Why Hybrid Still Isn’t Working: Rethinking the Office with Ranya Nehmeh

Leaders everywhere are asking the same question. Why isn't hybrid working the way we promised our teams it would? Instead of giving people the best of both worlds, we've accidentally created a workplace model that leaves people feeling disconnected, confused, and wondering why the office even exists. And that's what we're talking about today on Experience Leadership.

Welcome to Experience Leadership, A podcast that challenges small business owners and entrepreneurs just like you to dare to be the exception. Join our host, customer experience expert Marc Haine, as he uncovers relevant and timely content to help you script and direct your business and teams to create jaw-dropping experiences your customers and staff deserve. Here is the host of Experience Leadership, author of Lights! Camera! Action!, customer experience expert Marc Haine.

Welcome to this episode of Experience Leadership, the small business podcast. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. It's great to have you here because my guest today is Rania Naimi. And today, we are talking about why hybrid work is still not working. And how redefining the purpose of the office can actually rebuild connection, collaboration, and culture in a way that actually serves our people. My one ask is if you know somebody who could use this information, please make sure you share a link to this episode to them. That way, they get to learn and fight this insidious battle that we've kind of worked our way into. And if you haven't done so yet, please make sure you subscribe to this podcast. It's free. It won't cost you a dime and it'll feed my ego just enough to keep me producing more episodes. Plus, if I can get above 2,000 subscribers, I'd be tickled. So, you know, when hybrid work exploded onto the scene, most leaders treated it like, well, assembling the fake IKEA furniture. You know the ones out there? There's no instructions, lots of improvising, and somehow we end up with 3 leftover screws and a really wobbly chair. Now, we're left trying to figure out why engagement is slipping, collaboration feels forced, and people seem allergic to returning to the office, even though the office used to be where culture lived. And that brings me to our Question of the Day. Is your hybrid model helping your team, or is it quietly costing you trust, creativity, and performance? If that question hits a little too close to home, then you know you're in the right place. I'd love for you to drop your thoughts, your questions in the comments here. And even if you want to become part of this conversation, feel free to share this episode on your favorite social media platform. Hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership and be part of this conversation. As I mentioned, my guest today is Rania Naimi, a Senior HR Strategist, Author, Speaker, and Adjunct Professor who has spent her career inside some of the most complex workplaces on the planet, including the OPIC Fund for International Development and the European Central Bank. She's an expert in people strategy, leadership development, hybrid work, and all the messy kind of human moments that make organizations tick. She's published with the Harvard Business Review, co-authored with Wharton's Peter Capelli, and her newest book, In Praise of the Office, is shaking up the way business leaders think about connection, collaboration, and culture in this hybrid era. Rania, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you.

Thank you so much, Marc, and thanks for that wonderful introduction. It's a great pleasure to be here.

It's great to have you because I, as I mentioned just prior to us going, hitting the live button, I've been a big proponent of, you know, giving people work-life integration as opposed to work-life balance. And so, people working from home, I think, was a real coup for a number of reasons. But now we're seeing that we don't have the tools, I don't think, as leaders to deal with what it takes to lead hybrid workforces in a way that's productive. And then of course, when we do bring people back to the office, we're just going back to status quo. Is that a fair assessment?

I think it is a very fair assessment of what you said, Marc. Also bearing in mind, I think one of the biggest issues is that when we went remote, we had no idea that it was going to last as long as it did, right? So a lot of companies, They said, well, we all thought initially, maybe for a few weeks, maybe for a few months, and nobody was clear. As we know, you know, the mandates kept pushing further and further. It was like, you will come back in the summer, but then it was, you'll come back in the winter the next year. And because of that, it was, now it's been 5 years. And in those 5 years now, we really see, A, the difficulty in getting people back to the office because obviously they've been doing this now for 5 years. And, you know, a lot of employees think that it's working well, and I think employers have not been clear as to the reason why they have to come back to the office. A lot of the mandates really feel like it's a compliance exercise. It's not about coming into the office to connect, and that should be one of the main goals, is connection, is that purposeful environment when you share, you know, experiences together, and I think that is what we're lacking right now. And we only saw that later. We didn't see that initially, like the first year of the pandemic, because a lot of things that you don't really measure, like the social interactions, the informal networking you do, you know, you don't find this on productivity dashboards, but they only showed later, like a few years later down the line, we see now where there are these red flags.

And it's interesting because the evolution of it all, was we're in crisis. We have to make a decision. We gotta figure out how to keep our businesses going. So we didn't really care about all that because it was, how do we just get a normal day out of it, right? And so now it's clear, like, I mean, we hear all over, like all over North America, you know, we have governments saying that they're gonna start forcing people back to work. Businesses are saying, we wanna see our people. We want people to come back to work. Of course, you got the employees going, I have to commute for 2 hours. I have to pay for endless parking, which is so expensive. And for what? What good is it? So why now, after 5 years, why is hybrid work still not working?

I think what we're seeing right now is hybrid is not working because there's a lot of issues that we're only noticing now about why it's not working. And the first one is when it comes to new employees. New employees have a very hard time to really integrate in a culture when they do not see people, when they're not guided accordingly, you know, when they're not in the office. So I think for newcomers and early young professionals, they need this advice, this guidance that you get from your older colleagues or from mentors, and it's really difficult to get that in a hybrid setup. So, what we see is that those new employees, they suffer the most, and especially when you consider that, you know, average turnover is like every 3, 4 years, then it's like the people that knew things maybe before the pandemic are not there anymore. So, you're getting— keep getting constantly new people in the workforce.

Mm-hmm.

And they— it's taken them a very long time to integrate or to really even get into the field, the organizational culture. So, that's really one thing that we have seen. But then also, in terms of collaboration, you know, these informal spontaneous gatherings that you have in the hallway, the chats, the quick, let me pick your brain for something, you know, those moments that we underestimated, you know.

Yes.

We really underestimated them because, you know, they lead to things sometimes. They help you resolve problems quickly. They might lead to quick brainstorming. They are the fabric of the relationships of people that are in organizations. And when you don't have that, you cannot replicate that on Zoom.

And it's funny because people have tried, right? Really, these constructive collisions, they've tried to put people in breakout rooms and just, you know, hang out together. And it's like, it just doesn't work. It's not the same thing.

I mean, don't get me wrong, Marc, you know, of course, it's great to have these tools. So, we're not, we're not in any way saying that they're not. I mean, they, of course, I mean, this is where the world is moving and we all use these tools. I mean, like us now, you know, but, you know, sometimes those, those moments that you have before the call when you are in the room together before the, before the hybrid, you know, before the camera's on, these moments or after the call, those quick catch-ups, this is what we cannot replicate. Yes, we can all get on meetings, we can have content-related meetings, but these relationships that you form are very difficult to do, you know, in this hybrid setup.

Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, one thing I saw very quickly through remote working through COVID was all of a sudden the fact that we got to beam into people's kitchens and people's living rooms and people's offices, we all of a sudden recognized that the people we have working for us are human beings with other things going on in their lives. All of a sudden we saw pets and we saw children.

Yeah.

And it created a different awareness for leaders to know that this is not just You know, oh, Donna is more than just the clerk at the table. She's got this whole other thing.

Totally.

Which I thought was really great. Like, I was really tickled when I could talk to leaders about, you know, the fact that now we can recognize that people are human beings. So, that was like, I think, a good outcome for leadership. But right now, this distance that we've created, what do you think organizations are misunderstanding about this flexibility that we were forced into?

Well, I think the biggest mistake we've done is assume that you can take an organization that was fully in person and make that hybrid and that it would work just like that. That's not how things work, because to have a good hybrid setup, you need to create a lot of intentionality. It has to be done with intention. You know, you have to bring people together for a certain reason. You have to plan that. You have to plan when should everybody be in the office. It should not be for all of us to sit on Zoom calls alone in the office. It should be for us to get together, to connect, for innovation, for mentoring, for all of these things that you don't do from home. So I don't think that you can really assume all the practices that you had before, but just make them go hybrid and think that they will function. We have to adapt to the hybrid environment. And by the way, I am a big fan of hybrid. I'm not saying I'm not, you know?

