Episode 68: Hybrid Work Series: Engaging and Cultivating Company Culture in this New Hybrid World
Happy Wednesday, improve it! Fam! We’re here with a series you don’t want to miss. Erin, your hybrid hype woman, is excited to share four weeks of awesome tips and tricks as you enter the new and improved world of hybrid work.
Listen in to week 1 of this series and learn the why and how on creating an engaging and cultivating company culture as you work from home and in-office! Enjoy and let us know what you think.
Show Links:
Send a screenshot of your review to info@learntoimproveit.com to receive a free gift from Erin!
Get your Hybrid Hype Handout – follow along with us in the series!
Connect with Erin:
Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the improve it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
Episode 68 Transcription
Erin (00:00):
Hello improve it! Family. I am so excited for today's show. We are starting a brand new series, all about hybrid work. So before we get into today's show, I want you to know we have a downloadable PDF for you that goes along with this hybrid work series, it's all about hybrid work. So I want you to look in the show notes for the link to this PDF. You can also go to our website, learntoimproveit.com to grab yours. It's super helpful as we go through today's episode in particular, but in the weeks following, it will be a great reminder for you and your teams. So click in the show notes to snag yours and follow along. Let's get to improvin it.
Erin (00:56):
Are you a leader or change maker inside of your business organization or corporation? Are you looking for new, innovative ways to drive morale through the roof? Are you looking for fun and exciting icebreakers, team-building exercises and activities that will foster team growth, friendships, loyalty, and completely transform your organization from the inside out? Have you been searching for a fun and unique way to create change instead of this same old dry, boring leadership books and ice breakers that aren't actually working? Hi, I'm Erin Diehl, business improv edutainer, failfluencer and professional zombie who is ready to help you improve it. My mission in life is to help you develop teams and leaders through play improv and experiential learning. In this podcast, we will deep dive into professional development, team building, effective communication, networking, presentation, skills, leadership training, how to think more quickly on your feet and everything in between. We have helped everyone from fortune 500 companies to small mom and pop shops transform their business, their leadership, and their people through play. So grab your chicken hat. We are about to have some fun, welcome to improve it! The podcast.
Erin (02:31):
So there you are sitting from home in your PJ bottoms and work top. Wearin your bedroom slippers, shout out to my slipper squad, when you get the email from human resources. Yes, you are going to have to come back into the office sometimes. Cut to - what do I wear? Do I even know how to dress myself for the office? I have to wake up, shower, put on a cute outfit, dropping off my kids at school, take three trains, pick up my Dunkin donuts order, walk three blocks in the heat or snow and sit down at my desk all by 8:30 AM. What the what? So I feel ya improve it! Fam - hybrid work is here even with this Delta variant and whether you are a work from home Wanda or a back to work Bob, you've got to get back out there at some point, or you don't, or you want to, or you don't care.
Erin (03:35):
Whatever your mindset, the mindset of work is changing to be more flexible, more work for me versus work for them. And if you are an employer listening today, I got some news. Hold on. It is going to hurt. Let me take the band-aid. Let me do a slow gentle rip. Boom. I pulled it off. 2020 was a year. People saw that they could be just as productive working from home. People liked spending more time with their families. So if this pains you and you are in an office, or you are a all in the office or nothing type person with the exception of some industries like healthcare, who have to be in person, my friend, you got to loosen the old grip on your people. Just like I had to loosen my belt buckles post COVID. We all must loosen our grip and get a grip on the new reality that hybrid work is here to stay. So over the next few weeks, I'm going to provide you with a series on hybrid work because it's all the rage. Number one. And now that we have vaccines and know that the combination of both vaccines and masks, where I work are preventing the Delta variant. We must come to this realization. That hybrid is the hype and I'm your hybrid hype woman here to help you keep your company culture in tact through it all. You ready to get hybrid hype where y'all at before we get into everything, I just want to shout out to all of the improve it! Fam who left a review over the week of our rebrand. We are, we rebranded to our brand, as you know, and we appreciate you so much. And I received so many reviews, so many, I can't even name all of them in this show.
