Principles for Managing a Hybrid Team

A team from university human resources gather both virtually on zoom and in person at the Stanford Redwood City campus

Updated August 19, 2024

Managing a hybrid/distributed team well means focusing on trust, transparency and clarity.

Tips for effectively managing a hybrid team

1. Build trust and maintain relationships

Trust is the foundation for building productive and collaborative teams. Actions you can take to build trust within your team:

Establish regular interactions. Set a cadence of regular 1:1 meetings with each of your direct reports, as well as ongoing team meetings. Discuss who will set the agenda, the purpose of the meetings, and how discussion topics are determined. Also, don’t avoid 1:1 or team meetings just because a team member is not in the office that day. Virtual meetings can be just as effective.
Arrange for informal interactions. Remember, trust is built over time so it’s important to establish informal opportunities for the team or individuals to interact. Build-in social time within 1:1 meetings or team meetings; encourage team members to take breaks to socialize or engage in non-work-related conversations. Identify strategies that support unstructured conversations.

2. Encourage openness and visibility

A culture of openness and visibility within your team can create trust between employers and employees, help improve morale, lower job-related stress and ultimately boost productivity. Actions you can take to foster openness within your team:

Provide context. The informal interactions and information sharing that occur on-site do not happen as organically in a remote or hybrid work environment. To help connect employees to the purpose of the work despite this potential disconnect, provide constant context for your hybrid team about why they are asked to do something and the impact it will have.
Set communication expectations. Determine how and when you want to keep in contact. Various applications exist to assist in maintaining contact throughout the business day, regardless of the employee’s presence. You may consider utilizing tools such as Slack, Jabber or a similar messaging app. It is also important to discuss preferences such as core business hours in which all team members must be accessible when needed, or tools that are most effective for collaboration or information sharing.
Establish team norms. Make sure that everyone regardless of work location feels like they are part of the team. It’s easy to assume that because you can see someone in the office, you know they are doing work, but when employees are hybrid or fully remote, visibility is different. Encouraging the entire team to be open, communicative and visible, and creating team norms such as continuing team meetings via video conference, in-person or using Slack to conduct daily check-ins are just a few examples to ensure both on-site and remote employees feel included.

3. Focus on results

Remember, hybrid teams work best when productivity is measured by results and not by the hours spent at a desk. Actions you can take to build productivity within your team:

Clarify your objectives. Distributed teams must clearly articulate objectives, and adopt a regular cadence for monitoring and measuring success and function along the way. As a team and in individual 1:1s, identify the key work that must be accomplished during the performance year.
Establish processes and efficiency improvements. As a team, regularly evaluate current processes or discuss new processes that need to be modified or established to improve productivity. Perhaps new tools need to be adopted or team meetings need to be re-imagined to support how the team operates and meets its goals.

4. Set and maintain expectations

Clearly defined expectations that are maintained over time can act as a roadmap for employees. They can help to clear confusion and connect employees to their purpose and impact. Actions you can take to set and maintain expectations within your team: