Executive Women’s Roundtable: Leadership for the Hybrid Workplace
By Jennifer Flanery, WTS-DC
May 2022
WTS-DC's ongoing Executive Women’s Roundtable (EWR) series met virtually on May 6, 2022, to discuss the topic "Amplify Your Leadership Style for the Hybrid Workplace." The interactive workshop was co-led by Julie Nickerson and Kristin Bloomquist. Nickerson is an Industrial-Organizational Psychologist who focuses on effective culture, leadership, and teams to help people and businesses accelerate. Bloomquist is the founder of Bloom Mentoring, which provides individualized career coaching and leadership development.
This invite-only event brought together top-ranking women in the transportation industry in a facilitated forum to discuss common issues and interact with collaborative tools and frameworks that can be used with their teams to help create a better hybrid experience for employees. Prior to the workshop, participants were asked to complete a survey about return to work and their greatest challenges in the hybrid workplace. The session kicked off with a review of those survey results, with most participants indicating their hybrid plan in practice is a mix of three days per week in the office and two days per week remote.
Nickerson and Bloomquist then led the group through various hands-on exercises using MURAL, a digital workspace for visual collaboration. Participants assessed and evaluated the risks to people and the risks to work that come with the hybrid workplace, explored what a day in the life of a remote worker versus an office worker looks like, and discussed the essential leadership traits for the hybrid environment—showing empathy and compassion, ensuring there is ample opportunity for connection and collaboration, and building team trust.
The session provided ample opportunity for open discussion, information sharing, and lessons learned among all participants in both small breakout rooms and as a group.
As more businesses return to the office and transition to hybrid policies as the normal way of working, it’s important that organizations and leaders take proactive steps to design an inclusive hybrid work culture and find the right balance that meets their organizational priorities and employees’ needs.
If you are interested in learning more about the EWRs, please email Katie Kraft.
WTS-DC thanks Julie Nickerson and Kristin Bloomquist for their facilitation of the workshop!