Erin (05:39):
And I want to just say, if you're listening to this show and you've sent us a review, send me a screenshot of your review to info@learntoimproveit.com. And I'm going to send you something for free. I am just so thrilled and I'm just so honored because the, the amount of reviews that came in over that week, period blew away my team myself. And I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my tiny little cold heart. So send me an email info@learntoimproveit.com. Alright back to being your hybrid hype woman. So here is the question. I know so many leaders are asking themselves, how do we keep company culture alive and well in this new hybrid world, I've got three key takeaways for you. And as we go into them, I want you to check out this PDF your downloadable worksheet and remember it because it's so important.
Erin (06:46):
The acronym is W H Y that's right. It's spelled Y the Y, the purpose. All right. So I've got an exercise for you that we do. One of our workshops called I love work. I want you to try this. It's also in the PDF. So take that PDF, open it up. And under each one of these questions, I want you to write your answers. Why you love what you do. That's number one, why you love what you do. Number two, I want you to ask yourself, what did you do the day you found out you were hired and write that down. And if you're listening to this in your car or on a walk, just think aloud these answers, because we're going to come back to them. And if you have the capability to jot down your notes somewhere, jot them down. The number three question is what you love about your company.
Erin (07:51):
What do you love about the company that you work for? So I'm going to give you some time. I want you to write it down, pause the show, hold on to these answers until we get done with this episode. And now I want you to break down your answers and this acronym, WHY the w in WHY my friends stands for work. Now, what is the actual definition? You know, I like to throw out a Wikipedia, my improve it! Fam. So the actual definition is to be engaged in physical or mental activity in order to achieve a result, do work. Now, nowhere in the dictionary does it say work to be done and an office in a cubicle with no windows next to Annie and accounting work can be done anywhere except with the exception of some industries. As I mentioned before. So as long as we are holding ourselves and each other accountable for the work that needs to take place, does it stinkin matter where it happens as we saw, we can now work from the beach, our bedroom, our mom's house, our childhood bedroom, our cars, you name it.
Erin (09:21):
We have worked in it in 2020 and 2021. Now some companies we've worked with have told me that they have had their most productive year ever in their pajamas and in their really long unshaven beards. Now, similarly, the best improv shows can happen anywhere in an improv theater and a garage on the floor of a conference room. If I told you some of the places that we have improvised, you would find it comical. I could write a book about it, should write a book about it. Will write a book about it. So stay tuned for that, but work can work anywhere just like improv can literally work anywhere. So set your work or the w of this WHY up for success by starting with a virtual first mindset, what is a virtual first mindset? I want you to think about this. I want you to think about your virtual team and use slack, use channels of communication, whether it's slack teams, any type of chat function that allows people to know that work works wherever they are.
Erin (10:36):
So where is your company currently at with work? I'm sure you have a mix of people who prefer to be in the office who prefer to work from home or a combo of the two, AKA your hybrid hype people. I'm your hybrid hype man, don't forget. So how to make work work, or how do we engage and cultivate company culture and this new hybrid work model. I've got some tactical for you. Some tactical tips that're going to help work, work for you. So, number one, I love this idea, focus hours on zoom. Here's how these work. So set up a zoom link, set up a zoom call, assign a moderator to the call to start and end the call. But it is a zoom where participants can join at an allotted time on you. Camera's on. And they literally sit and do work together. So it's kind of like your accountability partners are there and your head's down, you're doing your work similar to you would in an office.
Erin (11:50):
I've had moderators play music and like soft jazz or that coffee shop radio, you know, the music to get everybody sort of in that flow, in that mindset. So get everybody on this zoom and set up a focus group. So everybody knows, okay, I'm not on this lonely island at home, in my pajama bottoms. I've got my team here with me doing this work and we can physically feel each other's presence. Number two, how do we make work? Work? Try hoteling. I have so many of our clients who have told me they are trying this. So basically you make your office space rentable. So it's an option. You don't have to go to the office. You can rent an office space within your office, but the office is not where you go to work consistently. You can rent off, not necessarily pay, but you can sort of sign up if you will, for these rooms and these spaces.
