Work from Home, Work from Office, Hybrid Model - Navigating the New Reality

First, we needed to figure out how to work with teams spread across multiple locations.    We had years to deal with that, starting with conference calls and eventually working our way to video-conferencing for meetings.  We learned to use instant messaging effectively.  We worked to build teams in and across locations so we were all working together.

 

Then, suddenly, we all had to work from home.  Video conferencing was  a real and important thing.  The tools got better - fast - as we zoomed to the limit.  We learned to deal with home/childcare schedules, got informal, and experienced Zoom fatigue.  As project managers, we had to adapt - fast - to the pandemic.  At first, we thought it would be temporary…but companies and individuals finally figured out that people don't need to be in the office to be productive.  Now, some people work in the office all of the time, some people work in the office some of the time, some people work remotely all of the time.  A few companies have made a change to fully remote work.

 

That's a lot to manage.  To make it even more challenging, changing pandemic conditions  can change our work model literally overnight.  (Looking forward,  dealing with climate change fallout is probably going to make this kind of constant adjustment a fact of life. For instance,  I live in the San Francisco area - smoke from the big fires can make it dangerous for some people to even go outside.)

 

The bottom line is that we need to be prepared for change.  Think of it as risk preparedness for work location changes.

 

Let's be honest - none of us had 'pandemic' on our risk list at the start of 2020.  We're looking at the unknown unknowns, but it seems clear that changing work locations is going to be on the list as a risk impact for the foreseeable future.  Fortunately, with a little planning we can be agile with our processes.

 

Even if you're managing one of the few project teams actually sitting together in one office, it's a good idea to be prepared for changing conditions.  Think of it as your go-bag (for those not in earthquake and fire country - that's the bag ready to pick up and run out the door with), and be prepared to deal with all three models at any given moment.   This particular go bag should be in the form of a plan or process model.

 

Remember that one of the main fallouts of a hybrid model is that people working from home can often seem invisible - you'll need to be sure to include them in all your team activities, celebrations, and reporting.

 

Here are some things to consider for that go-bag:

 

 

  • Inclusion
    • If there are mandatory office days, be sure to schedule project celebrations, big and small, on those days
    • Figure out how to pair people so there's always a support structure, no matter where people are working.  You can set up backups (always a good idea so if someone goes on vacation or wins the lottery there's someone else who knows what's going on), shared status, peer reviews, process improvement assignments - whatever will get people working together and checking on each other.
    • I always recommend weekly meetings with each member of your team (at a minimum, 1/2 hour every other week).  If you set those meetings up at the start of your project you won't have to worry about keeping up with everyone on the team, wherever they may be.
    • If someone is unable to get to the office (this is happening more as people are able to move to different locations for remote work), be sure to send them celebratory offerings - tchotchkes, T-shirts, a box of chocolates, whatever.
    • Recognize victories big and small, remote and on site. 
    • Establishing and maintaining relationships becomes really important in this environment.  Someone who might be willing to walk into your office at work might be more hesitant about contacting you remotely.  Your 1:1 meeting will help.  Reach out if you haven't heard from a team member or know they're dealing with something (work or otherwise) difficult.
    • Working from home can be hard.  Terrence Ric-Hansen has developed a 'Work from Home Experience Calculator' that can be a great starting point to work with your remote team members to help them get a good working environment at home.  The calculator only covers physical factors, but you can use it as a starting place for getting your remote team members comfortable at home.  It's set up to help plan for incremental improvement, which gives you a great topic for your weekly meetings.  Not only that, if there's a sudden change and people are having to work from home unexpectedly, you can help them get productive quickly.  (If you're a PMI member you can listen to Terrence explain the calculator in a webinar.)
  • Meetings
    • Consider having all meetings set up as videoconference meetings.  If you're all on site and in the same conference room, just don't start the videoconference.   If you're not all on site, consider having those people in the office could either call in from their own office or gather in a conference room where one 'participant' is the whole conference room but everyone is also on screen separately.  This is especially useful on the auditory front (assuming everyone is on a headset) - in a video conference, it can be hard to hear individuals speaking from the conference room (or even to tell who in the room is talking).
    • Avoid regular meetings at times where at-home people are likely to be dealing with things like getting children ready for school.
    • Continue to publish agendas the day before a meeting and minutes after the meeting - when people are in multiple locations it can be hard to hear everything that's going on and to be prepared if you're not in range of normal office conversation.
  • Who's doing what?
    • Set expectations up front, including status report timing/contents, system tracking updates (like Jira tickets) on a daily basis, meeting schedules, etc.
    • Publish the expectations as project processes on your intranet, sharepoint, gdrive, whatever you're using
  • Communication
    • See meetings, above
    • Establish communication channel protocols.  If you're using slack channels, be sure to say what goes in which slack channel and what's not appropriate for IM as a vehicle (for instance).  If people are meeting one on one and the team needs to hear the outcome, set the rules for posting what happened in the meeting (whether in IM or some other channel).
  • Calendars
    • Know where people are working when.  Because this might change frequently, you may want to set up customs for noting on viewable calendars where someone is working.
  • Team building
    • Team building becomes even more important in this changing environment
    • Look for large and small ways to build teams

 

Put it all together (I promise you'll feel better once you do) and update it as needed.  If conditions change, you can point your team members in the right direction to be effective in any work location permutation.