Establish New Rules for Communicating in a Hybrid Office

 

Thu 20 May 2021

Establish New Rules for Communicating in a Hybrid Office

Many of us are in the midst of a major transition from remote to hybrid work, which is affecting how we communicate with our colleagues. As a manager, it’s essential to help your team establish new norms around digital interactions. This should be a collective process so set up a group brainstorm with the explicit goal to document new rules and expectations around how you will communicate in a hybrid environment. Here are a few key questions to ask.

    (1) What’s been the most collaborative experience you’ve had in each of the channels we use as a team (email, Slack, virtual meetings, etc.)?
    Based on these positive experiences, what norms do we want to keep or establish for each channel? What are realistic expectations around message length and response time?
    (2) As we transition to hybrid work, how will we continue to include our remote employees and avoid potential biases?

Once you’ve outlined the team’s ground rules, document them and share them in a public place so that people can refer to them when needed.

(3)  But don’t assume they’re set in stone. Check in with your team after a few weeks to see if the rules of engagement need to be tweaked.
This tip is adapted from “Did You Get My Slack/Email/Text?,” by Erica Dhawan