Pick your favorite label: The Turnover Tsunami. The Great Resignation. The Great Departure. The Big Quit. We’re talking about a lot of people leaving or planning to leave their jobs. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, resignations have not increased in the U.S. since a record high in April, but they haven’t eased up a whole lot either. Other reports indicate women are continuing to leave their jobs in greater numbers than men in what the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) coined a She-Cession.

Your organization may be trying to stop the floodgates or scrambling to prevent mass resignations, depending on variables like your industry, region, pre-pandemic talent management strategies, and hybrid work policies. Retaining and engaging talent is complicated. This blog can’t provide a magic pill, but it does offer food for thought as you sort through your options for building a workforce that thrives and delivers. And stays. 

Be part of the conversation

The Great Reflection preceded the Great Resignation. The events of the last 18+ months—furloughs, lockdown with (or without) family, health scares, funerals—caused people to step back and consider what’s really important to them. They’re still thinking about and talking about questions like these: Is this all there is? What do I want to do with my life? What’s my purpose? What are my options? Is my work working for my family and me?

Here are the questions that you need to be thinking about: Are your managers part of those conversations? Is your organization initiating dialogue about work and career growth? If you answered no, you’ll miss the chance to be part of the solution or explore win-win options. You’ll be left out of decisions. Employees may think the only way to change things is to move on. As leaders, we’ve all been there before, saying (when it’s already too late), “Wait! We can make this work. I didn’t know how you felt. Let’s talk about it.”

The time for talking is now. Earlier this year, we devoted an entire blog to the conversations managers need to have with employees. Share it with your managers. Engagement and career conversations should be top on the list of what you ask managers to do. Career growth, in particular, is worth discussing now, with an emphasis on growth. Our research consistently finds that intangibles can make the difference (e.g., meaningful work, growth and new experiences in role, challenge). For a list of questions managers can ask their team members, check out 4 Strategies for Creating a Culture of Career Growth (gpstrategies.com).

Think twice about paying to keep people

Recent studies suggest that anywhere from 33% to 44% of the workforce is thinking about quitting. Those are scary numbers. Those same studies relate that compensation is a top driver, along with burnout and more flexible work conditions. First, don’t panic. Intent to leave doesn’t necessarily predict actual turnover. Use your own organization’s turnover metrics to guide your strategy.

If you are experiencing turnover and find that, like today’s headlines report, burnout and flexible working conditions are at play, reread tip #1 above. The more managers and employees talk, the greater the odds that they will explore areas of dissatisfaction and, together, identify ideas about how to rework work for the better.

So what about compensation? If you haven’t been paying people fairly for their time and talents, you know what you need to do. If you are thinking about increasing salaries to compete with the firms down the street, back up and focus on your organization’s engagement levels and engagement strategies.

Our research links intent to leave with lower levels of engagement. It also suggests that engaged employees stay because of what they give (they find meaning in their work), while the disengaged stay for what they get (a good comp package, comfortable job conditions, or job security). You don’t want employees who are staying because of money. If they are not finding meaning in their work, a raise won’t help them turn the emotional corner to experience higher levels of engagement. Worse, those employees can actually have a negative impact on the engagement of the people around them.

Said another way: Money is an attraction and retention driver, not an engagement driver. At the end of the day, you need to weather this storm with motivated, focused employees. If you missed Colleen Casey’s podcast on engagement in the hybrid workplace, you can check it out here.

About the Authors

Mary Ann Masarech

Mary Ann Masarech spent the first third of her career writing, designing, and marketing skills training for top-notch consulting firms. She acquired a broad Mary Ann is the Lead Consultant for GP Strategies’ Engagement Practice. In this role, she leverages her extensive experience with instructional design and client experience to create practical tools and strategies that clients apply worldwide to create successful businesses and thriving workplaces. She is also co-author of The Engagement Equation: Leadership Strategies for an Inspired Workforce (Wiley, Oct 2012), and a founding member of the Norma Pfriem Urban Outreach Initiatives, a not-for-profit that addresses food insecurity and education for underserved adults and children. Mary Ann is a graduate of Wesleyan University. 

The pandemic has changed the way that organizations function. With the move to a hybrid workforce fully upon us, companies are having to revisit and restructure the way that they are organized, including the technologies and processes that they use. Things such as employee experience, wellness, and skill development are coming to the forefront of employers’ minds to ensure that their company continues on the path to success. Gallup noted that companies with a highly engaged workforce were likely to be 21% more profitable than those that lack employee engagement. Those companies that aren’t focused on employee engagement risk losing talent. According to Microsoft, 40% of employees are considering leaving their employer this year. That is a high percentage! So, what can you do to ensure that your workforce isn’t spearheading “The Great Resignation?”

As we all have experienced, digital burnout is real. Over the past 18 months, online meetings have increased 2.5x with digital chats increasing by 45% (Microsoft Work Trends Index 2021). With all that screen time, employees are looking for less—less technology, and a better experience. While HR processes and technology are necessary, there are things that you can do to improve the experience and cut down on unnecessary steps for employees:

1. Move to the cloud from your on-premise solution. This will help with keeping a modern experience, as well as with maintaining updates regularly. Software providers will be able to automatically push updates to the technology without much work on your end, keeping the experience as seamless as possible.
2. Focus on the end-user experience, not just the admin-use case. Many self-service portals are great in theory but only focus on the admin point of view. You can ensure that these portals are user friendly by minimizing task and streamlining processes. You can also utilize a digital adoption platform to provide in-app guidance and ad hoc support to users for easier learning and faster adoption.
3. Choose the right technology for your needs. Many HR technology providers are reimagining and redesigning their platforms to better meet the needs of users. They are looking at how users actually engage with the tools, not just what they want them to do, and are adjusting to meet those needs.

There are many software and service providers out there that will tell you that you need a plethora of new technology to adequately adjust to the hybrid workforce, but that isn’t really the case. It is more a matter of design. If you design your technology ecosystem to meet the needs of your employees as easily and efficiently as you can and are supported by seamless processes, then you will be on the path to success.