Erin (12:47):
And what that does is allows the people who want to stay at home to not feel excluded. And the people who want to come in the office, it gives them a great option and space to do so, but it is not the have to, here's a third way to make work, work, create conferences that are both accessible to those who feel comfortable coming into the office and those who, who choose to not so more on that in just a bit, because work is work and everybody needs to feel comfortable. And if I'm not your hype girl, who's going to be your hype girl. I want you to think about how you can create conferences, meetings, events, where everybody feels like they are on the same playing field and comfortable. So in your PDF, I want you to answer this question. How are you going to make work, work for you in this hybrid work model?
Erin (13:55):
Write it down, take some time. And if you don't have the PDF, I want you to just take out the notes section of your phone. You can use notes, you can use this great app. I love called Evernote, but take the time to really think about it. Because if your company is struggling with this hybrid work model, this could be a great opportunity for you to brainstorm ways to make work, work, to take back to your team. So take any one of these suggestions, zoom, focus hours, hoteling conferences that are accessible to everyone. Think about them and then go from there. Yes, and these ideas, because these ideas can propel you forward. And when you take them to your team, you never know what could happen. Let's get to the next part of this acronym, which is the H in the WHY and get ready for it.
Erin (14:46):
Here it comes. What does this H stand for - happens. That's right. If you are a fan of Bravo, the television network, you know, the show, watch what happens live well. Welcome to the reality show of our reality work happens. So bottom line improve it fam my leaders out there work happens whether you are sick, whether you were on vacation. I know from personal experience that we like to believe that we have to be in all of the places, all of the zoom rooms, all of the slack channels to make work happen. Now y'all, I want you to hold on to your bedroom slippers. I got some truth. Work happens, whether you are in any one of those places or not, the best way to allow work to happen is to give your employees direction and then get out of their mother truckin way. Now notice I did not change the writing of this podcast for a reason. I said, mother trucking. Here's a little story for you a week or so ago, I got a 24 hour virus, AKA, a cleanse, sorry y'all but needed to give you full disclosure. Just so you could feel where I was at. Debbie was down. Who's Debbie I'm Debbie. Okay. She was down. So I try to keep working. I told my team what happened and after one nap and a slack response to the team with Druella my keyboard, a member of my team told me, Erin, you know, you would tell us not to work today.
Erin (16:42):
I spit out my Gatorade and crackers. I did. I truly was like, she was right. I had a to do list. My boxes needed to get checked. And my team member checked me right between the eyes, right on slack, even added a cute little Giphy picture to remind me you are important, but you are not that important, Erin. Did my client emails get answered? Yes. Did our laugh breaks bring laughter, levity and positivity to teams that day? Yes they did. Did sales calls come in? Sure as heck. Yes they did. I put the machine in motion, so I don't have to be a part of the machine every single day. And here I am all hopped up on Imodium and ginger ale thinking I am the living poop. Again I'm not swearing again, TMI, I'm sorry improve it! Family. But I do not need to be a part of the machine.
Erin (17:41):
Work happens. That's the w and the H of this acronym without me. And that's what I want you to take away today leaders improve it! Family. You do not need to be on all the things or in-person for work to happen, hire the right people. And if you are somebody who inherited your team, set expectations on how you want to lead. People leave leaders, not jobs. So allow the work to happen. We do not need to hold hands in order for it to similarly, improv needs a structure or a form to make it happen. Similarly, your team needs a structure to hold themselves accountable. So how do we create a structure that allows work to happen by happenstance? You know, I've got answers for you. So here are some great ideas to allow work to happen wherever you are. One, I want you to set up a Monday morning check-in with your team.
Erin (18:58):
If you're not already doing this, do it immediately. If you were in the office and some team members are in the office, and then you've got people at home, everybody sits at their desks and zooms in from their zoom. So it shouldn't be, you've got 12 people in the office, five people at home, all 12 people in a room, all five people on zoom and a conference room zooming in. You need all of those people on the same playing field. Everybody needs to feel okay. And they don't need to feel ostracized for not being in the office. So allow everybody to go to their desks, get on zoom, start the meeting that way. Now in this meeting, depending on your size of team, I want you to think about a working document that you can have to fill out each week where each team member lists out their top three priorities from the week prior, and then next to that.
