Adjusting to a Hybrid Work Environment with Beth Sunshine

Episode 24: While many may have been forced to adapt to remote and hybrid work a couple of years ago, it’s clearer now than ever that digital workplaces are here to stay. In this episode, we are talking about the hybrid work environment and how so many companies are continuing to adjust to workspaces in the digital sphere.  

Joining Dani, is Beth Sunshine. Beth is the SVP/Partner at Up Your Culture, an Employee Engagement and Company Culture Firm. There, she helps clients reduce regrettable turnover, increase productivity and retain key customers all through engaging their employees. 

Together, Dani and Beth discuss the continued adjustment to hybrid work in a few key areas: 

• The current trends emerging from continued hybrid/remote work 
• Pro’s and Con’s of hybrid work for leadership to be aware of 
• How to accommodate different roles and personalities in a hybrid model 

CONNECT:

LeadG2: LeadG2: leadg2.thecenterforsalesstrategy.com/
 
Dani Buckley:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/daniobuckley/
About: leadg2.thecenterforsalesstrategy.com/dani-buckley
 
Shaye Smith:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/shayesmith/
About: leadg2.thecenterforsalesstrategy.com/shaye-smith

Beth Sunshine:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bethsunshine/
About: thecenterforsalesstrategy.com/beth-sunshine

TIMESTAMPS:
(02:37) Hybrid is here to stay
(04:27) The Pros of Hybrid
(08:47) The Cons of Hybrid
(11:40) Mind-blowing new finding
(15:31) Employee Engagement = Your Company Campfire
(17:20) If you're not intentional, hybrid can impact your engagement
(19:08) There are a lot of disengaged employees in the workforce
(22:06) How do you ensure hybrid is a good fit for different types of employees?
(24:34) If we're going to bring sellers back to the office, there needs to be something there that they can't get [at home]
(25:22) Have a plan

Transcript

Dani Buckley: 0:15

Welcome to Sell Smarter. Sell Faster. A podcast dedicated to helping sales organizations grow. Each week, we discuss proven sales enablement strategies and real life examples with experts and thought leaders from across industries. I'm your host, Dani Buckley, Vice president and general manager at LeadG2, a sales performance agency.

Shaye Smith: 0:42

While many may have been forced to adapt to remote and hybrid work a couple of years ago, it's clearer now than ever that digital workplaces are here to stay. In this episode, we are talking about the hybrid work environment and how so many companies are continuing to adjust to workspaces and the digital sphere. Joining Dani is Beth Sunshine. Beth is the senior vice president and partner at up your culture and employee engagement and company culture firm. There she helps clients reduce regrettable turnover, increase productivity, and retain key customers, all through engaging their employees together. Dani and Beth discussed the continued adjustment to hybrid work in a few key areas. The current trends emerging from continued hybrid and remote work, pros and cons of hybrid work for leadership to be aware of and how to accommodate different roles and personalities in a hybrid model. With that, let's dive into the conversation. Dani, over to you.

Dani Buckley: 1:43

Thank you, Shaye. I am so excited to be meeting and interviewing, um, one of my colleagues and friends. Beth Sunshine, thank you for joining us today. Beth,

Beth Sunshine: 1:53

Thank you for having me. I've been really looking forward to this.

Dani Buckley: 1:56

Yeah, and this is, we're gonna go a little like a different direction than we, you know, we're always talking about sales enablement and how we can help sales people sell smarter and sell faster, and this topic absolutely does that, but it's a little bit different and I'm excited to talk about it. Um, so let's jump in. Are you ready? Ready. Okay, cool. Um, so at this topic is about the emerging, you know, hybrid model that's kind of come out of this pandemic, right? There's been huge shifts, there's a lot happening. Um, and it's a, it's been a big transition and companies are trying to figure out what's best. They really don't know. There's a lot of different research out there. Um, so I was wondering if you can kind of start us off by telling us about the trends you are seeing about working remotely, about going back to office and the hybrid models.

