that they are internally motivated and engaged in their role, and therefore don’t need direct supervision to produce high quality work. These employees tend to enjoy better working relationships with their managers, and a healthier working environment.

So, when it comes to hybrid working, X managers do not want to surrender control. If they can’t supervise, how will the work get done? What’s to stop people from cheating the system?

Of course, regardless of location, people won’t be giving their best if they’re disengaged or feel that they aren’t trusted or respected.

Rules of engagement

The move to remote work during the pandemic was a haphazard one, born out of necessity, rather than planned.

Hybrid work patterns have emerged similarly organically, as a response to the needs (and demands) of the workforce.

But in order to be effective, we need to replace this ad hoc approach with a systemic one.

Real teams set out, and agree on, expectations and ground rules. These come from within the team, rather than being imposed from above, so that the rationale is understood and so that the social contract can be renewed when that rationale no longer applies.

These ground rules might include sharing expectations about working habits, key hours, whether cameras are switched on for video calls – anything which affects the day-to-day function of the team. Whilst these may seem like practical considerations, detailing, for example, how meetings will be handled when some of the team are co-located and others working remotely, can ensure that everyone feels involved and can avoid an ‘us and them’ culture evolving.

On a broader level, the team's social contract might also encompass how conflict is handled and how team members hold one another accountable.

Placement Suggestions

For example, the 'Placement Suggestions' page of the Belbin Individual report gives some pointers as to the individual's optimum working environment.

In a hybrid work model, this can be used to initiate dialogue with a manager, provoking discussions about where and how that individual works most effectively, and which kinds of work might be most suited to co-located or remote working.

Suggested Work Styles

Belbin reports are designed to help team members see where they fit.

The Individual report focuses on identifying and articulating working styles, so that others can get to know how you work, even when the team is not co-located.

Team composition

The Team report allows the team to see what everyone has to offer.

With Belbin, it's easier for a hybrid team to see how it fits together, making them more focused on the team's purpose and goals.

Insights into who does what are crucial for ensuring that people are involved at the right time.

They can help the team take a more considered approach to designing meetings and projects, ensuring that team members working remotely aren't overlooked.

A common language

Belbin doesn’t just give us an insight into how teams communicate, it offers a language that connects work to people – a shorthand that can be used to delegate, plan, solve problems, address conflict and more.

When your team is fluent in this language, it becomes easier to address the balance – and challenges – that hybrid working offers. It is possible to identify which Team Roles are required for a given piece of work, where the relevant strengths lie in the team, and how and where is most appropriate to do that work.

For example, it might be that the Specialist’s research can be done remotely, but that feedback to the team needs to happen on site. This will vary from one hybrid team to the next, but the language of Team Roles makes it possible.

Belbin’s 2020 research also identified that teams need some opportunities for informal communication, ideally in person. Even if this is not possible, breakout areas online can help to build a sense of community, promote connection between employees and enable team members to grow their networks.

This helps to avoid an 'us and them' situation, where people in the office have a strong sense of belonging and those working remotely are treated as outsiders.

Talking about weakness

One way Belbin helps teams to build greater psychological safety is by talking about weakness. Whilst focusing on our strengths makes us more engaged, admitting that we have types of work we find difficult or shy away from, can be liberating. It can help us to become accustomed to discussing – and learning from – failure in the team, and thereby avoid a blame culture.

According to Belbin theory, our Team Role weaknesses are just a flipside to our strengths.

For example, Monitor Evaluators might seem pessimistic or discouraging because their role is to prevent the team from making damaging mistakes.

When people are allocated work that does not match their strengths, difficulties are more likely to occur. The Belbin framework allows teams to talk about what goes wrong and why, and helps develop strategies to counteract these difficulties.

You can read more about how to build psychological safety with Belbin here.

Managing a hybrid team

The key to managing a hybrid team successfully is to recognise the importance of aligning the individual’s needs and expectations with those of the team and the organisation.

For many, hybrid working helps to restore equilibrium between private and professional worlds. And the needs of the team must be part of this balance too.

Whilst it may be tempting for managers to force everyone under one roof, collaboration is about more than the opportunity to communicate effectively. If people are forced into the office, autonomy is lost and so too is the impetus to collaborate and pull together as a team.

The difficulty is that there is no one-size-fits-all. Each team member’s circumstances will be different, as will their Team Role strengths and position in the team.