About the Authors

GP Strategies Corporation

GP Strategies is a global performance improvement solutions provider of sales and technical training, e-Learning solutions, management consulting and engineering services. GP Strategies' solutions improve the effectiveness of organizations by delivering innovative and superior training, consulting and business improvement services, customized to meet the specific needs of its clients. Clients include Fortune 500 companies, manufacturing, process and energy industries, and other commercial and government customers.

Whilst the automotive world has enjoyed its history of big, glitzy global launches, there’s now a new call for interactive, engaging launch experiences given the recent shift to virtual. Huge disruption has hit hard, and many manufacturers began looking to alternative virtual experiences. Digital launches took centre stage.

Staying touchless whilst still in touch with customers and workers became vital. Events had to be redesigned. Platforms had to be reimagined. Product launches had to be rethought.

From press launch, to fleet launch, dealer launch and follow up training, each element was traditionally kept separate, with months, even years between each phase. Problems frequently arose, and often, knowledge and training didn’t align. For instance, customers would see intermittent press information about a fleet, go into a dealership to find out more and potentially purchase a vehicle. However, training often lagged behind, with car dealerships being at the end of the process, unable to provide customers with sufficient information about the car as they simply did not know enough about it yet.

Essentially, the product launch strategy needed an overhaul. Regardless of the pandemic. COVID sped up the process and brought inconsistencies to light. And whilst the pandemic may be nearly over, the seismic shifts in consumer behaviour as a result has forced businesses to rethink their product launch strategies, and integrate the old with the digital.

So, how do we rethink the automotive product launch strategy? And what does it look now?

The new face of product launches

Transitioning from in person launches to virtual launches has been challenging, but it’s been done. With great success.

How, when, and where customers shop has drastically changed over the last few years, and Audi are a prime example of adapting to that change. Audi recently embarked on their digitisation journey by incorporating augmented reality, a 360 product visualiser, and online bookings on their India website. This step meant that they could bring the car buying experience into the living rooms of their customers. This comfortable user experience is a real selling point for Audi, and it’s a great example of a new, effective launch strategy.

From virtual shows, to live streamed events, video conferences, and live chat functionality, digital has added another dimension to product launches. More people are reached worldwide, no limits to a time or place, there’s many more possibilities. Gamification offers the possibility of virtual reality test drives where the customer can inspect the features of a car and how it drives without actually leaving their homes.

That extends out to dealer networks too. A digital platform that sales teams can access is endlessly beneficial. They have the opportunity to access information and training about a particular fleet before its launch and at their own pace, as opposed to a blocked approach of classroom learning. Additionally, and importantly, they can chat directly with the customers too through chat functionalities, delivering on that modern, in-the-moment customer expectation of accessing information as and when they want it.

Various elements of a launch strategy can be streamlined with a single digital platform. That’s not to say a purely virtual product launch is the way to go. On the contrary, a hybrid approach that fuses both digital and in-person is extremely efficient, and has proven itself to be successful.  

Want to find out more about creating an effective strategy for a hybrid approach? Stay tuned for the next article in this three-part series.

About the Authors

Neil Johnson

Senior Director, Managed Learning Services, GP Strategies EMEA

Neil Johnson, Managed Learning Services EMEA has worked within the training industry 25 years, working with multiple industry clients to transform their learning organisations. Included in this work has been numerous automotive clients across the globe who he has supported to build highly effective learning operations

“How can I ensure that my technical team continues to learn when we are unable to provide practical training in a safe environment?”

It’s a question we hear often. Prior to the global pandemic, the notion of delivering automotive technical training remotely was seen as unachievable, even ludicrous.

Now we live in a different reality. New products and technologies continue to be developed, and face-to-face training is still restricted. The time for organizations to think differently—and long term—has come.

As expert technical trainers, we have anticipated changes over the years in technical learning and used a range of learning strategies to overcome these seemingly unsurmountable challenges.

“Will we ever return to what we did before?”

We will probably never go back to the very same approach we depended on for so long. And that’s a good thing. Our role as workforce transformation specialists is to develop solutions to complex challenges by providing our clients with effective and sustainable strategies to improve productivity through learning.

As you evaluate methods to deliver technical training remotely, here are some thought provokers:

• Where do you start once you acknowledge in-person technical training delivery will never be the same?
• What truly makes a virtual instructor-led learning experience interactive and engaging?
• How do you convert a full face-to-face technical learning course into shorter virtual learning courses?
• Is it expensive to set up a virtual learning studio?
• What equipment is needed to deliver technical training digitally?
• How can we assess competence without a physical learning space?
• What are the steps to scalability?

Of course, an organization’s answers to these questions won’t result in a one-size-fits-all approach; however, they do encourage our clients to think differently and challenge the norm.

Single-event training is no longer enough in itself, as the design of technical training is more about demonstrating process rather than imparting skills for competence. Consider this: when we train technicians, they have to break from their day-to-day routine. They are less active at the training center than on the job; they can become distracted and suffer fatigue. Conventionally, there is then an expectation they must sit an assessment directly after the training event to certify. Beyond this, there is no more measurement of how effective the training was to the technician when they apply it in the workplace.

With all these factors in mind, the value of the training experience can be calculated by the level of engagement during the training event and with subsequent knowledge reinforcement applied.

Learning design for technical training is about respecting the learners’ time off the job and, at the same time, making the experience memorable as well as accessible.

We apply five key principles of content design for modern technical learning:

1. Ruthlessly relevant: We use content wisely when designing and don’t assume one size fits all.
2. Create connections: Each piece of learning relates to other pieces of learning.
3. Respect time: What are the most appropriate times and places to learn?
4. Generate pull: Determine how the learner wants to be involved and design around that.
5. Collect data: How can we measure each learning experience, and what should we do with this data?

