Making Hybrid Work a Success at Y&C

Huda Khalid

Account Manager

As you’ve probably noticed by now, there’s been a seismic shift in the modern workplace.

As the dust settles after the pandemic, companies are left looking at their new working practices and asking how to move forward—adopting an in-office, remote, or hybrid model. We’d like to give you a small insight into our approach to work and why it works for us.

Why We’re Staying Hybrid

At York & Chapel, we recognize the incredible potential for hybrid work. We know it offers greater flexibility for our team and fosters an essential level of work-life balance. We’ve stuck with the hybrid model since sending our team home during the pandemic, and haven’t looked back since.

Giving People the Right Balance

We know everyone prefers to work differently. Some of our team prefer the structure of the office. Others prefer to work entirely from home. And many choose to embrace a mix—switching between in-office work and remote work depending on their current projects (and who’s picking up the kids from school that day!)

We don’t force anyone to come into the office more than they need to, but we keep our offices open to allow our teams to have the option should they need it.

Making the Extra Effort to Coordinate

We know that when people aren’t in the same physical space, we have to put in that bit of extra effort to stay in touch and collaborate effectively. We still have our daily stand-ups, which provide a great opportunity for teams to understand what’s happening across other teams and the wider business. We’ve also found Slack’s huddle feature is perfect for recreating those impromptu conversations that don’t need a fully-fledged meeting.

But that’s one part of the bigger picture. We also think it’s essential to encourage our teams to talk about things beyond work. For example, our Vancouver office has a Happy Half-Hour every Thursday—everyone who’s available hops on a Zoom call, and we can catch up and have the kind of conversations and socializing that would normally take place during day-to-day office life.

Still Meeting Up Regularly

Even though we’re not working in the same place, we still prioritize being together to connect in person. We have quarterly in-person gatherings for each office to give everyone the chance to see each other face-to-face and socialize outside of work.

Encouraging International Collaboration

But it doesn’t stop there—because York & Chapel is an international company, we also organize bigger get-togethers. Our team in the Connecticut office went to visit our colleagues in Istanbul, Turkey in early June. It was a fantastic way to build the connections that are essential for effective, ongoing collaboration between teams.

Making It Work

It’s taken a lot of effort, planning, and flexibility to create this new way of working for York & Chapel. But by being deliberate and focused about what we want to achieve—clear communication, easy collaboration, a strong sense of team unity—we’ve been able to create a system that works for us and makes our clients happy.

The results speak for themselves. Some of our most exciting creative work, like this OOH campaign for BlueShore Financial, has been produced while teams have been working remotely.

Helping Our Team Do What They Love

We’re delighted so many of our team have chosen to work in a way that suits them. Has it impacted their performance, productivity, or ability to support our team and our clients? Not at all. But it has allowed people to spend more time with their families, pursue their passions outside of work, and achieve a greater sense of work-life balance. Hybrid work is here to stay at York & Chapel.