Over the last few years, we’ve seen remote work go from a rare luxury to a common practice. As such, the so-called “hybrid workplace” has effectively become the new normal. Even so, we’re still a far cry from having perfect equity as remote employees have less access to communication, collaboration, and work culture. The question is, how can organizations provide more consistent goal momentum and support for their hybrid workers?
You start the quarter with aligned goals and good intentions. Halfway through, updates are scattered, recognition relies on memory, and managers scramble for clarity. With a decentralized team, quick, in person follow-ups are rarely an option.
But this isn’t a failure of hybrid work or weak goal setting. It happens because goal momentum fades once the meeting ends. So, how do you prevent that drop-off?
The visibility gap for your hybrid workers
According to Gallup’s hybrid work indicator, the top barriers for hybrid workers include:
- Less access to resources and equipment (31%)
- Feeling less connected to workplace culture (28%)
- Decreased collaboration (24%)
- Impaired working relationships with colleagues (21%)
Even so, hybrid employees typically report better work/life balance (76%), greater efficiency (64%), and higher productivity (52%).
For all its benefits, a distributed team structure can weaken goal alignment. It’s harder to follow up when colleagues are in different cities or countries. Asynchronous updates, while efficient, can also strip complex goals of nuance and reduce access to real-time insight.
This challenge is compounded by visibility. Office-based employees are easier to keep in mind, while remote colleagues are more easily excluded from ad-hoc conversations or in-person context that never makes it into shared channels.
This is the visibility gap hybrid workers face. It’s not inevitable, but a remnant of office-first habits. A remote-first approach to information sharing, supported by deeper discussion and clear documentation, helps restore alignment and equity.
Why momentum requires structure, not reminders
It’s not enough to haphazardly prompt goal updates at the last minute. Goals and OKRs need to be top of mind throughout the entire workflow to stay relevant and guide progress. Here’s how you can provide consistent structure around goals for your hybrid workers.
Continuous performance management for hybrid workers
Annual reviews aren’t enough. Performance management should happen week after week. That’s the ethos behind our employee check-in. While cadence is flexible, weekly check-ins for hybrid workers deliver real-time insight and keep performance goals aligned and on track across teams everywhere.
Beyond simple goal updates, check-ins reinforce priorities through relevant, performance-related questions tailored to the individual.
For example, ask employees about blockers they encountered and how progress felt that week. These prompts make performance goals more meaningful, encouraging reflection on how employees pursue goals and whether they remain the right focus.
“But,” we hear you say, “check-ins are asynchronous, aren’t they? Weren’t you just saying asynchronous communication weakens goal alignment and nuance?”
That’s true. Poorly designed asynchronous communication carries real risks. That’s why our check-ins and performance goals retain full histories, with space for manager responses. We recommend following up using Perform365 1:1s to keep hybrid workers connected through regular, face-to-face conversations.
Regular goal tracking for your hybrid teams
Whether you use the goal tracking system in our employee check-in or not, you need to regularly revisit and update goals for them to stay relevant and impactful. Employees should update goal progression at least once a week for two reasons:
- Keeping hybrid workers thinking about goals: Regular updates keep goals in our thoughts. That way, employees think about them in the flow of work, and not just when it’s time to update them.
- A hassle-free update for hybrid team managers: Weekly goal updates mean managers never have to wait long to see progress, meaning fewer urgent Teams calls or micromanaging messages. Instead, you can sit back and let hybrid teams work autonomously.
Quarterly goal setting with no follow-up isn’t good enough. Whether you’re managing hybrid workers or an entirely office-based team, goals should live inside your everyday workflows. If they’re something you only think about a few times a year, they might as well not exist at all.
Embed goals for hybrid workers into Microsoft 365
While you could set any number of theoretical policies to support goal momentum, one of the best (and simplest) ways is to embed goal tracking into the tools and systems your people already use, like Microsoft 365.
Like the rest of our Human Success Platform, Perform365 is purpose-built to work inside Microsoft 365 and Teams for the following advantages:
- Reduced friction for goal management: Tool friction is one of the biggest killers of employee buy-in. If employees see new tools and policies as more trouble than they’re worth, they’ll do whatever they can to sidestep them. Embedding goals in Microsoft 365 reduces friction by eliminating tool switching, making it easy for anyone to review goals or post a progress update.
- Keeping goals in the flow of work: Goals are more likely to be forgotten if they’re isolated from actual workflows. In Microsoft 365, performance goals are just a click or two away so your people will always have them in the backs of their minds.
- Easier collaboration on shared goals: With the right integration, it’s easy to share goals and updates with colleagues through Microsoft Teams. Besides keeping everyone on the same page, this makes it easier for hybrid workers to work together on mutual objectives like combined sales and marketing initiatives.
From data to action: Making progress cumulative
To wrap things up, let’s look at some practical methods you can use to maintain quarterly goal momentum for your hybrid workplace. Here are three steps to follow, that can all supported features you’ll find in Perform and Engage365:
Make progress tracking visible
One of the best things you can do to maintain goal momentum throughout the year is to make progress visible across your whole organization.
While it’s not the only goal setting option at your disposal, OKRs are one of the best ways of improving progress visibility for hybrid workers. OKRs connect multiple team and individual projects (key results) to overarching business objectives. When one person posts an update, everyone else can see it.
This makes it much easier to keep decentralized teams informed without the need to schedule extra meetings. Instead, everyone can roll that effort back into the goals themselves to keep them moving forward.
Document every achievement
Documentation is essential for understanding what works and what doesn’t. You might invest heavily in an email campaign, only to overwhelm customers, while an ad campaign you greenlit on a whim surprises you with its impact.
But goals aren’t just about showing the path forward. They’re also a way to reflect on what the organization has already accomplished and boost morale during long, grueling projects.
It also means contributions from remote team members are less likely to be overlooked so they get the kudos they so richly deserve. This is essential for making sure you support hybrid workers as much as their office-based colleagues.
Keep encouraging peer recognition
Speaking of morale and kudos, you shouldn’t underestimate the importance of peer recognition for goal momentum in a hybrid workplace. Hyping up a colleague for their goal contributions reinforces those goals through encouragement. When employees feel valued, they’re more likely to keep supplying the effort that got them recognized in the first place.
Recognition is also a great social bonding tool for hybrid teams. Even if two coworkers are never in the same room, the friendly back-and-forth of peer recognition breaks the ice and makes future collaboration easier.
Goal momentum is key to managing hybrid workers
Trust is critical for hybrid workers and their organizations. You need to be sure your people will focus on their priorities without direct oversight. Goals are a great way to communicate expectations, but they need to be reaffirmed throughout the year if you want to maintain their impact.
If you want more insights into how you can keep driving performance goal momentum, check out our guide to embracing continuous performance management!
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