Your Hybrid Working Environment

Hi there and welcome. It’s Kerstin Jatho here from 4Seeds Consulting, a transformational coach who shifts people from languishing to flourishing. In this video, I want to talk to you about your hybrid working environment.

I recently had a coaching session with a line manager who told me that her energy and her motivation started slumping as the week went along. She somehow felt guilty about it, and knew that she wasn’t perhaps performing at the level that she would or could. We eventually came up with a metaphor of eating spaghetti bolognaise five times a week, every day, same time, with the same people at the same place. That’s what’s happened with the hybrid working place. We have no deviation. Every day feels the same. We get up, we dress up, we have meetings, we answer emails, we end the day, and it’s a repeat, recycle the next day.

So somehow, we go into a slump. And you can’t eat spaghetti bolognaise five times a week. So, what do we do? How can we change that? What we did with her was the following steps. We started changing her work location so that she didn’t spend the whole day just working in the office. She would move around during the day to different locations in her house, because that just created a different energy and different feeling for her. That was one of the key things.

We broke up her days into when she answers emails, when she has downtime to work, and when she actually has meetings. So, we brought in a clear structure for her. We also looked at when can you really meet with people in person? It’s super comfortable and super easy to meet with people always digitally. But is that always the best option? So, we made sure that she at least meets with one person in contact or in-person a week, which created a totally different vibe and energy for her.

We forced her to take lunch breaks and regular breaks. And we also made her just randomly phone people without scheduling an appointment or having them in her calendar, just checking in how somebody is doing. “You’ve popped into my mind. I just want to talk to you,” or “You know, what do you have? Five minutes? I have an idea. Can I just bounce it off you?” Most people were so happy to have these unscheduled calls versus just doing everything according to the diary.

Mixing these things up for her helped her to get out of this slump, that every day feels the same. So now she doesn’t eat spaghetti bolognaise five times a week anymore. She has a variety, and that has just made such a difference for her.

So, I’d like to invite you to think about how you can create variety in your hybrid working place. How can you spice it up a bit differently, choose different locations, do things differently? And how often can you meet people and contact people.

So, create that new place so that you have a new experience, and so that Monday to Friday doesn’t feel like one long day.

Over to you for sharing your comments and experiences.

So, what do we do? How can we change that?