Post Pandemic, a lot of us are going back into the office in a serious way, and there is a lot of push to get everyone back full time in person. But as we know, with a few exceptions this does not give the productivity boost a traditional manager would like. We have moved on from this. Everyone back in the office is just as extreme as everyone remote. It doesn’t work perfectly in all situations. A nice compromise to this has been the growth of hybrid working. And most well thought out hybrid systems work nicely. hybrid working balances letting people work at home and save travel time, and get on with work versus team communication and everyone feeling part of one deliverable.
How many days works best depends on your team, but common consensus seems to be two days a week. It’s the best long term and hits a nice balance. but that brings a question which two days?, which ones are best and which ones are valid?
Monday.
This is one of my favourite hybrid dates. I like going in to the office on a Monday. I feel it kickstarts the week. It stops you from slow starting. It actually makes you feel more involved and set your goals, however, Monday is also status update frenzy. You will not get much done on a given Monday because the first half of the day will merely be everybody chasing around to find out what everybody else is doing. It’ll be everything from setting up spreadsheets to building PowerPoint slides for senior managers, to organising sprint meetings etc, etc. You don’t actually do that much solid work. So you’ve only really got half a day. if you’re talking about teams working together, unless your teams are all benefiting from working out their sprint and their plan for the week, first thing Monday is not a good hybrid working on site day.
Tuesday
Tuesday to me is the best hybrid day. Everyone’s got a grip on what they want to do for the week or for the sprint. And now people are banging into blockers and they want to know why!. They want to discuss why, they want to liaise, fight with each other, squabble over resources, deal with technical issues. This is the day to have people in the same office, yelling at each other, getting into meetings, and resolving things with a five minute chat rather than 10 emails. You will get a hell of a lot done on a Tuesday.
Wednesday
Midweek Wednesday is a split day in my personal opinion. Wednesday is an excellent hybrid working day for senior managers because they want to see the results of the Tuesday and they want to know answers, they want to demand questions or override decisions. So for senior managers and P.M.’s Wednesday’s is an excellent onsite working day. For Tech’s / B.A. and the like It’s not, they have had Monday which was part wasted in status calls, and Tuesday in the office justifying them and getting the details sorted out. Now they just want to get on with the work so they can deliver.
Thursday
I think everybody is a solid worker on Thursday. They should be left to work this day. PM’S know exactly what they’re doing. Tech’s have already had their full first day of working on Wednesday and should really be making progress. So Thursday is a pure working day. If you pull people into the office it tends to be a quiet heads down affair which begs the question, why waste the time pulling them in?
Friday
Friday is the worst on site working day. Unless you are in a sales orientated business or you have weekend work, People are resentful about being pulled in to an office on this day. They are not going to give you their best. I have found that working with teams it is best to merely break a Friday up into two sets of deliverables. See how much actual work you can get done by about 2pm. then between 3pm and 5pm get whatever status updates need sorting done, ready to be sent out to the senior managers, don’t pull people in for this day. However there is one exception… Deep sigh… use it as a consequence, if the team is consistently not delivering, then they come in on a Friday to try and fix it, you will be amazed at the motivation this provides for both junior and senior members
Conclusion
To summarise if I was making the decisions and pulling in on reflection, I would have Tuesday as the definite hybrid working day for all and then additionally Wednesday for PM’s and managers, with Friday as a little used option if the team is having consistent issues hitting goals.