Erin (19:52):
So it's a spreadsheet, right? What was accomplished and then their top three priorities for the following week. And do they need help? So each team member, let me just kind of break this down a little bit more. Each team member shares their priorities and then the facilitator of this meeting asks if they need help. So what were your priorities last week? Were they accomplished? What are your priorities this week? And what do you need help with? You are facilitating this happening. The H of our WH by A knowing what their tests and delivery deliverables are. That's a very hard word to say, deliverables, B holding the team member accountable to themselves and to their team members. And here, everybody knows what's happening and everyone is happening. It's all happening. Work is being held accountable. Each team member is clued into what others are doing. I want you to think about this as a way to start the week.
Erin (20:56):
Every single person is allowing work to happen. No matter where they are. We know what their priorities are. We know what they've accomplished in the week prior. We know what they are accomplishing in the week ahead. It's really allowing work to happen and allowing everybody to be on that same playing field. So if everybody's in the office, awesome, you have this meeting with everybody face to face. But if you have this work in a hybrid model right now, and you've got people in the office and on zoom, everybody jump on zoom together. All right, try this out. I would say, if you have a team larger than 20 ish, people, this could be really difficult. But if your team is small, try this and make sure you have the facilitator time, each person as well. So nobody goes over and everybody gets a chance to speak.
Erin (21:44):
So, one thing I also love to do in this meeting is to celebrate the peaks or the high notes of the prior week. So have each person when they're going through their priorities share a peak from the following week. That's it hashtag peak from the following week so that they are celebrating the good. So the more that we, the team, you and your team focus on that good, the more good comes our way and the more work happens. W H so get out that PDF that we gave you for this, this series. I want you to take down this answer. How are you going to make work happen for your team or organization in the next coming months? In the upcoming months, let's break it down in the next week. How can you allow work to happen and create a process that allows everyone to feel like they are on the same playing field and hold each other accountable?
Erin (22:52):
If you'd want this idea take it, I'm sure it is not rocket science. I did not come up with this on my own. I think we received this idea from a book we read called rocket fuel, which is an amazing book, but they call this meeting the weekly 10. So we do our weekly tens. And it's such an awesome way to connect with our team, to know what's going on, to see who needs help and who's struggling, and who also is thriving and getting it all done. So it's a great way to make work happen. So ask yourself, how can you make this work happen for your team and organization? Take a moment, pause the show, write it in that PDF. Now this brings me to the Y the letter Y X Y, Z is what I'm saying of WHY the w H Y the Y and our w H Y.
Erin (23:51):
Acronym stands for y'all work happens y'all. Now y'all know I am a half Southern half Midwestern gal who recently left her life of 15 years in Chicago to move to Charleston, South Carolina, to be by the beach family and warm weather. Right? So another reason is I love this word. Y'all because I'm lazy. I love to say it on the regular it's inclusive. It means everybody, but here is the actual definition of y'all. It is a contraction and it means you all, that's it. Thank you, Webster, where I'm going with this is when we make work, work by engaging our teams and meeting them where they are either working from home and the office, or a combo or hybrid of the two. And we allow work to happen by not micromanaging. And we get out of our team's way. We hold them accountable, give them autonomy and let them go.
Erin (25:04):
We become this collective group, or let's throw in a buzzword here, a synergized group, who, even though we all have different backgrounds, preferences, and working and working styles, we are working as one, one team, one Y'all. So awesome. So we work with teams who have people back in the office and people who are working from home. A big question we get asked by clients is can we have the people in the office, in a room together during one of your workshops and the people who are working from home, just dial in. So they're going to be watching the people in the conference room in person, and they're going to be sitting on zoom, watching everything happen in person, and maybe we'll throw them in a breakout room for an activity. I wish that worked. It does not work. We offer these in-person workshops and virtual workshops.
Erin (26:13):
The experience is so experiential. You see what I did there, that we would not be working for the y'all if everybody, it did not have the same experience. So we tell clients in this scenario, two things, number one, let's have everybody in the office, on their computers, sitting at their desks and on zoom. So that the people that are working from home don't feel isolated. That's appealing to the all, or we can offer one of the workshops in person for everybody who's in the office. And then we can do another workshop over zoom for those who are working from home, that's working for the yall or the greater good. So I want you to think about that when you're planning your own meetings, your own conferences, your own team, building activities, whether it's us or somebody else, and really think about the y'all. Think about how you are making everyone feel because everyone's comfort level is a little different in 2020 and 2021.