When applying these design principles, tailored around a learner’s persona, the results will be improved. We can determine the most suitable methods of delivery by looking at the learning objectives to measure competency. For example:

• eLearning serves as a hygiene factor to level-set the underpinned knowledge of the learner cohort. 
• Remote learning should be supplemented by practical on-job activities.
• Practical training can focus on demonstrations and teach-backs, where the learner records themselves physically applying their knowledge and submits to their instructor or coach for assessment.
• Pulsed micro-learning reinforces connections to the course objectives.
• Captured and analyzed data informs the continuous improvement of design and delivery.

We are pragmatic about the need for hands-on training. It’s necessary for the trainer to observe how the technician adapts to a new process or performs diagnosis. However, incorporating digital learning modalities along with the traditional methods can generate greater learning outcomes.

As I mentioned, one solution doesn’t fit all, so our role is to work closely with our clients by conducting state-of-play assessments of the current technical learning approach. Then, we offer solutions based on acknowledging existing good practice and where enrichment can occur. This works best when we partner with an organization as genuinely interested as we are in being at the forefront of innovation for real performance improvement.

About the Authors

Lawrie Martin

Lawrie’s career spans over 30 years, initiated by completing an automotive trade qualification in Australia and progressing through the retail industry to become recognized as an advocate for tackling skills shortages locally and internationally. Lawrie is passionate about making a real difference to industry, business, and people by empowering them to realize the potential to achieve their goals. Over the last 10 years at GP Strategies, Lawrie has developed strategies to overcome automotive and technical challenges. He supports our clients and teams by designing and delivering technical learning innovation worldwide.

Employee engagement is always an important metric, and it’s even arguably more so in a hybrid environment where you have some team members working remotely and some working in the office.

When we talk about engagement, we’re talking about a mutually beneficial relationship between employees and the organizations that they work in. What that looks like is employees are in a place where they’re able to achieve maximum satisfaction from the work that they do while contributing at a maximum level to the goals and the mission of the organization.

Industry Trends in Employee Engagement

Right now, in terms of 2021 data, the verdict is still out. We’re still collecting that information and looking at our benchmarks, but there are trends we observed from data collected in 2020. What we saw is that across client organizations, there were significant increases on some key indicators about clarity of work priorities, and managers giving feedback to their employees and creating good relationships with their teams. The positive perception of senior leadership and executive communication increased over time. These insights show how organizations succeeded in a completely virtual environment, and many things that were the largest concerns for organizations moving into a virtual environment such as performance, productivity, and connection between leaders and employees were more successful than they had been previously.

It’s great to look at that information as we think about how we move forward with a hybrid environment because most organizations had no roadmap. They were thrust into it. Even with some lead time, most organizations’ roadmaps would have included up to two years to develop and roll out a plan. Instead, organizations had to make an immediate change and are now thinking about how they can move forward and improve on their hybrid strategy.

Increasing Risk of Burnout

As for other trends, we’re seeing an increase in employees feeling burnt out. Employees are giving a lot to their organizations, but those individual needs are not necessarily being met. It’s important to consider the risks as we think about a hybrid model and as we think of increased access to virtual work and working from home.

Blended Boundaries

The lack of boundaries between work and the other aspects of our lives are challenging for many people. When the kitchen table is where we go to work, where we go to school, and where we come together as a family, the sort of mashup between work and personal life that people are experiencing can be exhausting. The lack of boundaries can be tiring.

Working Hours and Flexibility

Virtual work can also mean longer days for a lot of employees, so people are actually working harder at times when they’re working from home. It’s more difficult to disconnect in a virtual environment. Is the made-up time working instead of commuting increasing burnout, for example?

Finally, people want more flexibility. We had methods to build in some flexibility before going hybrid, but now that employees have experienced truly flexible day-to-day work schedules, it might be impossible to go back.

Essentially, employees want more flexibility between working in an office and at home and to work more on their own schedule. However, leaders need to help mitigate the risk of burnout.

Leadership Responsibilities

Leaders need to stay connected to their employees. It’s important to regularly talk to your employees about where are they with their satisfaction, how are they feeling about the work that they’re doing, what might be getting in the way of their performance, and where they might have some issues with work-life spillover.

The basic principles of managing people successfully and being a good leader don’t change. Employees need the same things—trust, relationships, conversations, empathy—but the context is changing. If an employee is experiencing burnout, leaders should help them disconnect and rearrange their priorities about what can maybe wait until tomorrow morning.

Staying Connected

Two questions emerge when leading a hybrid workforce: How do we manage at the team level, and how do we manage at the individual level?

At the team level, put digital first. For example, when we have a team meeting, we want to assume that everyone is going to be connecting virtually, and we want to make sure that we are creating an optimal virtual experience for those who are not in the office. Thinking about team dynamics, make sure that everyone is joining on their own device so that everyone’s getting equal face time.

On the individual level, it’s really about dialogue and making sure we’re asking those questions about people’s needs for their satisfaction and what they need to deliver on the results, and the dialogue needs to be frequent. It doesn’t need to be a two-hour conversation, but it should be at least weekly. Asking questions about what they are focusing on, what they are enjoying about a project, and whether there is anything getting in the way can be enough.

Lastly, leaders need to make sure they are connecting equitably with each team member.

Individual Responsibilities

It isn’t only about the leaders in your organization. Individuals also need to take responsibility for staying engaged.

Engagement is a shared responsibility. Every employee has a role to play. This applies to executives and managers alike in addition to individual contributors. Every employee is ultimately responsible for their own engagement to the extent that they need to know what drives their satisfaction and what helps or hinders their performance. They need that level of clarity. Without individuals knowing it, their managers and leaders won’t be able to help.

Self-awareness in a hybrid work environment is about what is working well and what needs some adjusting. Do you need more days in the office, or do you need more days at home? Do you need more flexibility with your schedule due to parenting responsibilities? Does working remotely make you feel left out of the group if you’re the only virtual attendee on a conference call?

It’s critical to consider all these types of questions. Identifying opportunities and team members that may be able to help.