Mm-hmm.

But it has to be done with intention. And if it's not, then you will feel a lot of inequity with how people are treated. Managers aren't trained maybe for hybrid setups. So those are some, a lot of the issues that we see. You know, most of the managers have not received training on how to manage hybrid teams. Simple as that.

Well, and it would be simple to say that even their managers and the organization as a whole hasn't been trained on how to manage hybrid teams. Because to your point, if we have to do, you know, it used to be when everybody was in the office, you would have like an away date. Where it's like, hey, let's take the team out. We'll go out for lunch and then we'll go and do an escape room and we'll go, right? And you have an away day, but now people are starting to think, oh, if I have to have an in-office day and they don't have the skills or the program or the strategy to be able to bring people together productively.

Yeah, absolutely. And again, it's not just about telling, it's not about mandating people, you have to come into the office. I think this is the wrong approach and I think that's why there's a lot of employee resistance. You need to really explain the why. Why do you want me to drive, as you said, 2 hours to come into the office to sit on a Zoom meeting alone? Why? You know, so, and that's what I mean by intentionality. It really needs to be planned. You have to come into the office Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, because we will have our team, let's say, events. Then we will have— you'll have mentoring sessions. Then you will have— we'll have a group launch, whatever, you know, just come up with things, project kickoffs. innovation sprints, things that really are more difficult or more challenging to do in a hybrid setup. So, if you bring people into the office for these reasons, it makes more sense.

Yes. I do get a sense that when I talk to leaders around this idea of remote and hybrid workplaces, that there's a ton of blind spots that leaders have developed around engagement in a hybrid world. Like, they are fighting, it seems like they're fighting this uphill battle Thinking that they're doing the best that they can, and then the rationale to come back to the office is just born out of frustration.

I think one of the biggest issues is that organizations have allowed local managers, like their own managers, to decide about their own teams, who's coming in and who's not. And what we see here is that no manager wants to be the bad guy. So they, you know, if you have, let's say, a team retreat on a Wednesday, and then your employee goes, Oh, but I have to, you know, do something on Tuesday, which is really important. I have to bring, I don't know, my mother somewhere or something. So, can I come? I will instead come into office on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. Nobody's gonna say, no, we have our team meeting on Wednesday, so please come in on Wednesday, because that would just seem inhuman, right?

Mm-hmm.

So, I mean, in that sense, it's like we, the managers also, I think they're in a tough spot because, you know, they also have to bring people together, and I think that Their managers, as you pointed out, probably also have not done that well. So I think they're all kind of fighting the same battle.

So are there any signs, you know, because I mean, we're seeing the job rotations happening very quickly. Retention is down. People are getting frustrated. They're even getting burnt out at home. Are there any signs that culture erosion as a whole is becoming kind of this full-blown out of control? What are the signs of culture erosion? now in kind of this hybrid remote working environment?

I mean, that's a, that's a great question because in our book, also In Praise of the Office, what we mentioned is that we see right now is kind of the emergence of 2 cultures in an organization, which is the pre-pandemic and the post. And what we mean by that is that the one that was shaped before the pandemic are people who've been there for a while, who knew how it was to be in person. And who knew how things were done that way. And then, what we see, they behave differently than the ones who maybe joined during when we were already in hybrid, and they work also in a different way. So, we see a little bit the emergence of these two cultures. And I think this also, when we talk about cultural erosion, we really are talking about we have the highest rates of burnout right now and mental health issues as well. And that's also because managers have a hard time to spot when somebody's having a hard time.