Erin (27:24):
Right? So, one thing to think about on improve it! Side is we also have laugh breaks, and those have to occur over zoom. And these are virtual comedy for, from improv sets straight to your zoom call and team meetings. So just so you know, we break up that zoom fatigue and boring meeting monotony. So the y'all, there is everybody is on one zoom meeting, laughing and enjoying each other. There's the y'all. We couldn't do a laugh break in person. I mean, we could, but there's no way that we could do an in-person laugh break and a zoom laugh break. It just would not work. So appeal to the y'all in your organization, which means what we send in the very beginning by we, I mean, me appeal to the virtual world first, the world who may not feel comfortable the world who is a little nervous about this Delta variant, or they have a long commute, or they just like working in their pajamas and bedroom slippers, shout out to my slipper squad.
Erin (28:37):
So being in person is also a part of the y'all, but don't try, like I said, to mix that virtual in a room full of in-person, that doesn't work y'all. So if you've ever been zoomed in to a room of people, you were almost always droned out, unless you are the person leading that meeting. So think about this for you. Think about this for your organization. How are you going to make work happen for all or the y'all? Take a moment, write it in your worksheet, jot it down in your notes. The point is this acronym, the Y the W H Y is so important. Remember, at the top of the show, I had you write down your why, why you love work. So this is an exercise we do in our in-person and our virtual presentation skills workshop. It's so powerful. We start off the workshop with this because the why is so important, why you love what you do.
Erin (29:48):
What did you do the day you found out the day you got hired, and then what you love about your company? That WHY is where you should come back to every time the why you love what you do, maybe it's because you get to touch lives with laughter and levity, or you get to help people find jobs, or you get to develop young leaders, or you get to support who a company, whose admission you admire that why gets us out of bed to put on those pajama bottoms, work, slacks, bedroom, slippers, or heels, and no matter your why, the why I want you to leave with today is that work happens y'all. The ways to engage and cultivate company culture in this hybrid world are all about the why work happens y'all and I want you to start with this. Why and mind, because if you go back to the mission of your company and the mission of your why those two things should be aligned, and so work can happen anywhere, start with this why and you'll have a team who drives your mission forward and is excited to be there every time. Now, if you didn't get that PDF at the top of the show, click the link in the show notes, take a moment to complete it, keep it with you. As we continue through this hybrid work series, I want you to remember that why make work happen y'all. No matter where you are. I want you to keep this as a reminder. I want you to tape it next to your computer, put it in the front page of your notebook, but remind yourself of this why. I really, really, really want to hear from you about this episode. I want to know how you're going to make work, work for you in this hybrid model. I want to know how you're going to make it happen for your team.
Erin (32:03):
And I want to know how you're going to make it happen for all of the people who choose to either work in the office or work from home. So please let me know. I want you to let me know if it's served you, how it served you, if it didn't. I want to know that too. I'm always looking for ways to improve it. Pun intended. So you can find me on LinkedIn, Erin Diehl. The Erin Diehl. Can't even say my own name at improve it. Or you can find me on Instagram, where I do like to post a lot of fun videos and behind the scenes stories, in my stories @keepinitrealdiehl, you can tell me why you love the why method or what you didn't like. And I want you to stay tuned because we're going to have more on this hybrid work series in the weeks to come. So my amazing improve it! Family, I want you to keep failing, keep trying and keep being the best leader you can be. You are improving and the world needs that special. It that only you can bring see you next time.
Erin (33:15):
Hey friends! Thanks for tuning in to improve it. I am so happy you are along for the ride. If you enjoyed this show, head on over to iTunes to leave us a five star review and subscribe to the show. So you never miss an episode. New episodes drop every Wednesday. Now, if you're really feeling today's show and you've improved it even just a little bit, please take a screenshot and tag me @keepinitrealdiehl on Instagram and share it in your stories. I'll see you next week, but I want to leave you with this thought, what did you improve today and how will that help your future successful self sync about it? I am rooting for you and the world needs that special it that only you can bring.