Key Takeaway

As organizations move forward and are testing new working arrangements, it’s important to keep listening to your employees. Don’t abandon your survey strategy. Things are going to continue to change and to evolve. We’ve learned that the idea of the atomized individual is an illusion, the thought that we bring our professional self to work and that professional self is separate from our home life. People are bringing their whole selves to work with them, and all of that external context is really impacting people. We’re going to keep confronting these changes going forward. Organizations need to make sure that we’re listening to our employees to understand how those things—how that external context—is impacting employees and really get that information so we know how to respond and how we can engage our employees.

Listen to the full podcast episode here.

More from Colleen Casey

Employee Surveys: Does your strategy measure up?

About the Authors

Colleen Casey

When I was about 8 years old, I made the obligatory pilgrimage of every born and bred New Jersey native to the Thomas Edison museum. The other children and I pummeled our patient tour guide with innumerable questions (mostly pertaining to whether or not Mr. Edison had died on the premises). Upon learning that Mr. Edison had not received much in the way of a formal education, I inquired “But how was he so smart if he never went to school?!” The simple and astute response of the guide – “He asked a lot of questions.” My career in public opinion and employee polling has led me to do just that – ask a lot of questions in order to better understand how others see the world and what shapes those perceptions. In my current role, I use the insights that I gain from engagement surveys to help our client organizations better understand how their employees view their work, their leaders and the organization’s culture in order to enable them to implement meaningful change based on employee feedback. I feel that my time spent studying sociology and living in France provided me with a unique opportunity to see the world through a different lens and understand how culture informs the way we view ourselves, the world around us, and the institutions that shape us. These academic and personal experiences have been highly valuable to me in my career, heightening my sensitivity and awareness of the necessity to bring a unique approach to client measurement strategies, an approach that aligns with and reflects their unique organizational culture.

This blog article was written prior to LEO Learning becoming part of GP Strategies.

Q: What Technology Is Available to Support Hybrid Learning?

Geoff Bloom: A lot! And because of that, it can often be overcomplicated. You can use all of the things available to you for virtual learning. However, I wouldn’t recommend using all of them in one session.

Most organizations will use shared spaces already—things like Office 365 and Google Workspace. Using tools like Google Docs is fairly commonplace, and a great place to start.

If you’re tackling a specific topic or working with a specialist audience, tools with more collaborative capabilities can be really useful. Things like interactive whiteboards (Miro, MURAL, and Jamboard) and presentations can be really helpful for activities involving collaborative projects. Of course, this all existed before the pandemic but the change in circumstances has accelerated their use.

As a starting point, you’ll want a ‘mix and match’ of the following:

• A virtual classroom tool (GoTo Meetings, Teams, Adobe Connect, Zoom, etc.)
• Chat, polls, and other basic interactive elements (many come from/with the tools above)
• More sophisticated whiteboards (Miro, MURAL, Jamboard)
• Process design and process flow software (some of the more comprehensive whiteboard tools such as Miro and MURAL also do this well)
• Quizzing software/apps (Kahoot!)
• Polling software (Menti/Survey Monkey and SliDo)
• Videos
• Presentations
• Collaborative activities in shared docs, presentations, spreadsheets, etc.

Ultimately anything online can, if set up properly, also work in the room.

Q: What Tech Considerations Need to be Made for In-Person Learners?

GB: It’s a good idea to make some information available on a big screen (or ideally more than one screen) so people in the class have visibility of what’s going on, both in the room and online. It’s important the visibility of attendees goes both ways, so ideally we want people joining virtually to have their webcams turned on.

In terms of the actual room, firstly you need to make sure your learners are bringing their own tech with them (laptops, tablets, phones, etc.) so they can contribute in the same way as their online counterparts.

With that comes a sharing of protocols for both online and in-person learners to help keep a level ground. For example, having everyone raise their hand in the virtual tool to contribute so the conversation isn’t dominated by those in the room.

The in-room tech is also incredibly important. You want to add a 360 camera or external webcam so people online have visibility of those in the room. Alongside this, ideally, you want a pendant or hanging mic or a good desk mic to pick up the conversation from people in the room as well.

It’s important to think about the room dynamics as well. You need to avoid things like clanking crockery or deliveries of sandwiches/coffee/snacks etc. There are things on both sides that you need to consider on behalf of the other. You can’t mute an entire room full of people while the coffee’s being brought in and your learners can’t interact properly if all of your virtual joiners are muted and off-camera.

Q: What Advice Do You Have for Encouraging or Continuing Learning Beyond the Hybrid Session?

If you set it up nicely, you can make the events self-documenting. If you’re using tools like collaborative whiteboards, Office 365, or video recordings, these systems document the activities and the session as you go. This can save you a lot of time. For wholly in-person events, we used to spend hours transposing/transcribing photos of a whiteboard, Post-it notes, flipcharts, etc. from the sessions. When you use self-documenting tools, you don’t need to.

I often leave the activities open beyond the session. This helps the reflectors in the audience take some time to think about what was discussed in said activity, or even continue to contribute. For example, you can say “I’ll leave this document open for a couple of days after the session”. This allows for contribution beyond the session itself.

You can also provide your learners with photos, documents, or activities before the event. For instance, you could send out a survey to gauge familiarity with topics and the tools you’re going to use. This can also help you with any session onboarding and tech instructions you may need to send out before the training.

Post-event, circulate knowledge you have gained from or shared with the group. You may want to do a follow-up quiz to test their knowledge. Or an assignment could also work so they can put it into practice.

Digitally, you will probably have invited your session attendees using calendar software or emails. This allows you to get in touch, both before and after, to extend this event. This is where blended learning and hybrid can come together.

One word of warning though: don’t try to use too many tools in one session. You want the learners to focus on the learning need. You don’t want to scare them off with too many ways to interact. Focus on the purpose of the session and use the technology to support, rather than take over, the session. Using technology the learners are already comfortable with and fluent in is advisable.

Q: What Do You Consider to Be the Future of Hybrid Learning?

We’re in a perfect moment, really, where people are happy to try new things. They’re prepared to be more forgiving as they’ve had to adapt themselves to changing circumstances. If you’re going to experiment, now is the time to do it. I’m not saying we should set out to fail—contingency plans are always vital.