Beth Sunshine: 2:37

Yeah, it is, there's a lot of buzz around this for sure. I think just kind of starting bottom line, it, it really seems pretty clear to me that the remote or hybrid work model is really here to stay. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, I, I think most organizations I work with have moved to a hybrid model. I bet close to 75% of the sellers that I interact with now are hybrid and planning to stay that way. You probably noticed in general or talked to people who have said that they're, they've made personal decisions that they are not going back to the office. Yeah. A lot of sales people have really kind of dug their heels in on that one. They like the flexibility of being able to work from anywhere. They like being able to control their schedules and use their time more efficiently. There. It's really correlated with increased job satisfaction, I think, across the board. And a lot of sellers aren't willing to give that up. So puts a lot of pressure on sales organizations and I think the hybrid work model is really the best compromise there because it gives sales people the flexibility while also allowing some in-office collaboration and, you know, the things that, that people want. I think hybrid can be challenging. I'm sure we're gonna talk about that. It'll be tough to navigate, but with a really good plan, it, it definitely can work well and I, I do think this trend for hybrid is probably gonna stick around for a long while.

Dani Buckley: 3:56

Got it. Yeah. And, and so we, this was mentioned in your bio, um, but just so everyone knows, I, I really consider you an expert for sure on this. Um, you've become an expert not only for what you do at up your culture at the Center for Sales Strategy, but um, I know that you're looking at this and studying it and talking to people and, and really all in on it. So tell us what are, you know, what are some of the pros and cons that leadership should be aware of when they're, they're really evaluating the impact on sales productivity, just on their business in general when it comes to this type of hybrid model or just staying remote?

Beth Sunshine: 4:27

That's a good question. The, the pros are pretty significant. I can think of three off the top of my head. I talk about this a lot with clients, as you can tell. Um, the first pro really is that sales people can be much more productive in a hybrid work model if you simply replace their commute time, just take out the 30 minutes to and from work or however long it takes and you replace that with more productive sales activities, it makes such a huge difference. So someone who did commute 30 minutes each way, they get five hours back that they can use for sales activities. I will say, just as a caveat to that, the key to success is you really have to hire sales people who have the innate talent and the motivation to succeed in sales. Because if you hire the wrong people and they're, you know, they, they aren't right for the job. They don't have the drive, they don't have the talents, they're likely using that 60 minutes to sleep in or to play around. Hire the right people, those who have a strong work ethic, those who are driven to be the best and that 60 minutes is, is a game changer. So that would be number one. Sure. Uh, number two, I also have found that salespeople really appreciate the higher level of autonomy that they get with a more flexible work schedule. Sales is supposed to be an outside job. So if you remove the obligation to show up in the morning or show up in the office at all just to have some FaceTime before getting down to work that feels really good to them, they can can better control their schedules, they can be more entrepreneurial, you know, effectively run their own sales business. And, and I think that's, that's a huge plot. And from my perspective, this model really puts the focus on sales activity as opposed to the number of hours worked. And that's a, a really good thing I think. Yes. And then third, I'd say the biggest pro from a sales manager's perspective, it really involves talent recruitment. The thing that is keeping many of our clients up at night is difficulty recruiting. We're providing a lot of support around that. You and I were recently at a meeting where we were talking about how we can support our customers even more in the world of recruitment because it's a struggle. And the hybrid work model is a huge plus because it opens up their talent pool significantly. I live in the Dallas area recently, about a year and a half ago I moved to Prosper, which is about 35 ish miles north of downtown. I, I had a meeting downtown a few weeks ago and I'm telling you in traffic it took me like an hour and a half to get there. No matter how great I am at sales, I couldn't do that five days a week, but I could probably do that one day a week or two days a week and then be highly productive working from a home office on the other day. So the fact is, I, I think of flexible work model just opens up the world of recruitment and it makes a company more attractive to candidates. So those would be pros. You want the cons?