Yeah.

when it's on the screen, you know? If you see somebody walking past your office, you know, slumped shoulders, not feeling well, you can easily say, hey, what's happening? And then that will start a conversation, and then you'll understand what the issues are. At home, it's very difficult to do that, and that's why we see a lot of these issues emerge. But also, in our research, it showed that one of the biggest challenges in hybrid is loneliness, right?

Mm-hmm.

So, is that people are, you know, feeling very lonely. Because for those maybe who don't have families at home or something, you know, they are in and out by themselves the whole day. And they really do feel this loneliness. And this, of course, affects, of course, the culture as well. So we see cultural erosion and things like burnout and lack of engagement in the loneliness, and just generally in not being together and doing things together. And of course, when you don't do that, then you don't feel this collective, this collective, you know, organizational culture spirit.

Like you're a part of something.

Yeah, you really I really don't feel that.

It really does seem to me that we not only need to have, as leaders, we need to have new skill sets, but we also have to have a different mindset. When we come back, I'd like to delve into how we need to rethink what our on-premise presence looks like and what we need to do to compensate for some of these issues that we've been pointing out. We'll get to that right after this. When the spotlight shines on your business, are customers applauding or yawning? In other words, how is your business performing? Make your business a star with a new book Welcome back! I am here speaking with Rania Naimi. Rania, why don't you tell us a little bit about your book? You hinted towards it a little bit. Let's get a a deeper insight into what your book is all about? Sure.

So, the book is called In Praise of the Office. It's co-authored with Professor Peter Capelli from Wharton, and it really talks about the challenges that we are facing right now with hybrid work and some of the ways that we can fix these challenges. And as I mentioned, you know, it was really born, the book was born kind of out of this need to understand the other side of why remote work is not working well, because right now we see the debate has become very one-sided, you know, remote good, coming into the office bad. And we have both, especially me, 'cause I was working previously in different larger companies, and I saw that there are some of those issues that we discuss in the book. And that's why we really wanted to get to the bottom of this and to kind of contribute to the future of work.

Lovely. And so the book is available now, right? It's available on Amazon. We'll put the link in the show notes. Can we redefine— we mentioned what the workplace used to be for. Do we have a new definition of what the modern office should be all about?

Well, I think a lot of organizations right now are trying to make it all about collaboration. So they're using a lot of their, let's say, open areas to create collaborative hubs. So we see that in many different companies. And I think that's a great idea because, again, it reinforces the importance That we should be getting together for something, you know, for a purpose, to work on a project, to focus on innovation, again, maybe for mentoring, for collaborative activities. So I think the collaboration is vital for that.

And would you say then also development, like personal development? We used to have meetings where we would take, you know, once a month we would have, you know, a half day where bring in a subject matter expert to teach us something new about, you know, so it helps our salespeople, it helps our HR people, and so on. Right? And so people could use that for that. What mindset shift do leaders need to have now in order to start compensating in a more productive manner with hybrid workplaces?

Well, I think the mindset is really about the importance of output and outcomes and not presence. I mean, I think this is something that we have already been doing in the last years, but, you know, I give you one example. Like, one of the big challenges that we see is when it comes to promotions and career development in hybrid settings. And that is simply because sometimes when you are out of sight, you're out of mind. And if managers are not trained for that, they will perhaps only think about people who they have seen in the last, let's say, quarter or in the last 6 months more than the ones who are working from home. And when it comes to then promotion or career development opportunities, they're the ones who will, who will be rewarded with these. Unlike the ones who were working from home, which is not to say that they're not working as hard or as efficient, but that is one of the mindsets that we need to change. It's not just about, you know, where you are working, but it's really about what you're working on. How can I measure it and how productive you are?

It's funny because before COVID when we talked about evaluating the skill sets of our team, we had the recency effect and we had the bias effect and so on. And now we've just added one more variable into it by having people—

Now we have proximity bias.

