21st Century Mindset

The challenges of hybrid and remote working

Sharon Dale -

Part 2 What might we try?

In part 1 I described the approach we took to identifying the current situation for the teams.

Challenge 1

The day is filled with meetings and there is no time for any other type of work

Immediate ideas

  • Put task time in your calendar so you don't give the time away
  • Start and finish meetings, say at 10 past the hour and finish at 10 to
    block time for admin
  • Put task times in as tentative so people can identify if they are trying to schedule something more urgent

There may, however be more difficult underlying reasons for back to back meetings.

Other people don't have the skills and the knowledge without speaking to you.

  • Document and delegate.
  • If necessary train or recruit people to help.

You attend every meeting you are invited to because that is the culture at your organisation.

  • Begin to have conversations about the value of meetings and how work gets done.
  • Agree some ground rules about booking meetings e.g. No meeting without an agenda, meetings book within certain agreed hours allowing people to have uninterrupted time for deep work, use the optional invitation setting to indicate if someone is required for a meeting or not.

Someone in a leadership position does not have confidence that people are working when remote and so they prefer to have meetings so that they can see people are not slacking off. Unfortunately this means that no-one has time to do any work.

  • This will depend very much on your circumstances and your organisation. Find an ally and try to build trust or speak to your HR team .

No decisions can be made without a meeting.

  • Look into ways to work together and make decisions asynchronously.

I look forward to sharing more challenges tomorrow.

If you would like to have a conversation about how I might be able to help your team to build new approaches to hybrid and remote working please contact me via email or directly book a 30 minute call. I look forward to hearing from you. Or you could take a look at how I can help or some testimonials.