What I hope for the L&D industry is that deliverers, facilitators, and designers become increasingly fluent in the growing pallet of tools, topics, and technologies at their disposal. Balance delivering the best experience possible with not overloading the learner.

As for learners, I hope they gain new ways to collaborate and acquire knowledge. Hybrid allows us to bring in lots of different ways of learning.

We need to learn to use hybrid effectively. Let’s also not forget the importance of measuring the impact of the learning. Observing the learners, checking in, understanding what works. In other words, don’t just treat it as a box of tricks.

I’m not surprised people’s performance in exams is getting better in schools, colleges, and workplaces. The ways we have to share knowledge and collaborate are phenomenally more exciting and dynamic than at any time in history. Hybrid is another one of those examples.

Ultimately, I want people to learn. I want us to continue to evolve this fantastic discipline of learning. We have more options than ever. So why shouldn’t we keep moving forward?

About the Authors

Geoff Bloom

Geoff is a Principal Consultant and has worked in learning technologies and learning design and delivery since 1980. He joined LEO (now GP Strategies) in 2008, and has worked with a comprehensive range of clients across industries to deliver learning content, and define and evaluate a variety of learning strategies. Geoff was heavily involved in designing the NHS Leadership Academy, working alongside KPMG and the Universities of Manchester and Birmingham to develop over 1,200 hours of blended online content for a Master’s in Healthcare Leadership program. In addition, he has worked on a range of blended leadership initiatives for clients including Volvo, British Airways, and BP. Geoff holds an MBA. He enjoys watching rugby, swimming, and going to see live music. Follow Geoff on LinkedIn.

As vaccinations change the prospects for returning to the workplace for in-person work, two key, truly generational opportunities present themselves:

• Leaders have the chance to reinvent operating models with a hybrid mix of on-site and remote workers and a mix of core hours and flex hours.
• Employees have the chance to reinvent their careers in an environment that has never been more friendly to work-from-home (WFH).

These opportunities have the potential to create a truly empowered workforce. But they also have the potential to create deep tension between stakeholders when it comes time to establish the “new normal.”

And just what is this “new normal” that people talk about anyway? Therein lies the critical challenge facing businesses today—how are you going to change to meet this unprecedented moment? And what will that mean to your current workforce?

Organizing a hybrid workforce is about more than just where employees work.

At first, the challenge looks easy. Let those who want to return to work and let those who prefer WFH stay home and figure it out from there. But it’s not that easy. Because the one known variable in this equation is that the workforce will be more hybrid moving forward, with some employees working from the office, some working from home, and some splitting their time between the two workplaces. And any business that wants to retain their workforce and thrive will establish strategy around that—optimizing roles and communication and collaboration to create a new business model that performs even better than the one that got so rudely interrupted by COVID.

What seems to be a simple decision is actually quite complex, and it has the power to reshape your business, its dealings, and its operating model to the core. And it is not going to be fixed on the day everyone “returns to normal work.” That day, frankly, will never come anyway. Here are just a few of the complex and large-scale decisions we believe need to be addressed as we move forward:

Organization design. Perhaps the most crucial aspect of transitioning to a hybrid workforce and post-pandemic operating model is redefining who does what and from where. Which job roles are best suited to in-person and which are enhanced by a WFH/hybrid model? Does your company’s overall strategy have to be redefined to support a hybrid workforce? How do you calibrate a hybrid workforce to best serve your mission and your clients? And how do you then manage workflow between all the different job roles to work as a cohesive and agile whole?

Leadership. Leaders can’t lead a hybrid workforce the same way they lead an in-person one, nor can they do it the same way as managing a pandemic workforce. So, leaders need to be retrained to support hybrid teams and enable performance. Leaders and managers are figuring it out themselves while showing others how. That is a very complex role that many leaders are not prepared for. And if they lumber back into the office thinking they have all the answers, they will fail. Nobody has the answers yet, so leaders need to be open to experimentation and being responsive to dynamics as they arise. It is critical for organizations to invest in upskilling leaders so they are better able to address these challenges.

Culture shift. How does a hybrid model impact the perception of employability and promotability in the organization? How do you create cohesive hybrid teams? How do incidental conversations take place when there are no hallways to walk, offices to pass or watercoolers to visit? And how do you address resistance to change, both among your employees and among your clients? With a new normal in the workplace, organizations must also consider that their culture is changing and be deliberate about that change.

Performance. Some will thrive in a virtual or hybrid environment. Some won’t. Some are already deep into fatigue from the current virtual state. In fact, 40% of hybrid or remote employees¹ have reported an increase in the length of their workday in the last 12 months. In addition, our definitions of the workday are changing. Starting the day sooner, taking more breaks, working longer to get work done comfortably. Where this was initially considered a positive, it’s shifting and resulting in fatigue. How can you shift your operating model and culture to make hybrid and WFH a more sustainable option?

Learning. Prior to COVID, learning trends were moving toward more digital delivery. During COVID, digital delivery was the only option. Consider how you will restructure your learning strategies to address a more distributed and hybrid workforce and how you might accommodate those who respond best to in-person learning.

Timing. While leaders are anxious to get back to in-person work and figure out their hybrid strategy, workers aren’t quite there yet. Moreover, employees are much more amenable to hybrid work structures than leaders are. There needs to be a deliberate accommodation of leaders’ desire to return and employees’ desire to remain virtual.

Retention. Recent surveys indicate that 26% of US workers are already preparing to look for new employment opportunities² and 40% of workers globally are considering a move. Without a hybrid and future-looking strategy in place, how do you plan to attract and retain the best talent? What is your plan if returning to the workplace means you lose trusted employees and their institutional knowledge?

Technology. In March 2020, you scrambled to ensure employees had the laptops, devices, ring lights, and access to collaboration tools they needed. But as hybrid becomes more common and new technologies emerge to improve the virtual environment, how will you adjust? What kinds of technologies would make your workplace transition easier? And how has all this changed the course of our digital transformations?

