Jump Back
Let me start with a question: after a hybrid team meeting ends and the screen goes blank, what happens in the room if you’re in the office with your colleagues?
You chat. You walk out of the meeting room, brainstorming on how to tweak the proposal you just went through in the meeting, talking about your weekend plans, or chatting about the soccer game that happened last night.
Those few minutes before and after meetings are highly valuable for building relationships and for influencing decision-making. These simple social interactions create chemistry, strengthen relationships and deepen trust. Relationships can be maintained online, but they cannot be built to the same level in a virtual environment.
Opportunities for Learning
We learn by osmosis. Being present and engaged in office life enables us to pick up small nuggets of information all the time, and this wisdom compounds over time. One small new learning this week doesn’t feel like much. Still, new learning every week for five or ten years amounts to in-depth insights into an organisation, ways of working, technical knowledge, and interpersonal skills.
Learning doesn’t always come from the top down. Often, emerging technologies are better understood by grads and younger people, allowing senior leaders to collect their weekly nuggets of information from their junior colleagues.
Purposeful Presence
Presenteeism is not the goal. Employees should not be in the office if their core team isn’t there or if there is no real value in doing so. Mandating presence for the sake of it is counterproductive. There must be a purpose and value to being in the office, and a critical mass of people should be present to enable meaningful, dynamic interaction. If one person goes into the office on a Friday and nobody else is there, the value is lost. Similarly, if an employee is sitting alone in a meeting room for eight hours to write a report, they may as well be working from home. Being in the office should provide opportunities for interaction, learning, and collaboration.
Takeaway
In-person presence matters when it creates connection, learning, and collaboration. Time in the office should be purposeful, not just procedural.
Padraig Ryan (LinkedIn>>>) is the Managing Director of Navitise Consulting. Navitise is a boutique consulting firm that combines big-firm expertise with a personalised approach, delivering strategy, operational excellence and transformation solutions.