Now we have proximity bias, right? And it's so true. It's because we heard this early on that the people who showed up, even the people who when showing up on Zoom, we're going to get together. We're going to do an hour where we're just going to connect. We'll put our heads down. We'll just work. We'll just do it. And people found very little value in that after a while. It's like, why? If it's optional, why do I even bother? But then the people who showed up then would be the people who would be front and center in the manager's eyes. And because of that, that bias would kick in.

Absolutely. And also what we see is the wrong people get promoted because, you know, when you are working in a hybrid setup, just because you may be an excellent individual contributor, and that does not make you necessarily a good manager. These are 2 different skill sets, right? And so a lot of times you don't see or you cannot measure that. So, you know, if you're an excellent individual contributor, you will get promoted, and then, because the manager cannot really see how you act with other people, right? So, we also saw a lot of these issues that the wrong people are then put in those jobs, managerial jobs.

So, what skills, what messaging, what can leaders do to earn people's presence rather than mandating it? You've talked about creating kind of intentionality around bringing people together. But how do we move people so that when we do something, when we have a strategy to bring people together, your employees aren't just rolling their eyes and going, oh, gosh, here we go again?

Yeah.

Well, I think that honestly, the most important is connection and communication, in my opinion, because, again, this is something that managers really need to foster a lot of, especially in hybrid environments. You cannot tell people, do this. You need to explain. Why are you doing this? How is this going to help you? How does it help you? How does it help the business? So, I think we really need to— that's, I think, number one. It's in hybrid setups, managers have even a harder role to manage, actually, because they really— because they don't see the people all the time. So, they have to kind of explain to them very well and manage regularly with touchpoints all the time. To make sure that, you know, everybody is doing what is required and that everybody understands the expectations. So, I really think connection and communication. We also mentioned, by the way, in our book, we have this framework where we talk about how to get people to come into the office without mandating them. So, to bring them to the office more to connect than to comply in a way. And it's about, you know, building the case for inclusion is to kind of shift the narrative from you have to come into the office to come into the office because it will help you develop your career, your growth, your professional development. So, you know, to change the narrative about why people need to come to the office.

It's almost like you have to create coming to the office as an event. You have to start thinking about what, if we're going to bring people in, what value can we give them? How can we create, like in the event world, we talk about FOMO. Right? The fear of missing out. How do we create FOMO for the people who might turn around and say, well, you know, it's really inconvenient for me to come in. It's a Wednesday. It's gonna be inconvenient for me. I, I won't be able to come in. Maybe I can come in on Thursday. And, and then being able to create a program around is that if you people show up on Wednesday, that they walk out going, oh my God, you should have been there.

Totally. And that's why, Marc, a lot of companies, they do moments that matter. You know, they have these moments that matter events because it's all about You know, how to bring people in. You have to bring them in for a cause, for something that will excite them so that they will want to come in and not feel that they're forced to come in.

I love that. Hey, can we do a quick check-in for the people who are tuned in, who are— this is really resonating with them. If they want to get in touch with you, how can they reach you?

Sure. They can reach me on LinkedIn, Rania Neme, or through my website, rania-neme.com.

Excellent. And we will put the link in the show notes. So, you mentioned telling people why. So, it's like having meetings for the sake of having meetings. That was one of the diseases we had pre-COVID. And I think even we still have meetings now just for the sake, oh, because we always meet on Mondays at 2 o'clock. When it comes down to bringing people together, we talked about kind of these meetings that matter or the rationales that matter. What role does transparency play in rebuilding this engagement to get people to feel more like they're included? And a part of something?

Well, honestly, I think meetings here are crucial, and I'm glad you mentioned that. I wanted to, which is meetings have become so inefficient, many of them, and I think there's so many of them. So what our research showed actually was that, you know, in the last years, the meetings have become more, they've become less efficient. There's more people because obviously you can keep, you know, adding people. There's no limit to the room. And most of the time people are, have their cameras off, which means that they are, as we know, multitasking and not paying attention, which is also has increased the rise for post-meeting meetings so that you can discuss the actual meeting while you were multitasking, you know. So as we see, this meeting culture is very important. And it also, this is something that I would really urge, you know, people to kind of change as soon as possible. Because what we see is that companies that do it well, like remote companies who are fully remote, they have thousands of pages of documents about how to be intentional, even with meetings. How many people should attend the meetings? What is the agenda? Who stays? Who doesn't go? Cameras on all the time, otherwise, please don't attend the meeting. So there's a lot of things that have to be done with intention. And when we talk about transparency, Marc, which you mentioned before, I think we need to be also very transparent with these meetings? Because otherwise, I feel like we're just wasting people's time and they know it, and nobody likes that. So, this is something that is very basic, and I think that changes could be done there immediately.

