Bringing teams back together.
Kids crawling all over you during zoom meetings. Trying to homeschool while managing a full time workload. Struggling to find daycare because you couldn’t work remotely and schools were closed. Being the lone one or two staff stuck in the office. Dealing with the constant moving target of new rules and protocols. Handling enforced business closures. Having to lay people off.
Which of the above are memories you would happily leave in the rearview mirror and never think about again?
Two years where the only certainty was that nothing is actually certain was the real deal.
I know, I know. You know all of this. It’s all everyone has been talking about since March 2020. Living in a pandemic was an extended period of feeling powerless and out of control and terrible.
People are finally going back into workplaces. The workplace itself may not have changed, but we are all inherently different.
So how are we managing this transition?
If you’re the leader, the first and most important step is to get support for yourself. The last two years have been hard on everyone but those in leadership roles had to make a lot of tough calls that they didn’t have control over knowing how it would impact lives, nor were they able to provide answers for their teams.
How can you support yourself as the leader? Connect with other leaders to share challenges and reflect on where you feel you succeeded, where you struggled, how things have changed and what the future looks like. Develop a small group of leaders that meet once a month for check-ins. It can be beneficial having people to talk to who understand the unique challenges a leader may face.
Step two? Get the team together and have a conversation about the transition process. For some it has been two years since they’ve all been in the same room.
Check in, ask open-ended questions, review the last two years, what were the highs and lows, where do they need support, ask the team for input for how they would like things to be different moving forward, and come up with solutions together. Bring in a facilitator to lead a conversation or run a team building workshop if you’re not sure of the best way to do this.
Pandemic or not, if you want a successful team, the most effective way to start building this is to get their input. People want to feel heard, supported and like their opinion matters.
If you are a member of the team heading back into the office, this may be a shock to your system. Having to get out of pajama pants and leave the house everyday may feel like a special kind of hell for some. It is easy to feel frustrated and resent the fact that you can’t continue working from home, but take a minute to reflect on what you missed about being in the office. There must be SOMETHING that you missed. If not, that’s a conversation for another day!
When I worked remotely for a corporation during the pandemic, I missed my friends. The work itself did not fulfil me, but knowing I had people to have a laugh with made the days enjoyable. When that was taken away and I was stuck at home, and the job was pared down to only code books and by-laws, it was painful.
Do you have a coffee break ritual? Daily walk? Someone you meet up with in another department? Enjoy listening to music or podcasts on the ride to and from work? Just feeling kind of normal again? Anything. It may feel like grasping at straws but try looking for little positives instead of focusing on how terrible you think it is.
If you never worked remotely, going to the office every day while imagining your coworkers at home sleeping in, going for luxurious walks on extended lunch breaks, or having the freedom to get chores done during the day was probably challenging. And now there are all these people in your space again. So how can you work through these hard feelings? Have conversations. If your team leader has not taken the initiative to plan some kind of debrief for how the last year went, suggest it. Express your feelings - in a respectful way, enjoy having the office feel more normal and less like a ghost town, and take the time to reconnect.
The key to a successful transition is managing our mindsets. It’s easy to fall back into feeling like you don’t have control, but taking time to change the language helps. Instead of “I HAVE to go back to this office. This sucks.” what about “I actually GET to leave my house again and have a reason to shower!”
Talking about how terrible everything is all the time makes everything seem terrible all the time. I’m not trying to be toxically positive, I’m trying to help you realize that you may not have control over your physical work circumstances, you do however, have control over how you think about them.
What is ONE thing that you really, really missed during the last two years. You know, the thing that you couldn’t wait to do again. Sitting in a restaurant with your partner, watching the playoffs with your buddies, going to the gym, meeting a friend for coffee and actually being able to sit inside the coffee shop not the parking lot, planning a birthday party for your child and inviting their friends, anything!
On days when you are frustrated about having to leave the house, or having people invade your personal space, remember that ONE thing and feel grateful that it is available to you again.
No matter what your circumstances are, can we accept that at some point, everyone has had a tough time and exercise our empathy muscles? A simple “Hey, I know this is a big adjustment, and I see you” goes a long way.