Dani Buckley: 7:28

Well I have a question before you get into the cons, think about something. So it just, I wanna make sure I'm understanding. It seems like if while organizations are evaluating and making this decision, it's a really good time to do like talent and people inventory. Like<laugh> make the best decision for your organization, right? Like make the like model it the best that's gonna work for your organization and then make sure you have the right people to fit that. Does that feel like a fair way to put it?

Beth Sunshine: 7:53

It's beautifully said. You know, we talk a lot about what I call the growth formula, what our company calls the growth formula, which is talent plus fit times investment equals growth Talent is just for raw potential, a human being brings to the job there. Innate strengths. Yeah. And then fit is how they're going to fit into the job, the work model, um, your management style and you've gotta get both of those rights. And then when you do, you add your investment, which is coaching, training, onboarding, everything you pour into your people and that's when you get the massive growth. So you're exactly right. This is the time to start making sure you have the right talent and people who are the right fit for the way that you need to sell today and your organization and your expectations and then all that you pour into them, it'll just have a much greater ROI for you.

Dani Buckley: 8:43

Perfect. Awesome. Okay, great. So let's hear the cons<laugh>.

Beth Sunshine: 8:47

So the cons, Well first I'll say just in general, the hybrid work model is still pretty new. Most of us are still working to figure it out. You know, over time I think we'll all get better at it. Employees, um, will continue to give feedback and voice their concerns. Leaders will continue to figure out what's best for their unique business, for their style. It's all just a big learning curve and I think, you know, we're on that curve and getting better. One of the biggest problems that I'm seeing though is the unintentional advantage that people are getting when they are physically in the office. So at most of our client companies, it seems like executives and sales leaders are back in the office full-time or if not full-time, at least they're back more days on average than their salespeople are back. And that organically seems to be creating a chasm between those who are in the office and those who aren't. Um, working with a lot of clients on this because human nature is leaders are more likely to recognize and reward the performance of those who are physically in the office with them. So that adds an additional layer of complexity that's really hard and it will take a great deal of intention to overcome creating that equality for those who are in the office versus those who aren't actually in the office on that day or at that moment. So that would be one. Um, another con, well another con is some employees prefer a traditional office environment. Some people wanna go to work every day where they have, you know, coworkers in the cubicle next to them and you know, they, they have more of a in-person relationship. We recently at up Your culture we did um, some cultural research produced our engaged 2022 report and it showed that almost one in every five employees wants that full. Wow. I know. Shocking to me<laugh>, but it's definitely out there. And what was also interesting is a large chunk of those are younger employees, they're newer to the workforce. That makes some sense. Although those without extra space for a home office, I mean those with young children at home, those who are new to the business, they're more likely to prefer I think working in the office. Yeah. From time and that more traditional environment. And so, I mean in a hybrid world it's just that much more important that we onboard people the right way, train them, coach them, it's gotta be even better than it was before because you don't have the default of just being able to pop in to someone's office and ask them or notice when someone is struggling. You've gotta really just work so much harder at that we recommend assigning new employees to a work buddy or even a more formal mentor. Oh and I just learned something that I found totally mind blowing so I'm gonna share it with you. This is the first time I've shared this. So tell me if this is interesting to you. So most people are thinking hybrid is three days, Well I shouldn't say most people. Many of the people that I talk to envision hybrid as three days in the office, two days not in the office. I don't know how standard that is. I'd have to look that up, but that just seems to be what I'm hearing a lot. Yeah. But what I learned is studies that are coming out now are showing that one to two days in the office is really the sweet spot for every work. And that once you hit three days or more, while it does seem to appear to have positive effect on productivity in actuality you've got burnout to contend with and the burnout and the disengagement, it begins to sort of eat away at that productivity boost. So I found that really interesting and that's something we're gonna keep our eyes

