How2succeed in Communicating in a Virtual/Hybrid Workplace

Christine Petersen

Christine has over 35 years of multinational company experience, working as both a Project Manager, Director, trainer, coach and consultant.

In 2002, she created VIRAK, a consultancy and training company specializing in project management and people skills. Born in Denmark, now also Swiss and living in Lugano, Switzerland, she speaks 6 languages and is able to train fluently in Danish, English, French and Italian.

Christine started to let us know about our situation back in 2020 when a total lockdown worldwide with social distancing let workforces working only remotely as an acceptable new habit. In a survey, she continued, it was found in 2021 that majority of workers felt more productive and happier, improving their mental health. So, it got clear to companies that remote work can be a role model for attracting new and retaining existing talent in their headcounts.

Here, Christine introduced us to four models of hybrid work, offering different working routines in which the days working from home or elsewhere are specified below:

• Office (1 day per week at max)
• Blended (1 day per week at max)
• Home (1-3 days per week at max)
• Nomad (4+ days at max)

Going along with these work approaches, she explained that there are advantages but also disadvantages. The key items are that remote work is cheaper and more sustainable for employers but also more attractive to employees. On the other hand, access to IT technology can sometimes be more difficult, and real-time communication is definitely not always possible. So, how can we resolve the disadvantages?

By putting a little glance on culture, behaviours and norms of organizations, teams and individuals, Christine enlightened us what can be done for keeping any disadvantages as low as possible. For instance, companies should have clarity on guidelines and norms that their staff must consider in whatever they do which needs to be regularly communicated as well. Communication is key in keeping their staff up-to-date and intrigued with the brand, products and/or services that the company offers. Individuals should care of their communication to stay connected with their peers by unlocking creativity in themselves and others to live an openminded culture in which everyone is equal and to respect everyone’s unique biorhythm in having a peak of creativity in their daily routines.

Those individual concerns can also be found as a challenge for virtual teams as Christine led over to building trust, dealing with different time-zones, motivation, distractions, missing body language, and lack of personal communication which can be all a burden to those teams. She mentioned useful steps and tools that should be taken on to improve communication which can be read as a member of PMG-G in her presentation being available on our member area (link).

One takeaway should be given here as part of her practical communication tips as Christine listed us a few success factors that are in line with leadership to be authentic, careful, compassionate, respectful, transparent, thoughtful, and able to define boundaries.

Finally, Christine finished her presentation by answering a few questions from our audience that were mainly related to virtual teams and how to handle intercultural differences. All useful recommendations that made our webinar quite outstanding.