It looks like mandatory hybrid office-remote plans are increasingly the preferred policy for companies and their employees across North America. That could spell operational trouble as traditional management structures collide with a fragmented, in-again out-again workforce, potentially hampering productivity and slowing response times.
But the use of cross-functional teams could prove to be exactly what the doctor ordered for this brave new world of post-pandemic work. Cross-functional teams are groups of workers with differentiated experiences and skill sets drawn from various departments and disciplines of a company. They’re assembled for work missions ranging from fast innovation on new products to breaking operational bottlenecks and re-engineering customer experiences.
Organizations ranging from the U.S. Army to Silicon Valley giants to the international bank where I work are deploying cross-functional teams to increase speed of execution while bringing a higher level of inter-disciplinary integration.
The management power of the cross-functional team strategy is that it breaks down traditional departmental silos and bureaucracies. Teams use advanced collaboration technology and software to help communicate, coordinate and schedule work and in-person meetings—and also to allow for efficient real-time collaboration and brainstorming.
It’s almost immediately obvious how critical those attributes are in the scattered world of hybrid work.
A hybrid work schedule means that in many companies, solving problems across departmental lines can become particularly challenging and slow. There’s uncertainty as to when given personnel will even be in the building, making serendipitous meetings rare and scheduled meetings between different staff members an exercise in diplomatic negotiations just to get together.
Cross-functional teams, on the other hand, tend to function more like a military commando unit. They can be designed to specialize in a given type of complexity or situation. They often have standing membership and high autonomy, allowing for their rapid deployment and the ability to deliver value quickly.
Assembling a cross-functional team is like putting together the “Oceans 11” gang: The mission dictates the personnel and skills specialization. Getting the right talent assigned to the team is critical if the group is going to deliver on its mandate.
And as for that objective and mission, it’s critical that they’re clear and well-defined. Having that kind of crisply enumerated goal really empowers a cross-functional team.
A team will also begin to develop a kind of muscle memory of how to function together effectively, which is exactly why the strategy is well-suited to hybrid work. A good cross-functional team will thrive by having regular workdays in the same place, but also will know what kind of tasks can be most effectively accomplished when the group isn’t together.
While these kinds of teams generally don’t cost much to spin up, it is critical that the organization has made some base-level investment in high-function collaboration and communication tools. Cross-functional teams need remote whiteboarding tools, good conference room setups with proper cameras, collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams or Zoom, document management platforms, AI-driven meeting notetakers and project management trackers.
Determining team leadership can be a tricky issue, but typically the functional area that will own the end product or outcome would be the natural place to start. Once established, it’s smart to have the group engage in facilitated teambuilding activities, whether in the office or on offsites.
Cross-functional team members tend to love the dynamic. Good teams develop a consistent work cadence and an esprit de corps that can be tough to summon in a traditionally structured hybrid work environment.
There are some cautionary notes in deploying cross-functional teams. Some complexity is introduced in reporting relationships and prioritization. Good communication between departmental leadership and team managers is critical. Conflicting priorities can develop, and being able to resolve questions of timing and resources will be important.
Team members will often need to go “home” to their departments for ongoing skills training and mentoring.
Organizations that effectively deploy cross-functional teams also find that the opportunity to work in a tight-knit group can be helpful in recruiting new talent to a company. It helps create an employment brand that feels elite, exciting and personable. In the end, those can be exactly the qualities that fragmented hybrid work schedules can tend to wash out, making these teams an effective antidote.
The world’s transition to hybrid work is still in its infancy. It will need to develop its own rhythms and cultural practices. But it’s clear that cross-functional teams are an effective device that can accelerate innovation, lower internal hurdles that hinder speed and responsiveness and help solve many of the problems hybrid work schedules can create.