Work From Anywhere: The Essential Guide to Becoming a World-class Hybrid Team

by Alison Hill, Darren Hill

Bring out the best in your hybrid team with this invaluable resource Work from Anywhere delivers practical strategies and actionable guidance on how to develop a high performing team and business in a remote and distributed environment. Accomplished authors, behavioural experts, and fast-growth business leaders, Alison and Darren Hill, show you how to craft business and culture strategies to bring out the best in your hybrid and remote team members by focusing on both performance and people. You'll learn how The ability to work from anywhere is no longer just a HR conversation, it is an Executive conversation. Perfect for business leaders working with hybrid teams, Work from Anywhere is also ideal for organizational development executives, cultural transition leaders, business leaders, and entrepreneurs who are responsible for ensuring that employees consistently perform at their best, regardless of location.

256 pages, Paperback

Published February 28, 2021

Reviews

[Zoë Routh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hoping for more

Though timely and thorough, and insightful with suggestions on how to build culture in hybrid environment, I was hoping for more.

[Bill Kirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found a little slow to begin with though listened at 1.25x and ended up enjoying the book

[Aaron Mikulsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Are all of these WFH or WFA books the same? All leaders who are challenged with this new reality, however, should read up on the topic vs. in-sourcing to HR or winging it. The book proclaims - working from anywhere (WFA) is no longer just an HR conversation; it’s an executive conversation. Work from Anywhere is ideal for organizational development executives, cultural transition leaders, business leaders, and entrepreneurs who are responsible for ensuring that employees consistently perform at their best, regardless of location. Making the shift to a WFA approach requires new tools and new processes. Change is possible, but it requires a change in perspective and a change in belief first. Start by asking the big questions: “What is our approach to working together?” “What is our approach towards finding success?”

Shifting your team to WFA requires a different conversation about culture. It’s a conversation about what you and your team value, and why you value it. What do you care about, and how can you care about that same thing in a different way? With clarity around performance, and a drive towards a dynamic and evolving culture, successful organizations are those that believe work can be an extraordinary experience for the individual.

Autonomy is the ability to have a choice about how the work will be done. The expression of self within the role is key. Within workplaces, this means shifting away from a process-style of management and encouraging and supporting an output-style of direction. As a leader, you provide your team with the desired result and allow them to choose how to get there. The expression of autonomy is dialed up in a WFA approach. Everything can truly come to life when the groundwork of clarity around performance is expressed (you’re clear on what is of value) and this is connected to a culture that aligns (through the continual expression of values), allowing autonomy and personal growth to be developed (becoming valuable in the role). Performance, culture, and autonomy are equally important.

Research has uncovered three areas that individuals and leaders need to shift. As a leader, you need to:
Change the way your team thinks (psychology);
Change the way your team connects (methodology);
Change the way your team works (technology).
And you need to do this across two focus areas: performance and people.

When it comes to a WFA or hybrid workforce, there are four big battles, the book discusses, that you and your team will need to overcome:
• Collaboration (lack of);
• Stagnation (as opposed to ideation);
• Disconnection;
• Miscommunication.