Dani Buckley: 12:35

On. Yeah, I do And it makes me think, I'm curious, so like is there, is there a reason why if you have employees and you're saying, Okay, we're doing this hybrid model, you need to be in the office two days a week, right? This is what we're doing and there's people who say, I wanna be here all five. Is there a reason why you wouldn't allow that or wouldn't do that? Like

Beth Sunshine: 12:54

What we're seeing, it seems as though as, as of right now, I haven't seen many of our client companies downsides. So I'm still seeing workspaces where there are an equal number of desks to sales people. So there is an environment where everyone can go into the office if they want to. So the hybrid is really more defining the days where they have to come into the office as opposed to defining the days that they can't come into the office. But with real estate so expensive and the opportunity to downsize, I wouldn't be surprised if companies don't begin sort of pairing away at that expensive office space and there may not be a desk for every employee. So then that's something that would have to be dealt with. But as of right now, I'm not really seeing that.

Dani Buckley: 13:43

I am so going rogue on questions with you. I hope it's okay cuz this is interesting and I have another question that is one that I shared with you. So, um, on that note is is that if when people are thinking of like strategizing the hybrid model, cause I go to automatically in my head that you would want people there the same days cuz like then they can connect with each other and you have meetings together or whatever. But when the real estate question becomes, you know, an a thing where it's like, okay, well there's no reason to have a seat for 10 people when we're gonna do hybrid. So I guess if there was a seat for everyone, is there, like what do I don't know, what are you seeing? What's better to like utilize the time? Like is it to have those people there the same days or not?

Beth Sunshine: 14:26

Yeah, I think that every company needs to come up with sort of how they are going to do hybrid and it, it needs to be very consistent, etched in stone, really well defined. And we can talk about all the reasons why that is, but it, it does need to be, I think really laid out there so people know what expectations there are. I think more and more we're going to see companies come up with more collaboration workspaces, so there'll be more space for groups to huddle together to do something and work. Um, maybe not the formal conference room, but maybe more, you know, conference room style spaces. But I think there'll be more and more of that because the reason people will come into the office will be the need to be with others. Whereas when they have work that doesn't need that kind of enough collaboration, they are most often finding they can do that from a home office better. Got

Dani Buckley: 15:16

It. Okay. Great. Thanks for taking my<laugh>. Um, so let's talk about employee engagement. Um, I know we've touched on this some, but how does a hybrid model impact employee engagement? And maybe start by just defining employee engagement for those listening.

Beth Sunshine: 15:31

Yeah, so we would say employee engagement is the willingness someone has to really bring their best to work. So here's a a way I like to describe engagement in general. If you picture a company campfire, so all of your employees are sitting around the campfire. Those who are engaged are the ones who are adding logs to the fire, they're stoking the fire, they're keeping that fire burning. Um, what it looks like in an, in a sales environment is those are the people who are waking up, ready to go in the morning, they're rolling up their sleeves, they're excited about what they're doing and they're bringing discretionary effort to the job. Not just doing what has to be done but doing more because they're engaged, they're connected. Yeah. So that's how I would describe engagement. And your question was how can hybrid affect that? Yeah, a lot. Uh, it can, it can impact employee engagement a whole lot if it's not done well. And that's, that's on the mind of most leaders I work with. Yeah. Because we've all come from a paradigm where company culture means we all physically get together, we have a team lunch or we, you know, we do something literally physically together, bodies in the building. And so it's a different paradigm now and leaders are concerned about how they can have a strong company culture if their people aren't all in the office together. I understand their concern, but well, let me reinforce what, what comes with that. If, if we're not all bodies in the office, you do miss out on things like water cooler talk or the impromptu hallway brainstorm or the magic of the sales pit. I mean that those are real things you do miss out on. If you don't have an intentional focus, if you're not strategically planning for how you're going to have a strong culture, you can lose your culture and, and your engagement can definitely drop. But with some planning, with a good strong focus on culture, companies can thrive with a hybrid work model. Our company is a good example of that. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, we're actually all remote, which is even more extreme than hybrid. We've been remote for decades and our engagement scores are always in the nineties. We are a great place to work and I can point to lots of examples of, you know, companies that are hybrid or remote that experience the same thing. And that's because culture is really more about how you work as opposed to where you work. Employees are gonna be engaged when they, when they feel purposeful, when they feel, you know, connected to the company, to their work. Yeah. You know, in up your culture, you've probably heard me talking about this before, but there are four engagement elevators that we use to lift engagement. That's where the term elevator came from. And those elevators work just as well. Whether, I mean you could be hybrid in office remote.

