Return To Office: How To Blend The Best Of Virtual And In-Person Work

By Brian Hilberdink

After a little over a year of working remotely during the pandemic, I found myself in the mangroves of Southern Florida with our local sales team picking up trash as part of a volunteer effort. Later, covered in mud, we all gathered at a restaurant and processed the day: We talked about how a toilet seat ended up in a swamp and why there were so many golf balls there, even though we were nowhere near a golf course.

Because of our shared experience, there was an informality and trust that developed over the course of the day that ultimately led to some crucial business feedback. This kind of candor is invaluable for a leader or manager and is, in my experience, harder to achieve in a virtual environment.

Over the past 18 months, we’ve learned that there are many benefits to working remotely. It turns out that some things we thought we could only do from the work office, we can actually do even more effectively from the home office. But during the pandemic, we’ve also learned what you miss when you’re not working side by side with colleagues, the unique connections that are harder to develop. As companies create their return-to-workplace (RTW) plans, we can take the best of the virtual and combine it with the power of being in person to create a flexible, productive, hybrid environment where everyone excels.

First, the benefits of virtual.

In the ’80s, a pop song declared that “video killed the radio star.” In 2020, video did the same to the phone call. Prior to the pandemic, if someone had asked to do a video chat instead of a phone call, it would have been unusual, to say the least. Now, video chats are ubiquitous and people are front and center with their homes, families, and pets in the background—along with occasional and much-needed levity (e.g., the infamous “I am not a cat” incident). We gained new perspective into our colleagues’ personalities by their choice of backgrounds, whether they employed professional lighting or makeup, or sat in the dark as if they were part of a witness protection program. It wasn’t business as usual, but business got done—and often better than we could have ever imagined.

Additionally, the virtual world has, overall, made meetings more cost- and time-efficient. Instead of commuting to the office or traveling across the country, we’ve learned that we can just huddle up online. As a senior leader of a pharmaceutical sales organization whose teams are mostly field-based, virtual offers an easy way for me to conduct certain kinds of business.

All that said, without a doubt, working remotely has its limitations.

One of the big challenges with virtual is setting the right “tone” in the room and gauging attendees’ interest. We’ve been taught over the years that most communication is non-verbal, and that gets lost when you’re limited to a 2x2 view of someone’s face, which may or may not be on the screen.

It is easier to “hide” in an online meeting when only a limited number of people appear on the screen and participants can turn their video off. Online meetings also foster side conversations either through the chat function, which is transparent to everyone, or by messaging that isn’t. This can be a distraction to both the presenter and participants, and it can create alliances that may not be conducive to the overall purpose of the meeting.

While online meetings can be fun and quirky, you just can’t create the same chemistry with other participants that you can with in-person experiences. You don’t have to pick up trash in the mangroves of Florida to connect with your team, but there’s something deeper that gets built when you’re face-to-face—eating a meal, grabbing a coffee, or calling on a customer together. Over the past several months, I’ve experienced this in a variety of settings and activities with colleagues: tailgating in the rain in Buffalo, enjoying music in Nashville, exercising on a terrace in Long Beach, Calif.

In each case, there was a comfort with in-person that led to more sharing.

So how do we build a hybrid environment that blends the best of both worlds?

It’s essential to be clear on which meetings require in-person participation and which do not. We have to avoid creating subgroups within an office, with some going to the office and others not. If meeting in person is optional, it needs to truly be optional; you can’t have people thinking that those who show up will score points and those who don’t, won’t. Being clear on this will avoid fostering resentments from vague expectations.

To determine which meetings are best served by being in person and which virtual, we need to consider a couple of factors. First, the length of the meeting is an important starting place, as longer meetings require more attention and are well worth a trip to the office — whereas shorter meetings that serve as quick touchpoints benefit from online engagement. Additionally, meetings across departments that contain data and multiple stakeholders are better done in person. Separately, we should schedule in-person, one-on-one meetups regularly; that’s where employees can swap experiences and build bonds. These meetups pave the way for the kind of open conversation upon which great teams and companies are built.

By drawing from the best of both worlds, we can create a hybrid environment that will be the workplace of tomorrow — and keep everyone safe, connected, and engaged.

Brian Hilberdink is SVP, Sales, at Novo Nordisk. He has been in that role for just over a year.