Safety. COVID is, of course, a huge safety concern. But experts predict it won’t be our last pandemic. And the fact is, in an increasingly unstable world, anything could happen. After 9/11, GP Strategies helped countless organizations secure their physical and electronic infrastructure, create continuity of business plans, and prepare for any eventuality. What did that teach us about preparedness? What did COVID teach us about being agile? How will we handle workplace threats in the future? And how can we take those lessons and apply them to the future and our contingency plans?

Building a successful new strategy will take time.

As a consultancy where much of our work happens in clients’ offices, GP Strategies has lived the kind of change many companies are only just now facing. We have supported a hybrid and distributed workforce for over a decade. Based on job role, some employees have worked from home for years, only traveling to the office once a week or so for meetings. Others split their time between client offices and GP Strategies offices around the world. And some were here in our offices in Columbia, MD every day of the week prior to COVID.

One thing we can say for sure is this—it will take some time to build a new workplace strategy into a success. Even with our established experience in this, we have a lot of retooling to do after COVID. It’s not a matter of adjusting to the current climate. It’s about building a strategy for the future that can quickly and easily pivot to greet the unexpected, empower employees to work the way they work best, and rethink work for an era that today’s technology is capable of supporting.

The hybrid workforce is a natural stage in the evolution of the modern workplace. It’s time to start rethinking business. And if you need expert advice from a veteran in the world of hybrid work, GP Strategies is here to help.

¹ 2021, Gartner Webinars, “The 3 hybrid work challenges driving employee fatigue.”

² July 9, 2021, McKinsey article “It’s time for leaders to get real about hybrid.”

About the Authors

Chris Davis

Sr Director Business Consulting, has over 20 years delivering solutions to Fortune 500 companies deploying complex business initiatives. His work focuses on helping clients connect strategy and execution to unleash the full potential of their organization. Prior to joining GP, Chris was a Naval Officer leading teams in the complex operation of a nuclear submarine. Chris is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, with a B.S. in Political Science, and minors in Russian and German Language.

This blog article was written prior to LEO Learning becoming part of GP Strategies.

Q: What is Hybrid Learning?

Geoff Bloom: I would define hybrid learning as being a live event where you have people in different locations, including some people in the same room/physical space and some online. One of the things at the heart of hybrid, the essence of it, is that it’s something that needs to be delivered live.

Q: What’s the difference between hybrid learning and blended learning?

GB: Blended learning uses a range of delivery formats, for example, video, eLearning, live events, assignments, etc. Hybrid learning can have elements of blended learning, as you can, and should, use different formats and media in the event. The essence of hybrid is that it’s geared around a live event or series of events. The two things can come together.

Successful live events need variety. They will include a blend of media and activities. You could have a quiz, a survey, or a video before or during the event. You can record the live event and make it available afterward.

Ultimately, the two are closely connected but don’t always have to overlap. You can have a blended learning event that involves hybrid and a hybrid event that includes a blend. Similar to blended, hybrid doesn’t have a set list of rules or one set way of doing things.

A hybrid event could be quite short. For instance, if you had an expert who was based hundreds of miles away but is only needed for half an hour, it’s far more cost-efficient to have them join virtually. Equally, a hybrid event could last all day, covering a range of different learning modes and activities.

Q: Would you recommend hybrid learning for the workplace? If so, why?

GB: It’s another tool in the armory. Where I’d say we’ve used it effectively, is where we’ve had people in multiple locations and wanted to bring them together for a couple of hours, where several rooms of people are sharing presentations and media online. Physical breakout rooms are in different places but all communicated online. 

Hybrid can be nerve-wracking as the facilitator. It can feel like a high-wire act if you’re doing it on your own. You’d want to do a hybrid event with more than one facilitator and a producer. The producer can help attendees with any technical issues or by fielding questions, as well as alerting you to technical issues you aren’t aware of as the facilitator.

While it’s not necessarily cheap, hybrid learning is a cost-effective learning format. And it can be an advantage if your facilitators are in different physical locations. If the internet goes down in one place, another facilitator can keep things going. Plus, you don’t need everyone connected all the time. You can bring people in and out of the session whenever you need.

There are limitations when running hybrid in multiple locations. Pulling people out of retail or customer-facing positions, for example, is easier for an hour rather than a whole day. In-person training tends to be infrequent, longer events, while hybrid is more flexible. It can work with a wider range of job functions and removes travel and venue costs.

Q: What are the biggest challenges or limitations of hybrid learning?

GB: The biggest thing is the technology. It can be daunting and can fail you. 

Time can be your enemy as well. If you have a very discursive group—a chatty group in the classroom—you have to be disciplined in time management. Although people online can use the chat features, you have to make sure everyone gets a chance to contribute.

Another challenge is that you can lose the room without realizing it—people online could be on their phones or checking emails. You also need visibility of people’s contributions. This involvement and engagement is what makes live learning delivery special. But there’s the risk of losing that part of the audience.

You have loads of tools you could use, but another risk is trying to use too many. You can cognitively overload people with too much information and too many tasks. This could move you towards hosting multiple sessions.

Q: What top three tips do you have for running a successful hybrid session?

GB: Firstly, always make sure you have a contingency plan. For example, have polls set up on two separate software instances.

Secondly, run events with two facilitators. I’ve run an event where my internet failed about three minutes in and my co-presenter was able to run the event while I was out of action for nearly 10 minutes.

Finally, if you can, include tools like whiteboards, Office365, or Google Workspace in your session. These tools are self-documenting and can help you avoid hours of transposing or transcribing photos and notes of the session.