Dani Buckley: 18:31

Yeah.

Beth Sunshine: 18:33

A salesperson needs to have a clear understanding of where the company's going and why they're working so hard to get there. And they need to feel like they're being developed. They need to feel like they're growing and they need to feel valued and heard. And they need to be able to trust their leaders and feel like their company and their leaders have integrity. Those four things you can put in place in a hybrid environment, we do that all the time and yeah. And cultures will thrive. I I will say, or did you have a question? No,

Dani Buckley: 19:03

Keep going. I, I have a comment, but

Beth Sunshine: 19:05

Okay. Um, with that said, while I'm like going on and on about how you can be so engaged with hybrid, which is true, I will say, I mean just pick up, um, any, any article on engagement today and you'll find that we have more actively disengaged people in our workforce now than you can probably remember in your working lifetime. Um, and that's, you know, that's something we need to keep in mind. We talked about that employee campfire and how, you know, your engaged employees are those who are adding logs and really keeping it burning. The not engaged. Those who are not engaged are sitting around, they've got their feet kicked up, they're not doing anything to contribute to your campfire, they're not doing anything to take away from it, but they're not contributing. And then you're actively disengaged employees. They're throwing water on your company campfire, they're removing logs, they're diminishing the flight. Yeah. And according to Gallup, this totally floored me. Actively disengaged employees hit 18% in q2, 18% Wow. Are actively disengaged pouring water on the fire. And over 50% of employees are reporting that they're not engaged at work. We've all been talking about the trend of quiet quitting. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, I've recently been hearing it called Acting Your Wage. Those are, have you heard that?

Dani Buckley: 20:31

Actually I haven't. That that's actually much more clever. Um,

Beth Sunshine: 20:33

<laugh> those are employees who are not engaged. They're just, you know, hanging around the campfire, not willing to do more than the minimum required. And getting back to the hybrid conversation, remote and hybrid workers, those under the age of 35 primarily are really driving that trend and the shift to hybrid maybe playing a role in that if it's not done right, which is why it has to be so well thought out.

Dani Buckley: 20:56

Yeah. Great. This is so good. I, and I'm just noting, um, the thing I was gonna comment on was, I'm glad you mentioned the, the engagement elevators and we're gonna make sure we link to that in the show notes just cuz I think it's interesting and helpful and such an important part of this that like we even said around evaluating your team, do you have the right people for the direction you're going? I mean this kind of, do you have the right, uh, systems in place for employee engagement, right? That maybe, maybe certain things worked before when you were all in the office and you don't have that now so you can't just switch to this new model and keep things the same and, and hope that it all works out.<laugh>, I think that's like the biggest takeaway. Like there has to be a bigger shift, um, to match, to make this work and then to really reap the benefits of the hybrid model. Um, great. Okay. So this kind of, I feel like we touched on this one, but I'm still gonna ask it cuz I'm curious if you have more to say on this topic. Yeah. Um, do different roles, personalities, talents, things like that. How do we need to be treating these people differently in a hybrid model and like how do we do that? Like it, you know, what is it that we're evaluating to make sure people are the right fit for this and okay, well we're all gonna be hybrid. I don't know. Yeah. Like how do we make sure it's a fit for all the different types of people?