Well, as you were saying that, the word expectations came to mind. I think we need to have more open conversations about expectations on both sides of the desk, right? One, what is the leader's expectations as far as people's contribution and how they're going to contribute to the overall culture of the organization, but we also have to understand what our employees' expectations are of us as well.

For sure, for sure. It's two-way, and what we see is if it's not two-way, then employees these days are quite quick in moving. I mean, when they're not happy, it's not like, you know, maybe 10, 15 years ago where, you know, people typically stayed in jobs for much longer. Now, I mean, there are opportunities, and people don't hesitate to look for other jobs. I mean, at least, you know, if they're not happy or if they feel like they're not being heard When we come back, I'd like to talk about some pitfalls and cautionaries.

As people tune into this and realize that they have to make a change, I'd really, as opposed to compounding the issues, I think we should talk about what some pitfalls and cautionaries should look like when we try to redefine our cultures. And we'll get to that right after this.

Attention meeting and event planners. Is your company or association planning a live or virtual conference, seminar, or staff retreat? Are you looking for a fresh, energetic perspective on what it takes to put on a jaw-dropping experience for your customers or staff? Book customer experience expert Marc Haine for your next group event. Past participants have said, Marc kept us in stitches while teaching Showing us how important and powerful actually designing our customer experience can be. Read more testimonials and find out how Marc can serve you and your group at marchaine.com. That's M-A-R-C-H-A-I-N-E.com.

Welcome back! As you can tell, Rania and I have a passion for helping entrepreneurs and business managers just like you. If you belong to an industry association or an organization, you're planning a conference or leadership retreat and feel that we could be of service, feel free to drop us a line or even do a connection request. Our details are in the show notes down below. Rania, when it comes to all these changes, what does great leadership look like when the team is not always physically together? Can we define that so we have a little checklist of what we need to test against? Mm-hmm.

Well, I think first of all, we need to have, we need to really set clear and actionable steps in terms of the most basic things. Like, as we said, meetings. We need to make sure that they are going well, that they can also be done some, not everything requires a meeting. Some things are also can be done, you know, async, asynchronous. Not everything has to be done, you know, to jump on a video call every now and then. So, I think you need to define exactly what is expected from the employee, when they are expected to be available. You know, their schedules. So, this is at the very basic of the logistics, but this needs to be sorted. And I think then from there, there are also things like KPIs. Are they clearly defined for each employee? Because what we saw is one of the big pitfalls of remote work is that a lot of people were focused just on their key performance indicators, on what they had to do, and they no longer helped people. So, for example, you know, when you—

Mm-hmm.

When somebody walks into your office and they go, Hey, can I just have 1 minute? Can you help me with that? And you would say, sure, sure. You know, you wouldn't even think about it. But when you're working remotely, that doesn't happen. You know, people ping you, and if you do not know the person, typically you'd be like, please set up a meeting, you know, for that. And this could take days or weeks until you resolve something. And typically what we saw is that people who responded quickly is because they already had an existing relationship with that person and they knew them, right? So, this is very important also to define things like, You know, you have to respond to people's requests. That also helps with the culture to make it not so individual, but more collective. That could be a key KPI as well. You know, not just your own things, you know, when you have to help to mentor people, you have to respond to requests, you know, things like that should be added in there as well. And then, of course, well, for managers, it's, as we said, things like to pay attention to making sure that everyone is treated equally and inclusive, with a lot of inclusivity, because When it comes to promotions and career development, all people have to be given an opportunity, not just the ones who you see every day, but also the ones, of course, who are working from home.