About the Authors

Geoff Bloom

Geoff is a Principal Consultant and has worked in learning technologies and learning design and delivery since 1980. He joined LEO (now GP Strategies) in 2008, and has worked with a comprehensive range of clients across industries to deliver learning content, and define and evaluate a variety of learning strategies. Geoff was heavily involved in designing the NHS Leadership Academy, working alongside KPMG and the Universities of Manchester and Birmingham to develop over 1,200 hours of blended online content for a Master’s in Healthcare Leadership program. In addition, he has worked on a range of blended leadership initiatives for clients including Volvo, British Airways, and BP. Geoff holds an MBA. He enjoys watching rugby, swimming, and going to see live music. Follow Geoff on LinkedIn.

This blog article was written prior to LEO Learning becoming part of GP Strategies. 

One of the top goals for any learning program is to maintain a high level of uptake and engagement with the content. The variation available within blended learning programs lends itself really well to this. But where can you start to increase the uptake and engagement levels? 

1) Hold Research and Focus Groups

Start at the beginning! Effective learning design ultimately comes from understanding the requirements of the people who will be using it. In the same way software companies will run user testing and creators of consumer products will run focus groups, it’s important you do the same with your learners.

Yes, your objectives (learning and business-specific) are important, but what do your learners want and need from this experience? Have you asked them yet? Doing this research upfront and, if possible, testing beta versions of your learning before a full launch will give you such a rich bank of information to help you move forward in the most effective and engaging way.

One organization we’ve worked with on a combination of learning games, eLearning modules, and a gamified learning platform for product-knowledge training ran a number of focus groups with its target audience ahead of scoping out the project. On top of this, the organization tested a beta version on a selection of its salespeople to iron out usability and knowledge-retention issues before its full launch. Thanks to this research, it saw a staggering uptake in engagement with the learning initiative that resulted in significant sales improvements. Learners were getting both what they asked for and what they knew they needed. 

Whatever type of learning you’re designing, it’s important to check in with the people who will be using it before, during, and after launch to ensure you’re hitting the mark.

2) Prioritize Usability and Organization

While we’re discussing beta testing, we need to talk about usability. If you’re housing some of your blended learning materials in an LMS, LXP, or digital academy, you need to ensure the system is easy to navigate and use. Equally, if you don’t have that level of technology at your disposal, it’s important to make sure that everyone enrolled in your blended learning program knows where to find all the elements they need.

A simple, if time-consuming, admin process to put in place for learning that sits on one of the above systems is using appropriate tagging and taxonomies when each resource is uploaded. This will allow your learners to make use of the search functionality within the system if the learning they’re searching for isn’t immediately available to them. Creating this governance will ensure that any future learning can also be properly tagged, so nothing gets lost in the system.

Additionally, if you’re using AI, machine learning, or recommendation engines within your systems to create personalized learning journeys or to create a smoother learning experience for anyone enrolled in a specific program, this level of tagging and organization is crucial.

Prioritizing the organization of your learning materials will do so much for the uptake and engagement of your blended learning program. Blends are often designed with a number of separate parts but they all need to be connected, both in content and accessibility. Just as many people get frustrated if a web page loads slowly or the navigation on a website or app doesn’t make logical sense, they will abandon their learning if you don’t make it easy to access.

3) Plan Your Launch Campaigns

If you’re looking to increase uptake of your blended learning program, why wait until it’s already live? Launch campaigns are used widely across a wide range of industries and there’s a lot we can learn from consumer-focused organizations.

When a company launches a new product, for example, it may tease the product on social media, through billboards, TV or online ads, emails, and a wide range of other channels. While the channels you use for internal training won’t be the same, this multi-channel approach is a great way to encourage engagement before launch and get the word out about your new initiative.

The excitement of the teaser materials becomes a part of the overall experience and primes people for the content you’ll deliver.

Launch campaigns are a great opportunity to work with your marketing and/or comms teams to drum up excitement and find ways to get people excited about your new learning program. Over the years, we’ve worked on a number of launch campaigns for a huge range of organizations and technology is a huge part of that.

Whether you’re communicating with your employees remotely or through their working environment, there’s a range of tools you can add to your comms including:

• Animations/messages on screens around the office
• Billboards/advertising in the staff areas of your workplace
• Competitions or games
• Activities centering around user-generated content as it relates to the learning content
• Emails (talk to your marketing team about using lead nurturing techniques)

One of the most effective engagement drivers we’ve seen is running competitions, particularly those that run between departments, branches, or offices. Adding in this element of competition taps into learners’ motivation and gives them a reason beyond the learning to get involved.

You can run these campaigns without the involvement of your marketing department, but as their jobs revolve around driving engagement, they can be an incredibly valuable resource. Ultimately, within your blend, and before it’s launched, you want to get people talking about it.

The main question you need to ask is: ‘What will get people involved?’

4) Invest in Games, Gamification, and Competition

Research suggests that as many as 83% of employees feel motivated at work when receiving gamified training. This is true of both employee engagement on the whole and learning-specific engagement. Gamification features are becoming more common in workplace learning and can be a fantastic engagement tool in a well-rounded blend. 

Gamification features can include:

• Leaderboards/league tables
• Points
• Achievements/medals/awards
• Changes in rank/status

These are often elements added into learning content that already exists. A number of learning platforms already have these features available, or they can be designed into custom learning content. These features, while simple, tap into learners’ intrinsic motivation to consistently seek improvement or beat their peers.

Learning games, on the other hand, are more comprehensive. They tend to take inspiration from consumer-grade or commercial games (those played on popular consoles like the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, or Xbox, or on someone’s phone), and therefore pick up on tried-and-tested methods to gain people’s attention/engagement and hold it for long periods of time.

Learning games can be particularly useful for product knowledge-based training. Creating an immersive learning experience, alongside competitive gamified features is a great way to encourage your employees to learn while engaging in something they enjoy. Going far beyond PDFs, slide decks, or more traditional eLearning, learning games engage your learners in subtle ways that encourage a higher rate of information retention.

Introducing games, gamification, and competitions mean that their motivations move from extrinsic (something they need to go for their job or to help you reach compliance rates) to intrinsic (something they wish to do for themselves due to enjoyment, wishing to prove themselves, or do better than others).