Beth Sunshine: 22:09

Yeah. Yeah. It's a tricky question because the answer is really both. Um, on one hand, fairness is extremely important. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And you know, that's why I always recommend having, if you are in a hybrid role, if you're in a hybrid environment and you have some people in the office and then some people joining a virtual meeting from a home office, we always recommend that you have those in the office still joined from their individual computer instead of huddling in the conference room together. Because that creates the sense for those who are not in the office, that their voice is not as valuable, that they're not being heard. So I mean, we focus a lot on creating that sense of equity and, and fairness. Now, I don't think sales people need to follow the same policy as all of the other employees in the building because their jobs are so different. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, but overall, you should have the same work model for all of your sales people. It should be well defined and consistent. But on the other hand, like I, you know, we focus a lot on, uh, managing to the individual. So, um, we talk a lot about using tools like we call a growth guide, but, but using a variety of tools to understand what each unique individual needs from you because everyone's so different. We're wired so differently. Some sellers will need a lot of attention from you. They'll need, um, more than a one day a week meeting. They need more than that and others won't need it as much. Some will thrive if they have a more personal connection with their manager talking about their family and their hobbies or their interests and, and others won't want that or benefit from that. So really the best managers are highly individualized in their style, essentially managing each person on the team completely differently so they all have the opportunity to achieve maximum success, yet creating those parameters in a work model where expectations are the same across the board.

Dani Buckley: 24:07

Got it. Makes sense. Um, I could talk about this all day, but we can thank you<laugh>. I know you can too. Um, I find it just really interesting. But, uh, let's wrap this up and, and is there anything we didn't touch on that you just wanna be sure our audience knows, especially when it comes to like the hybrid model and sales productivity?

Beth Sunshine: 24:26

Yeah, I'd say one thing I would wanna make sure to get out there is that, uh, if we're going to bring sellers back into the office, there needs to be something there that they can't get. So people don't need to commute into an office just to sit at a desk hybrid office days. They need to include things like sales meetings and skill development. They need to be the times when you sit down and meet one on one with them. You could bring in a speaker, you could bring in a client and do some brainstorming group collaboration or sharing any of the team building activities. You might do things that actually have a purpose, things that people couldn't do at home because if employees are being forced into the office to do exactly what they'd be doing at home more efficiently, that's gonna have a very negative impact on their engagement level and also ultimately their sales performance.

Dani Buckley: 25:21

Got

Beth Sunshine: 25:22

It. I'd also say, uh, you know, regular one-on-ones will be important. All of the things that we've talked about are, are important. You want to just make sure you have a plan that you're not winging it, and that you don't lose focus on what's most important, which is productivity. The focus should not be on hours worked as much as the work that's being done. And with that hybrid does not mean working more hours or less hours. It really just means working differently. Yeah. So that's something to pay attention to as well. But overall, people like structure. They, they need to be really clear on what hybrid is going to look like there. And in the absence of rules, people don't know what to do. They get frustrated and they feel like they're not meeting other people's expectations or other people aren't meeting theirs. So structure is a good thing.

Dani Buckley: 26:12

I love closing on that because I think sometimes it's like, okay, we're going hybrid. Like it's easy to feel like there's all this freedom and, and we gotta remember structure still matters and clarity expectations, all the things that always mattered, they still matter and, and if not more so.

Beth Sunshine: 26:25

I agree. Great.

Dani Buckley: 26:27

Thank you Beth. It was so good having you today.

Beth Sunshine: 26:30

Thank you for having me.

Dani Buckley: 26:32

Yeah. And we're gonna have Beth's, um, contact information, you know, social media and all that stuff and, and, and other links to things that she mentioned in our show notes. So be sure to check that out. Um, everyone, thank you for listening to this episode of Sell Smarter, Sell Faster. Until the next time, happy selling. Thanks for joining us on Sell Smarter, Sell Faster. Be sure to click that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And visit us on Sell Smarter, Sell faster.com to access tons of resources on the topics we cover on the show, or to get in touch with Shay or myself. And of course you can find us on social media, including our personal pages on LinkedIn and Twitter. We'd love to connect and hear from you.