It's interesting because as you were saying that, I was thinking, you know, the propensity for people pinging you because they need help. Nobody wants to feel like a burden. So how many people are actually holding themselves back from even doing that? And because of that, they're trying to figure stuff out on their own. It lowers their productivity. Their frustration level goes through the roof because I don't want to bother anybody.

Or they don't know who to bother. Like, that's why we were saying the beginning, like the new, new, like young professionals or new employees, typically they don't know who to ask, right? So, they really suffer the most in these environments because their work gets very delayed. They don't integrate easily. They don't have anybody who they can quickly ask. When you're in the organization for many years, It's no problem. You can work usually from home with no problem because you know exactly how things are, how things work. But if you are new, it's a very different experience.

So, how can leaders kind of balance this autonomy to give people the freedom to be able to do what they need to do when they need to do it and connection? Like, how do they start balancing this?

Well, I think they balance it by really, again, they need to set practices in place to make everyone feel that they are part of the same team. And this again goes with enforcing those rules and to create moments that matter and really to make sure that they have these individual check-ins with everyone so that, you know, if there's any issues, you can resolve them from the beginning before they become more serious.

Right.

And again, on this show, we've talked multiple times now that I think that we, the leader employee relationship now has changed. That the leaders have to become more coaches. They have to become more aware. It's like a coach on the sideline being able to figure out which player is suffering, which player is not performing at their highest thing, and be able to then become the coach to pull them aside to figure that out. As opposed to our like industrial age leadership mantra of carrot and sticking people.

Absolutely. And that's one of the most important things I think qualities now is really Is this— is coaching, is providing guidance. You know, you really need that for these setups.

Yeah. So for people who are tuning in and saying, yes, I know I have work to do. I know I have to initiate a change. What cautionaries should we be aware of as we try to initiate kind of a more open, connected, inclusive hybrid workforce?

Well, I think the first thing for leaders to recognize is that there is no one-size-fits-all. And what might work in one organization would not work with you. So, you should really base whatever decision you're going to do on your own culture, your own people, the size of your organization, the industry that you're in. You know, you can't, you cannot mandate things just because everybody's doing it. So, I think you really need to figure out what is good for you before you communicate that to the employees.

This has been a fascinating conversation. As we wrap up, Do you have any last thoughts about what we've talked about today? I mean, we've talked about so much in the guise of not only leadership and managerial skill set building, but an awareness of intentionality in our corporate culture. Have we missed anything?

I think we've discussed most of the challenges, or all the challenges actually, to hybrid work. And hopefully, it provided also some actionable insights on how to fix them.

Terrific. This has been fantastic, Rania. Could you remind everybody one more Sure.

You can either connect with me on LinkedIn or you can just go to my website, www.ranianamed.com.

Terrific. Rania, thank you so much. I appreciate you sharing this with us and tipping us into a new awareness because again, you know, we're— this is an evolutionary process I think we're all on. And this has been absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Thanks, Marc.

Why don't you let me know if this was of value to you? As always, my offer stands. If you'd like 30 minutes of my time to brainstorm storm your business with you and your team, feel free to book yourself on my online calendar. The link is in the show notes. It would be an honor to be of service. And of course, if you need help with this idea of redefining your work culture in a hybrid world, feel free to reach out to Rania. Her contact information is also in the show notes. And while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and leave a review about this episode? I'd love to get your feedback. Was this of value to you? Thank you for joining That's it for today. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception. Bye for now.

Thank you for joining us this week on Experience Leadership. Make sure you visit marchaine.com for a full directory of available episodes. While you're at it, if you found If you found today's content invaluable, please share it and tell your friends about the show. As Marc says, knowledge is power, but only if you share it. Be sure to tune in each week for the newest episode. Please stay safe, stay healthy, and dare to be the exception.