This interactive workshop helps participants build the awareness and skills needed to work more effectively in a hybrid environment. Participants will explore common challenges that arise in hybrid teams, learn practical strategies for fostering inclusion and connection, and examine how everyday decisions and interactions impact trust, engagement, and team effectiveness.

Session Objectives:

• Recognize the benefits and common challenges associated with hybrid work environments
• Identify opportunities to strengthen communication, visibility, and inclusion for both remote and in-office employees
• Navigate hybrid work challenges and gray areas with greater clarity, ownership, and thoughtful judgment
• Use practical strategies to improve engagement, collaboration, and team effectiveness across hybrid teams
• Reduce the likelihood of employees feeling excluded, disconnected, or “out of the loop” by making decisions and communication more visible

The CIV-O Hybrid Check is a simple tool for more intentional hybrid decisions and interactions. It helps you pause and respond more intentionally in everyday hybrid work moments, especially when communication, inclusion, and decisions happen quickly.

This isn’t really a conversation about where people work. It’s a conversation about how people experience work. Whether employees are fully in the office, fully remote, or somewhere in between, people want many of the same things. They want to feel informed. They want to feel connected to their colleagues. They want to know their contributions matter. They want opportunities to participate, influence decisions, and be part of something larger than themselves. In short, people want a sense of belonging.

Working in a hybrid work environment comes with its challenges and its benefits. When approached intentionally, hybrid work can create environments where employees feel trusted, empowered, and better able to work in ways that support both their effectiveness and their well-being. Here are some tips for working effectively in a hybrid workplace.

The In Search of Connection is an interactive experience designed to help people reconnect with the humanity of work and with each other. In a time when many workplaces feel increasingly transactional, fast-paced, and emotionally disconnected, this discussion creates intentional space for reflection, honest dialogue, and meaningful human connection.

Every workplace interaction contributes to culture. In times of stress, uncertainty, and change, small moments of humanity matter even more. This tip sheet offers practical ways to bring more humanity into everyday interactions with coworkers, colleagues, and teams.

There is a growing conversation happening across workplaces and at the center is a sense of disconnection. In environments shaped by constant change, economic pressure, restructuring, rapid technological advancement, and increasing demands for productivity, work is becoming more and more transactional. Interactions that once built relationships are often replaced by emails, chat messages, dashboards, and back-to-back virtual meetings. Many employees no longer feel connected to their coworkers, their leaders, or even to the organizations they work for.

In this 30-minute session, participants will explore the art and impact of storytelling as a catalyst for connection, empathy, and change.

The exercise will help participants:

• Explain the purpose and power of storytelling as a leadership and inclusion tool.
• Craft personal stories that connect individual experience to shared purpose and collective action.
• Demonstrate active listening and empathetic presence when receiving others’ stories, fostering psychological safety and trust.
• Use storytelling strategically to engage employees, influence stakeholders, and build buy-in meaningful and memorable ways.

This tool can be used to craft employee profiles. It is a great way for employees to get-to-know your fellow coworkers as well as to highlight employee accomplishments and build a sense of belonging.

During this time of social distance and remote working it is critical that we maintain a culture of belonging to reduce feelings of isolation in our workplaces.  Here you can find a list of ice-breaker questions that you can use at the start of your meetings to engage employees and provide them the opportunity to dialogue with colleagues.

As a way to contribute to your own positive work environment, make these tips part of your regular practice.

In this short video a group of hiring managers discuss the concept of cultural fit and how focusing on criteria when assessing candidates enables them to mitigate the impact of bias on their hiring decisions. The discussion guide can be used to further explore the concepts and practice applying them to real workplace situations.

All too often we think it is our employer’s job to keep us engaged at work. However, what can we
personally do to ensure that we take control of our own engagement? Below we provide some tips on how to stay engaged at work and lead a productive, happy career.

Employee engagement is a difficult nut to crack and there is plenty of information and advice readily available. We have culled through a lot of information and research and
pulled together this quick reference tip sheet.

In this short video Marshall Goldsmith explains the role we as individuals play in our own engagement. This exercise walks you through a step-by-step process for finding purpose and meaning in your work.

We believe we should work hard in order to be happy, but could we be thinking about things backwards? In this fast-moving and very funny talk, psychologist Shawn Achor argues that, actually, happiness inspires us to be more productive.

Employee engagement scores are down. As leaders, we grapple with the “why” and the “what to do.” Companies invest millions in employee engagement surveys and consulting services yet still struggle to make significant strides in those engagement scores. Read more below.

A key component of growing ERGs member base is the engagement of remote workers. Employee Resource Groups are tasked with expanding focus and program offerings beyond the national or central location. Here are some tips for engaging remote workers who are working remotely.

Organizations are often run according to “the superchicken model,” where the value is placed on star employees who outperform others. And yet, this isn’t what drives the most high-achieving teams. Business leader Margaret Heffernan observes that it is social cohesion — built over every coffee break, every time one team member asks another for help — that leads over time to great results. It’s a radical rethink of what drives us to do our best work, and what it means to be a leader. Because as Heffernan points out: “Companies don’t have ideas. Only people do.”

As Employee Resource Groups become a more prevalent component of common work environments, more and more employers are interested in engaging non-exempt workers in ERGs. While altering benefits offered to non-exempt workers require a dramatic systemic shift, there are some steps you can take in the short term for engaging your nonexempt workers in ERGs.