3 Tips for Better Hybrid Work Culture—with Bretton Putter

At HR Virtual Summit 2022, attendees of the Culture and Values track walked away with incredible insights and advice from HR leaders around the globe. As CEO of CultureGene and an expert in company culture development, Bretton Putter shared his insights on the secrets to hybrid work success during his session—The Secret to Building a Sustainable Hybrid Work Culture.

Are you missing the mark on hybrid/remote work best practices?

In his session, Bretton walked through the realities of a flexible/remote work experience and how, even after two years of pandemic-enforced remote work, we’re not experts yet on the best way to manage employees remotely. With that said, we have learned a few best practices.

What is a remote-first hybrid culture?

Bretton detailed several ways we can build a better work environment for everyone. One of those insights was to build a remote-first hybrid culture—but what does that mean? It means applying remote-first working best practices to your hybrid business so employees can work as effectively from the office as away from the office. With this approach, you can create a fulfilling, inclusive, and equitable experience for everyone where there are no advantages or disadvantages to working remotely or from the office.

Here are a few of the remote collaboration best practices Bretton shared that have worked for many businesses (and can work for your teams—whether fully remote or working in a hybrid model):

Process definition

Office-based environments don’t require the same process discipline as remote work environments. A great example of this is setting up a meeting. In person, you can set up a meeting immediately with people in person. Bretton shared a quote by Andreas Klinger, Head of Remote for Angellist, who said, “As a remote team, you have roughly 5x the process needs as you would in a co-located team.”

When regular structure is lost, good processes provide structure and direction for getting things done.

To start, think through your process for meetings and consider the following process definition:

1. Send the meeting invitation (and include an agenda and a working document—include attendees and their expectations, the purpose of your meeting, your position as the host of the meeting, and any questions, concerns, and issues you’ll work through during the meeting).
2. If possible and necessary, interact and respond as a team on the working agenda/working document before the meeting.
3. Start the meeting on time!
4. Every attendee should take notes and add to the working document.
5. End the meeting on time!
6. The meeting host should summarize the outcomes and share those outcomes with all of the attendees and people impacted (outcomes could include actions, issues, responsibilities, teams/individuals impacted).
7. Store the working document in the correct knowledge base and be clear on who owns the document.

Documentation

To avoid knowledge loss and information silos forming, your teammates need as much visibility into your work as they would have previously had in an office where they could meet up, listen in, chat over lunch, etc. Because of this shift, we must change from a speak first culture to a write first culture. “Good documentation enables a stronger, more informed, more trusting, and more connected team,” says Bretton.

He suggested using tools such as Notion, Gitlab, or Atlassian Confluence if you don’t already have a proper documentation strategy. But above all, it’s critical that you give documentation structure.

Here are a few tips:

• Make sure every document has a single owner, never multiple owners or no one in particular.
• Be clear on who the audience is for every document. Is it customers, internal employees, or the public?
• Get specific on the cadence of updates. What is the workflow for updating and what is the lifespan of the document?

Social connection and community

Bretton shared that there’s a demonstrated link between the amount of social connection people have at work and their productivity and job satisfaction. When people work in an office with one another, it’s easier to see who is overworking, who is struggling, and, often, who is having homelife disruptions.

With a hybrid or fully remote workforce, it’s critical that we prioritize social capital. “Leaders of hybrid work environments will need to be more deliberate about building social capital and need to look for ways to balance resources so people have the space, time, and energy to build workplace relationships,” says Bretton.

Consider the following activities as you seek to improve your efforts to build social connection and community with your remote or hybrid workforce:

• A talent show
• Virtual home tours
• Coffee chats
• Show and tell
• A team DJ room
• Virtual lunches
• Virtual trivia contests

To hear more from Bretton and learn about what you can do to improve your hybrid work strategy, watch for updates about HR Virtual Summit. Bretton’s session will be available to watch soon!

Keep an eye out for more learnings from the other tracks at HR Virtual Summit. You’ll find best practices and so much more for each of the session tracks: Benefits and Compensation, Career Growth, Wellbeing, Employee Experience, and HR Newcomers.