It might have been almost seven years since the pandemic but the impact it had on the world of work still linger, particularly with hybrid working. While some companies have issued a ‘back-to-the-office’ mandate, a large majority of organisations continue to operate on a hybrid model. Despite hybrid having been in place for a while, I still come across many managers and teams that struggle with it. Not the mechanics of it but rather the human side of it – the relationships, the communication and the collaboration.
In this article, you’ll learn:
- What a hybrid team is
- The benefits and disadvantages of hybrid working
- Five things to focus on to have an effective hybrid team
What is a hybrid team?
A hybrid team is one that has a shared purpose and goals, but where there is a mix of people who work in a physical building together, such as a co-located office, and those who work from elsewhere, such as from home or from another country. Hybrid often leads to people working in different places on different days. For example, working from home three days a week and in a shared office space two days a week. These days may differ from person to person.
What are the benefits of hybrid working?
- Among the various benefits, many people report feeling more motivated because they have more autonomy. As we know, when people are more motivated, they tend to put more effort in at work.
- Hybrid working also supports diverse needs across a team, helping those perhaps with sensory or immune issues feel less excluded if others are engaged in it too. Or people with caring responsibilities – such as parents – being able to drop off and pick their children up from school because they’re nearby.
- There is a bigger talent pool to draw upon because geography is no longer a limitation.
- There is less stress and less financial cost if people are not having to commute into an office building every day.
What are the issues with hybrid working?
- Increased feelings of isolation and loneliness if working alone from elsewhere most of the time.
- Collaboration can become more siloed, affecting knowledge and information sharing across a team.
- More misunderstandings in communication.
- More people working while sick – “well, I’m at home anyway, I’ll just log on.”
- Increased strain on team managers having to think more deeply about how to manage people in different ways who are in different places and potentially in different time zones.
- Proximity bias is where we pay more attention to and place more value on things or people that are near to us. Or the opposite, which is out of sight, out of mind. This means for teams where the manager tends to be in the office, those who work in sight of the manager get access to more opportunities.
Five things to focus on to have an effective hybrid team
Purposeful management
A study in the International Journal of Public Sector Management relays the importance of purposeful management. This is about being intentional about your style and approach depending on the situation and the person. One-size-doesn’t-fit-all. It seems that being purposeful and intentional in communicating with, supporting and developing staff is more likely to lead to successful hybrid working in teams.
Reflective question:
How purposeful are you as a manager? To what extent do you operate out of habit?
High-quality communication
If some of your team members work remotely regularly, it may lead them to feel isolated, less supported, engaged and valued. The happiest and most engaged remote workers have leaders who excel at communication. Good communication means;
- Sharing and seeking feedback
- Involving team members in decision making
- Being supportive
- Being open
Leaders who engage in good communication practices are more likely to have remote working team members who feel more connected and supported.
Reflective question:
How would different team members rate you on the effectiveness of your communication?
A study of 10,000 teams from different industries around the world found that quality of communication had a bigger impact on performance than the frequency of communication. Interestingly, this relationship was strongest in teams where people knew each other well. When it comes to team communication it seems that quality is also consistently linked to stronger performance in hybrid teams.
At the other end of the equation, another study found that employees believe their leaders mis-calculate how often to communicate, with many being seen to under- rather than over-communicate. Too little communication meant the leader was seen as not caring. The best course of action is for leaders to ask their team members about their communication preferences – frequency, mode of communication etc.
Action to take:
- Reduce the length of meetings and eliminate unnecessary ones.
- Set agendas beforehand and check availability before scheduling a meeting.
- Record team meetings for those who can’t attend.
- Keep an online water cooler chat room where people can have those moments of small talk and chatting.
- If one of the team is working from home, make sure everyone in the office attends a team meeting via their individual laptops rather than huddled round one screen. This helps reduce the sense of isolation and exclusion.
- Ensure team meetings are regular and predictable.
- Set clear norms such as which channel for what, expected response times for a channel and when a quick call beats a long email thread.
- Conduct an audit of team communication using the checklist below.
| TEAM COMMUNICATION AUDIT © 2019 HALO Psychology ® | |
| FAMILIARITY | How well do team members know each other? How well do you know each team member? How well do team members know you? What team building and team development activity have you scheduled in for the year ahead? |
| FREQUENCY | Have you checked whether you’re communicating too much, too little, or just the right amount? Have you developed clear ground rules for communication in your team? You with them? Them with you? Them with each other? |
| QUALITY | Do you test tone and content on important messages before sharing? Do you check for ease of understanding in what you write or say? Do you test whether team members can recall important messages? |
| INSIDE | How do team members talk to each other? What’s the typical tone? How respectful are people to each other? How open are people with each other? Do people proactively share knowledge and information? Do people use appropriate channels depending on the context? |
| OUTSIDE | How well does your team communicate with other teams? Are there some teams your team engages with better than others? What can you learn from this? What do you role model when it comes to communicate with other team leaders in your organisation? |
Performance over presence
Just because someone is in the office in front of you doesn’t mean they are performing better than a team member who is working from home or in another office. Hybrid working is successful when managers move from presence-based management to performance-based management. This is about managing any bias you might have. There is still a common tendency among many organisations and people managers to view working from home as leisure time and only working from the office being seen as actually working. Managers who fall into this stereotyping are less likely to recommend staff for promotion and other opportunities, according to new research.
Reflective question:
On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is completely presence-based management and 5 is completely performance-based management, where are you? What is the reason for your rating?
The way in which managers monitor remote workers has an impact on the quality of relationships. Observational monitoring (observing people without their input, such as checking they are online) undermines trust and weakens relationships with staff. Whereas interactional monitoring (engaging in a meaningful, two-way work-related discussion) helps build trust and high-quality relationships. The better the quality and higher levels of trust, the better the performance, lower the turnover intention, and lower the emotional exhaustion from direct reports.
Reflective question:
What do you tend to do more of – observational or interactional monitoring? What is the reason for your answer?
Building and maintaining relationships
Workplace fomo (fear-of-missing-out) is a real thing. If the bulk of our team colleagues are together in one place and we are somewhere else, we can’t help but feel left out. Even if it’s our choice to work from somewhere else! Inclusive communication and regular check-ins can help reduce fomo.
Reflective question:
How often do you check in with those who are working away from the rest of the team? How do you do this?
When it comes to work, we have two social needs:
- The need to belong – feeling connected to and accepted by the rest of the group.
- The need to be unique – feeling able to express our unique insights and ideas, which are subsequently valued and recognised by the rest of the group.
Small rituals can be a powerful way to help people connect in teams. One of the most common rituals is small talk. This is a way for people to warm up before a meeting, be collegiate with each other, and get into a rhythm within a shared space. Small talk is still possible in hybrid or remote teams and can help buffer the effects of working away from the rest of the team.
Try this:
Introduce social virtual meeting rituals. For example, some of my clients have created an online water cooler space, where team members working remotely can connect with colleagues for small talk before a meeting starts. This replicates those moments of connection that people have when they’re waiting outside a meeting room in person.
Balancing care and support
When it comes to hybrid working, leaders play a fundamental role in modelling trust, setting boundaries and supporting wellbeing but balance is needed. If the focus is solely on the needs of team members, then the manager is likely to get exhausted. This is about balance – looking after your team while looking after yourself. Boundaries are important!
Reflective question:
How balanced are you in the care you give your team and the care you give yourself? What is one thing you can do to take better care of yourself?
YOUR NEXT STEPS TO BETTER PEOPLE MANAGEMENT!
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HELP OTHERS MANAGE WITH CONFIDENCE
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Post author: Dr Hayley Lewis. First published on the HALO Psychology website 12 October 2026.
STUDIES IN THIS ARTICLE