Agility: Key to Employee Engagement in a Hybrid Workplace

People come to work with various mindsets and motivations. Most want to sustain their lifestyle. Many want to better it. Some are altruistic and hope to contribute something of value. All of those “human” motivators have been complicated by COVID 19 when all business and education was turned on it’s head and had to find ways to work without being co-located. But of course, this did not apply to everyone. Firemen still needed to physically fight fires, nurses still needed to tend to patients, doctors still needed to do surgery on live bodies and cowboys needed to ride horses to check on cows and newborn calves! None of that could be done on Zoom! Only white-collar workers could pivot to home offices and still carry on their work. 

Now, in 2022, we are seeing a “new normal” in our office spaces, where some employees are back in the office while others are working from home. Working from home has become a “right” and privilege for many, and yet some employees don’t have that choice. How do you manage a team of people when you can physically interact with some of them, while others are virtual and physically not in the workplace with their colleagues? How do you keep everyone engaged when there can be resistance and resentment from both virtual and face-to-face employees? Virtual employees feel left out of the loop, and face-to-face employees often resent the privileges their virtual colleagues seem to have. 

This is new territory. There is no guidebook or handbook. Those in HR need to guide and coach everyone, but it seems all the rules have changed. This program will focus on some “how-to’s” to make the new hybrid workplace work. What can managers do? What can employees do? What can HR provide that will help ensure that everyone is engaged and productive? And how can HR stay motivated themselves to keep employees and managers engaged? That’s what we will tackle.

Objectives:

• Explore the various mindsets in the hybrid world of work in 2022.
• Relate examples of what companies are doing with what you can do right now to improve engagement.
• Given some management strategies, choose one to implement right away that will increase engagement.
• Discuss ways to “over-communicate” when time and resources are limited.
• Interact and collaborate with your HR peers to create strategies to boost engagement.

Presenter:

Christie Ward, CSP
Leadership Facilitator and Principal of The Impact Institute™

Christie Ward, CSP is a nationally acclaimed leadership and communication expert known for high-content, high-energy workshops and keynotes that get results. A fearless facilitator who tackles the tough subjects, Christie’s workshops are highly customized to meet organizations’ specific needs and are interwoven with real-world stories and actionable tactics. Since 1999, when she founded The Impact Institute, Christie has focused on communication, leadership, and teambuilding topics that result in more productive teams and effective leadership. Highlights include lowering union grievances at an AT&T division by 66%. In addition, she personally coached the World Champion of Public Speaking for the year 2000. Previously, as Director of Training for CareerTrack, Inc., Christie coached and managed 200 of the best professional trainers around the world.

Learn more about Christie Ward and the Impact Institute at https://christieward.com/.