Rituals that create connection in the age of hybrid work 🪄✨
Rituals that create connection in the age of hybrid work 🪄✨
Plus templates to help you reflect on collaboration, and all the latest Nile news
Welcome to The Navigator 🧭 - a newsletter about people, psychology and design for business leaders who want to make meaningful change. I’m Sarah Ronald, and I write this newsletter with the Nile team. If this email was forwarded to you, you can subscribe here to receive it straight to your inbox.
Hi! 👋 …we’re back!
Around this time each year, the Nile team decamps to the wilds of Scotland (well, the semi-wilds) to recharge our batteries, reconnect with each other and realign our thinking.
In this newsletter, we'll share some insight into why creating that space for connection is so important — and how you can think about applying the same principles to your own organisation.
Stay to the end for our Nile News round-up, and some new tools and upcoming events which I hope you will find useful.
Wishing you all the best as you navigate your week,
–
The Magic of Culture and Connection
Keeping a team in touch in the age of hybrid work
company, noun. 1. a commercial business. 2. the fact or condition of being with others, especially in a way that provides enjoyment.
If post-pandemic working has taught us anything, it's that meaningful human relationships are really hard to achieve when your team isn’t in one place.
Remote and hybrid work patterns are making genuine connection between colleagues a scarce commodity. It now takes thought and intent from business leaders to chalk out the spaces where connection can take place. Those that don’t will face big challenges around quality of delivery, lower morale, and - critically - retention.
This is something we’ve thought a lot about at Nile.
Like any business, we’re a team with a variety of skills, backgrounds and experience levels – not to mention working styles and personality types. It’s really important that we all pull in the same direction. But it’s tough to get everyone on the same page if the only connection you have is through a screen.
That’s why we place such a huge emphasis on workplace culture. For those who like working from the office, we’ve made it a really nice place to be. And, over time, we’ve crafted various ‘rituals’ – shared experiences unique to us – that let our team connect on a human level.
Top of the list for many Nilers is our annual team trip. More than a decade ago, we boarded a budget flight to Norway for our first one; every year since, we’ve come together somewhere far from our usual desks (though usually staying in Scotland!).
Of all our rituals, the team trip is the only one we stipulate everyone has to attend. It’s a big investment for the business, but we stick with it because we know it works for us.
It’s an opportunity to reflect, recharge, and refocus as a team. It’s also a chance to meet new colleagues in person and to learn about each other’s strengths and working styles.
It takes planning — lots of planning
Something thing we’ve learned is that an all-staff trip takes real planning. We typically start working on the next team trip at least 12 months in advance. At times the complexity of the logistics involved - even for an SME like Nile - can be frankly terrifying, so you absolutely must give yourself the space to get it right.
We’ve also found that having a clearly-defined theme is essential to ground your activities. We tend to pick one based on our business’s values: this year, we chose “can-do collaboration”, recognising that, by combining our strengths, we can achieve more ambitious and successful outcomes. Pointedly, the only way we can know our colleagues’ strengths is by creating this space for connection with each other.
To get the best out of people, collective ‘team building’ time has to be balanced with space for personal reflection. Location matters too – this is an opportunity to escape the everyday by gathering together somewhere inspiring.
We’ve shared an example of the templates we used this year to encourage reflection - before and after a group activity and discussion on what ‘can-do collaboration’ means.
We find that the team trip pays dividends long after we’re back at our desks. Investing in culture and alignment, and creating the space to reflect, translates directly into better outcomes. When businesses partner with Nile, they don’t just gain access to a group of individual experts. They get a cohesive team that collaborates confidently, is aware of our overall purpose, and is ready to deliver meaningful impact together.
It takes effort to cultivate workplace community, but the payoff is immense. Bonded teams achieve greater innovation, efficiency, and fulfilment.
Make space for real interaction amid the complexity of remote work. As you shape your updated operating model, prioritise activities, rituals, and spaces that bring your people together with genuine humanity. With the right intention, you can build a hybrid organisation that thrives.
Nile News
After our time away, we’re fully back in action, delivering results for our clients and keeping abreast of the what’s going on in our world…
We’re gearing up for our event with Edinburgh Futures Institute on 4th October. It’s the first in a series we’re calling No Harm Done?, which looks at the intersection of AI, design and ethics. There are only a few places left, but we’ll also record and share the event. You can be among the first to know about our future events by following Nile on LinkedIn.
EFI is also running an event with author and future thinker David Runciman, who draws parallels between states, corporations and AI - all of which can benefit humanity… but also have the potential to wipe us out.
Speaking of corporations that could either benefit humanity or wipe us out, Google has just launched an interesting new tool called Pinpoint. Aimed at journalists, but useful for researchers of any kind, it can draw out stories from big piles of documents, transcribe conversations and wrangle data out of PDFs.
That’s it for this issue - if you found this newsletter useful, please spread the word by sharing it with your friends and colleagues:
About Nile
Nile is a Strategic Design team that helps deliver human-centred change in highly regulated industries. Our methods engage employees and customers with new technology and ways of working. Our outcomes help save money and improve business performance.
If you think we can help your teams, reply directly to this email (they come straight to my inbox), or reach out to someone specific via our website.
Thanks for reading! 🚀