Employees with just one collaborative relationship are 42% more likely to intend to stay with their employer for their entire career.
The modern workplace requires agile teams and quick adaptation, which can only be achieved with great communication and collaboration. Hybrid work has changed the game. Without intentional collaboration and connection points, your top talent could disengage -- and leave.
Disengagement creeps in by way of siloed teams (and individuals), poor management and a lack of face-to-face interaction. In the past, many organizations counted on the shared space of the office to promote collaboration -- but the truth is, effective collaboration has always required a thoughtful strategy from leaders.
Modern Obstacles to Collaboration
- Isolation: Remote employees may struggle to feel connected to both the company culture and their colleagues, leading to disengagement, a lack of belonging and loneliness.
- Communication breakdowns: A mix of in-person and remote communication can cause misunderstandings and missed connections, leading to confusion, decreased productivity and a breakdown in team cohesion.
- Erosion of purpose: Remote-capable employees often experience a growing disconnect from the mission or purpose of their organization, leading to a loss of motivation and engagement.
How Leaders Should Respond
Collaboration can thrive in a hybrid setting and significantly boost engagement. But to accomplish that, leaders must create strategies and structures that promote connection, communication and engagement, regardless of where their employees work.
In remote settings, the informal, spontaneous interactions that often drive creativity and team bonding can be scarce. This makes structured collaboration and regular connections even more essential.
Leaders can boost collaboration by:
- Maximizing hybrid time: Leaders, managers and employees alike need to communicate with their team and partners about when they will be in (and out of) the office -- so everyone can maximize their collaborative time on-site.
- Creating hybrid collaboration habits: Leaders must equip managers to effectively lead hybrid teams with diverse needs. Regular check-ins, virtual team-building activities, and cross-functional meetings should become the norm, ensuring that remote and in-office employees have equal opportunities to collaborate. This collaboration time is critical, as it contributes to role clarity and accountability -- both of which lead to higher performance.
- Fostering inclusivity: Leaders should ensure that all voices are heard, especially in hybrid or remote settings, where some team members may feel excluded or overlooked. This might mean adapting meeting formats to be more inclusive of remote workers.
- Structuring flexibility for remote work: Leaders need to take a balanced approach that combines the freedom for employees to manage their work schedule and location with a clear framework for the expectations and guidelines set by the organization or manager. This concept aims to give employees the autonomy to work in ways that best suit their personal and professional needs while ensuring that organizational goals and productivity standards are met.
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This content first appeared in our "10 Lessons to Improve Employee Engagement" microlearning email series.
