People management in remote work settings was a pandemic-era hurdle that some workplaces have been happy to leave behind. However, one study by the C.D. Howe Institute found that 26 per cent of Canadians spent at least part of their week working remotely at the end of 2023, down from 40 per cent in 2021. This means at least a quarter of eligible Canadians are splitting their time between their home office and their head office, and this hybrid work arrangement presents a whole new set of challenges for frontline managers and the senior leadership hiring them.
Linda Duxbury, Chancellor’s Professor in Management at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business, says managing hybrid teams is so complex that any early career people managers may find themselves in over their heads. Her best advice is to avoid putting anyone without people management experience in charge of hybrid teams.
“A fully remote manager role is fine [for someone new to people management], and an in-person role would be fine, but the hybrid environment is difficult,” Prof. Duxbury explains. “It’s hard enough to learn how to manage when people are [physically] around. Hybrid work is a complex beast, and organizations are finding that a lot of managers don’t want to do it.”
Prof. Duxbury emphasizes that organizations – not individual managers – bear the brunt of responsibility for setting people leaders up for success in a hybrid work environment, no matter the manager’s skill level.
“Lots of really good managers are burning out with the hybrid work environment because they have to be everything to everybody with little training,” she says. “I really want to emphasize that the org has to do their bit too. A lot of times it’s beyond selecting [the right hire], it’s about giving them skills.”
Technological prowess is an obvious requirement for any manager in a hybrid role. Communications platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams are the go-to tool for many organizations, not only to exchange work-related information, but also to facilitate casual conversations between colleagues who don’t share physical space.
In 2022, Slack counted 100,000 companies among its clientele, and Microsoft Teams reported 320 million monthly active users in 2023. Yet, consultant and executive coach Tanveer Naseer says he often encounters senior leadership who fail to recognize the importance of those tools in building workplace culture.
“I’ve met with leaders who will say ‘I don’t like Slack, I’m just an email or in-person type of person.’ But if your employees are doing a lot of communication on Slack, they have to see you in there offering support and information where they’re doing their digital collaborative work,” says Mr. Tanveer.
However, digital tools are only as good as the managers who wield them. Soft skills, which enable managers to interact effectively with other people, are essential to strong management too.
“Senior leaders, when you’re hiring, if you want those soft skills you need to interview for those skills too,” says Bailey Parnell, founder and chief executive officer of SkillsCamp, a soft skills development company based in Toronto.
“Include things like behavioural questions or assessments in the interview [with a prospective new manager]. Ask them how they go about building a culture within a team. Ask them a scenario question, like if [an employee] hasn’t been contributing to Slack conversations, what do you do?”
Goal setting is another essential soft skill that Ms. Parnell says all levels of management require. Whether it’s a senior management setting clear parameters for success with their frontline managers, or it’s a frontline manager doing regular check-ins with junior staff about their progress, creating goals and creating the space to reflect on the work improves clarity on a daily basis for a work force that doesn’t always have the benefit of gleaning goals and outcomes by observing their colleagues.
Prof. Duxbury adds, “a good manager in a hybrid environment knows how to coach and mentor people who are not in line of sight, which means they have to be given some clues on how to measure the performance of remote workers by the organization hiring them.”
“There are organizations that do this successfully, but the organization’s leadership has done a lot of pre-thinking and it’s not random.”
Part of the pre-thinking work includes determining when people will be required to come to the office in person. Randomly selecting days without a clear indication of why staff is being asked to commute to work is a recipe for confusion and irritation, Ms. Parnell says. Ensuring that there are pre-planned activities to make the visit to the bricks-and-mortar meeting space worthwhile is an important part of maximizing everyone’s time in the same room.
“We teach that there are four modes of hybrid work: time, space, both or neither,” says Ms. Parnell. “The worst mode is when we are sharing space, but not time. Why am I commuting when I’m not doing anything that requires us to share space?”
“There are things that are done better when we share space. Those things should be done with intention, but if I’m not asking people to share time, I shouldn’t ask them to share space.”
Mr. Naseer reminds leaders to schedule both formal and informal activities for days when the team is gathering in real life.
“Collaboration doesn’t happen just because you schedule time, it happens organically. So you have to schedule time for work and non-work interactions, so people feel a sense of belonging.”
“This might look like a simple team lunch,” Ms. Parnell says, “but you can’t be surprised that [people] don’t feel connected if you don’t offer a relationship-building space that’s not [only] about the work that’s being done.”