About the Authors

Alex Steer

Leaders around the globe have done amazing things against the backdrop of the challenging events of the past year—from keeping family and coworkers safe, pivoting to an all-virtual work scenario, juggling home-bound schoolchildren to addressing fatigue and burnout of epic proportions. With all of the challenges leaders have overcome, it stands to reason that many would want the familiarity and logic of a “return to normal.” But there are new challenges to tackle as hybrid work arrangements, those where some employees are physically together and some are virtual, begin to take shape. From policy to processes to communication and leadership, there is little that will be left untouched as hybrid becomes the norm for many organizations.

Several factors are at play

In this new-but-not-completely-new scenario, several factors may be contributing to the stress:

It’s longer term

With the exception of essential workers, virtual work in 2020 and 2021 was the norm. But many anticipated an eventual end to widespread remote scenarios and were willing to make what they thought would be temporary adjustments. Still others have taken the opportunity to re-evaluate their space. Now that a hybrid and virtual scenario will likely be ongoing, more permanent decisions will need to be made—and those decisions are complicated. A temporary change felt manageable, but shifting the paradigm of the office environment for good feels daunting.

One size does not fit all

When the work-from-home mandate was the only solution to keep people healthy, there was little debate about what needed to be done. No one needed to negotiate because a singular approach—everyone staying home—applied to all. But now that the solution isn’t obvious, and each individual’s circumstance is unique, leaders are in murky waters. How many days? Who can work from home? What do they need? Addressing each employee’s personal needs and circumstances is complicated.

It’s being driven, in part, by employees

Employees are speaking up and finding a voice that they didn’t have in the early virtual days. Many are letting their organizations know, in no uncertain terms, that their expectations have shifted about their working conditions and they are unwilling to go back to the way it was. Instead of accepting organizational policy, saluting sharply, and marching back into the office, employees are asking, “Why? Why exactly do we need to come into the office when we’ve gotten it done so well from home?”

It challenges elements of leadership

If individuals were productive, distributive decision making increased, and they were able to hold themselves and their teams accountable, how does that shape the role of the leader? For confident leaders, this team empowerment is a positive development. But for others, who define leadership success by a corner office and the ability to peer over their employees’ shoulders, a more permanent hybrid scenario threatens to undermine the value of their role.

Execution of company policy is on the backs of frontline and leaders of leaders

Leaders are exhausted. After successfully navigating through operational issues to address productivity and personal issues to ensure individuals stay connected, they would like to return to something they know. Instead, they find themselves in the crosshairs of company policy and the practical challenges of implementing that policy. While the C Suite mandates, “Back in the office three days,” those who lead the frontlines are acutely aware of the personal and logistical issues their teams are dealing with. They are put in a difficult situation of getting pushback from their people when they question the “Why?” of the policy.

Adjusting Your Mindset

Undoubtedly leaders will rise to the challenges presented by the new hybrid and they will successfully lead others through yet another change. They will, as they’ve done before, advocate on behalf of their people, while simultaneously respecting the needs of the organization. But it won’t be easy. Not only will they need to apply leadership skills in a new hybrid context, but they will also need to implement new policies, potentially learn different technology, and deal with the multitude of issues that will come from a team that may be physically divided. And they will need to understand each individual’s reality, including some elements of their at-home and personal family situation.  

The first place to start as they confidently take on hybrid is the leader’s mindset. Strong leaders have certain mindsets and apply them in different contexts. The “back to office” shift or hybrid shift is no exception. Our research has revealed that four key mindsets, including growth, inclusive, agile, and enterprise, are important in leader success. When a leader applies these mindsets in a variety of situations, it can alter the outcome of the decisions they make and their interactions with others. Holding these mindsets front-and-center can be the start of tackling hybrid angst.

Growth mindset

A growth mindset is the belief that skills and behaviors can be cultivated through effort. With this mindset, challenges, obstacles, and feedback become an opportunity to learn and grow.

As leaders transition to hybrid, a growth mindset will be front and center. Leaders can abandon long-held assumptions about how to get work done, bring people together, and develop careers.

Inclusive mindset

This mindset involves the belief that contribution and performance are unleashed in an inclusive environment. With this mindset, we see differences in how others think and behave as advantages to be leveraged.

The transition to hybrid will include an increased focus on inclusivity. Employees are speaking up and want to be involved in the decision-making process regarding hybrid arrangements. Equity will be a key focus in leader communications, the structure of meetings, and in the way career development is addressed to avoid an “us” vs. “them” mentality among in-office and remote team members.

Agile mindset

An agile mindset is the belief that success in a complex and volatile world requires flexibility, adaptation, innovation, and resilience. With this mindset, we fail fast and achieve success by being nimble in the way we think and act.

Last year’s pivot taught leaders much about agility, and they will benefit from this learning. These agile lessons will help remind leaders that they can approach their role differently, as they’ve had to do, and move with speed. An agile mindset includes keeping an open mind to how to use technology to support different ways of working.

Enterprise Mindset

This mindset is the belief that success is maximized when we prioritize the needs of the larger organization. With this mindset, all decisions in my team or business unit are made for the greater good of the company.

A hybrid leader balances meeting individual and team needs while keeping the goals of the organization and our customers top-of-mind regardless of physical scenarios.

The new hybrid world isn’t going to magically appear by thinking it into reality. It’s going to take hard work and strong leadership. But hard work and strong leadership is what so many have demonstrated against the backdrop of profound disruption and, for many, great loss. Reimagining what is possible in a hybrid environment means thinking about things differently—thinking from a place of agility and inclusivity, with an enterprise perspective and, above all, from a perspective of growth and possibility.

About the Authors

Leah Clark

Leah Clark is the Leadership Practice Lead at GP Strategies, as well as an author and the founder of LeaderConnect. With over 28 years of experience in her field, Leah brings a unique perspective on the mindsets and skillset that are critical to leadership success to her coaching and consulting. Her clients benefit from her collaborative approach to crafting a well-connected and thoughtful leadership development strategy. Leah holds a Master of Arts; Organizational Psychology, Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts; English and Sociology, Boston College.