You likely ended up here because you are considering how to set up your business, or searching articles on hybrid or remote work. 

First things first - decide what your goal is and pick a side!

Do you require in person face time while building early?
Do you want to build trust and diversity in a remote first team? 

Or somewhere in between? 

Figure out what you want and BE CLEAR on your expectations of the team; 3 days/week in office, work from anywhere? 

Hybrid means nothing and everything at the same time, so start from a place of clarity.

Be clear on what you want from the individuals and why you are doing it 

• Do they really need to be in the office? If not every day, how often? 

• All teams or just some roles? 

• When you say remote do you mean anywhere really, across specific timezones or just across the UK? 

My pitch for flexibility

I’m not going to pretend I don’t have a stake in this debate, I’ve long been an advocate for remote work and flexibility for the team. Whether remote first, flexible hours, hybrid working or work from anywhere schemes; flexible work is by definition more inclusive work!

Give people the options to find what works best for them individually and they will (almost) always impress you.

Let’s talk real life examples; 

• I’ve had team members who came to life when we went remote as a team - a serious stutter was getting in the way of in-person meetings but they could be managed much more easily over video calls and their written work was excellent. 

• Being Remote first and hiring within certain time zones (vs geographies) has allowed my European based companies to add incredible African talent to the team, without requirement of relocation or the insecurity of contract work (use employer of records for local employment contracts). 

• Everyone of us probably knows a mother who hasn’t gone back to work after maternity leave because childcare and commuting costs were higher than their net salary. That’s years of knowledge and experience being left out of your potential candidate pool just because you require full-time in-office work.

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

If you choose to work remote or any version of hybrid (not 40hrs/week in an office) it will require a little more work to get communication right, let’s not pretend it doesn’t because that just leads to failure.

You need to communicate - not just more loudly, but more consciously: 

• How does your team make information available asynchronously? Look at slack, loom videos, documentation (notion, google, confluence), etc. 

• You need to make expectations clear, of where and when information is shared, and how decisions are made within your business (especially when working across multiple countries and cultures where expectations may vary naturally).

• Think consciously of how you ensure everyone has the same experience of work no matter where they are in the world! (e.g. benefits, time off, etc.)

• Even in the best remote models, you’ll find most meet in person at least once per year, and find conscious ways of building relationships virtually. This becomes a conscious exercise to manage what happens more organically when you share a space. 

Especially in the case of a hybrid model (where some are in a shared space and others are not, and even more so if you as the founder are in the space), it’s not enough to say you’ll allow remote work you need to ensure there is no loss of information or feeling of belonging by working remotely.

If you intentionally build a remote first culture around communication, you will actually see much better levels of company wide transparency and feelings of inclusion, than the traditional 9-5 office setting, because the communications are intentional and designed to support a wider range of individuals. 

Try it for yourself!

If you are usually in the shared space, work fully remotely for two weeks: 

• see how the audio & video in your meeting rooms actually is on the other side, can you hear? Invest in better tech, and make every individual turn on video!

• Do you feel out of the loop because you miss the chatter in the office? How can you lead by example and share more regular updates and chat in slack, and encourage other leaders to as well!

Above all - ask your team!
They will tell you what they want and given options will find the best balance for them. And keep asking as you grow and scale.

Want to talk specifics for your team or work through examples on any of the topics above, book a workshop or advisory session with michelle@bramble.club.