How to Create an Effective Work Environment with Hybrid Teams

Even before the coronavirus outbreak, remote work was growing in popularity. But now that millions of people are working from home, the future of work is bound to change.

Before the pandemic, 51 percent of workers in the U.S. information technology sector could work from home. Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon have all implemented remote working policies for most of their employees around the world to prevent the spread of the virus.

The pandemic can be the catalyst for the implementation of new and improved workplace structures, such as hybrid teams made of office and remote employees. Like all business processes, new initiatives can create new opportunities and improve collaboration, but they have to be prepared for them first.

Management has to understand that productivity has to be measured by actively setting and monitoring goals for individuals and teams as a whole, no matter where they are located. And employees need reliable and accessible tools for effective communication.

Office restrictions

As a provider of dedicated teams specializing in machine and deep learning, computer vision, and 3D graphics technology, we hand-pick teams of our specialists to work on our clients’ projects. We employ software developers and engineers who are highly skilled in narrow technical fields to meet the needs of our clients best.

While some projects can be handled with our existing talent pool, others require input from other experts. If we focus on hiring specialized engineers to work only in our offices, then when there’s no available talent, some projects will have to be put on hold. An unhappy outcome for all involved.

With offices in Kharkiv and Wroclaw, known for their strong technical heritage and IT talent, we have access to more hiring options. But sometimes, even that is not enough. By looking beyond saturated IT hubs, we can find talented professionals that would make a perfect addition to our team by working remotely.

Integrating talent

We designed our HR processes to integrate new talent into our teams thoroughly, regardless of where they are located. We aim to make our employees feel connected and supported as if they were physically present in the office.

We require all of our specialists to spend time in the office working alongside their team at regular intervals. Every three months, we organize regular corporate events to encourage team members to collaborate, bond, and socialize.

We rely on Workplace by Facebook to connect our teams to our goals and each other. The service helps us maintain a healthy and social workplace environment, where everyone is heard. We will explore how Workplace enables us to build our organizational culture in a future article, so stay tuned.

These efforts result in well-bonded and highly-qualified hybrid teams ready to take on complex challenges. Our clients can start work on their projects with better talent, faster. Our employees, on the other hand, have access to exciting work from a place where they feel the most comfortable.

We are invested in the lives of our employees and want to see them succeed. That’s why any of our specialists can choose to relocate between our offices. We believe that only when employees are happy can they produce outstanding work.

This is the reason why we do not rely on contractors. It is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve the same level of teamwork and trust with temporary workers.

What’s next?

In the coming years, we plan to open several satellite offices that would form a network of workspaces for our specialists. Each office would have a tightly-knit team ready to take on the most challenging client projects with ease.