The pandemic is a modern tragedy that has permanently changed many aspects of our lives, and our businesses are no exception to this change. Resiliently, businesses pivoted to the online work environment to continue operations while maintaining vigilance of the health and safety of their team members and clients. Today, remote working or a hybrid environment largely prevails.
The online work environment comes with a unique set of challenges. To leverage its full value, we must stay focused on developing tools and best practices that enable our teams to maximize output; optimize efficiencies; respect and nourish human capital; and protect against burnout. A guide that has created immeasurable value for our firm is ACT, an acronym that highlights focus areas for leaders and employees alike. Consulting this guide, while managing, supporting and encouraging your team’s endeavors, ensures that everyone will always have opportunity to develop as a community, while maintaining a focus on growth and advancement.
Attention to Detail
The A in ACT is aptly placed as the foundation of the concept. Attention to detail is critical to the success of a remote, hybrid, or onsite workplace when building a team that can work effectively as a group. Incessant video conferencing notwithstanding, it’s not surprising that an online workplace can lead to increased feelings of disengagement. These feeling can be exacerbated when interacting with team members who previously thrived in a predominantly in-person workplace. To address the strain your team members may feel from the remote or hybrid work environment, you must first identify who among them is feeling strained, and to what degree. Identification comes from communication, which need not be verbal. In fact, often strain is discerned from the body language, tone, and level of engagement or participation that your colleagues present day to day. Recognizing and understanding the social cues and complex dynamics that exist within your team galvanizes you to personally connect and support those individuals when they need it most.
Connection
Connecting with your team members as a group and with each member individually is paramount to maintaining a healthy work environment – regardless of whether it is onsite or remote. Being present within a hybrid workspace is very different from an in-person environment, where the physical aspect of a shared workplace is a supporting component. Presence in a remote setting requires a conscious effort to be more than just a name on a screen. Scheduling regular team meetings, having cameras on during those meetings and reserving space for your colleagues to talk freely during those meetings is a sure-fire way of building the connection that you share with your team and to encourage them to share with each other. Success in a hybrid work environment relies on the cultivation of a community and culture of support and togetherness in the workplace. Connect with your team on both a personal and a professional level. Create opportunities for your firm to come together to celebrate each other and the achievement of the business. These acts promote productivity and engagement, two factors that must be carefully monitored in a hybrid workplace.
Training
Empathetically monitoring your team’s wellness will help support a mentally healthy work environment. To further cement your commitment to your team, you must also help them to showcase the best version of themselves, regardless of the environment. A huge benefit of the remote work environment is that it opens opportunities for your team members to live a better and fuller life. By preparing your team to take advantage of this growth, you will nurture the adaptation of your own business to work at its best and add permanent value to your team members’ professional careers. This commitment to individuals, alongside the development of a community within your firm, can transform the obstacles associated with the hybrid work environment into advantages that can be leveraged to take your firm to the next level.
When we ACT, we invest in our team members as employees and as human beings. Together, we build an infrastructure that far exceeds what was once called work. We build an environment that inspires productivity and mutual respect. Be aware that not all members of your team will welcome or ascribe to ACT and the reciprocity needed from them to achieve success. Accordingly, consider this may be a sign that your team requires tweaking or maybe even change-ups or change-outs. Should that be the case, do not be dismayed. When effectively managed, change can be positive – and be the catalyst and anchor for future progress.
Ariana J. Tadler is Founding Partner of Tadler Law LLP, a WBENC-certified women owned-boutique law firm that offers an array of litigation and legal counseling services advocating against corporate fraud and abuse in securities, consumer and data breach class actions and complex litigation and negotiating contracts and efficiently and creatively resolving disputes.
Malik C. Price is responsible for business administration and development, marketing, and a variety of other tasks at the firm.
