In-person training for a hybrid team that is only in the office on Thursdays

Hybrid teams ask whether I can run it online. The answer is no, and it is on the Central Belt page so that nobody has to ask on the call. The exercises depend on people being in a room together, so I only run them in person.

That is honest but not much use on its own, so this is the longer version. Most hybrid teams have a day when everyone is in. In-person training for a hybrid team comes down to booking that day, choosing a slot that fits it, finding a room, and deciding what to do about the one person who is never there.

Why I don't run it online

Everything in a session happens standing up, in pairs and small groups, with people using each other's names inside the first five minutes. The listening exercises work because you cannot plan your next sentence while somebody is two feet away and still talking. The recovery exercise works because the mistake happens in front of colleagues and they watch you get through it. A screen takes all of that away. The delay on a call is enough on its own to break the listening work, and a person on a screen in a room of people standing in a circle is a person being watched, which is the one thing the sessions are built to avoid.

I could call it a hybrid option and take the booking. I would rather turn the booking down than run something I don't think works. The fee comes back if the session doesn't land, and I could not make that offer on a version I don't believe in.

Book the day everyone is already in

Most hybrid teams have one, and in a lot of offices it is Thursday. Book that day. Two to three weeks ahead is comfortable. The first step is a fifteen-minute call where you tell me what you want the session to change, and you get a written quote back within one working day with the price, the date and what I have built in from the call. A 50% deposit holds the date.

Nothing about the session changes because the team is hybrid. The content comes from the pre-call, the same as it would for a team that is in five days a week. Hybrid working decides which day you can pick, and you already know which day that is.

Late-afternoon slots leave the morning free

Sessions run on weekdays, and there are late-afternoon slots for teams who don't want to lose a morning. For a hybrid team that matters more than usual, because the in-office day is the one people use for everything else that needs a room. A two-hour Taster in a late-afternoon slot leaves the morning for those meetings, and the team spends the last two hours of its one day together on its feet, with a debrief at the end that asks what people will do differently on Monday.

The Half Day, at three and a half hours, and the full-day Experience take more of the day, and a hybrid team should think about whether it wants to give its only in-office day over to them. For a first session, two hours in the afternoon is the right size.

Any room with space to stand in a circle

The room you need is any room with space for the group to stand in a circle. No boardroom table, and stackable chairs are ideal. On a hybrid team's in-office day that room is often already booked by somebody else, so hold it when you hold the date. If the office has shrunk to fit hybrid working and there is no room that size any more, I can suggest a few spaces to hire in Glasgow or Edinburgh city centre. There is no travel charge in Glasgow. The rest of the Central Belt pays mileage at 45p a mile from Glasgow and back, and the exact figure is on the quote before you book.

The person who is never in

Every hybrid team has one. They are fully remote, or in another city, or their in-office day is Tuesday and always has been. You want them included, and you are wondering whether they could join on a laptop propped on a chair.

They can't, for the reasons above, and you should hear that now rather than find out in the room. Ask them, though. Some people who are never in will come in once for something that only happens once, and a date two to three weeks out gives them time to arrange it. If you are looking at the Programme, four sessions of two hours across a quarter, there are four dates and a better chance of one they can make. If they cannot be there at all, the session goes ahead without them. Everything is opt-in in any case, and people sit a round out and rejoin, so a group changing shape is normal.

What I will not do is run a second version for them online. It would be a different thing with the same name, and the person on the far end would get the least of it.

On the call, say the team is hybrid, say which day it is in, and say whether there is somebody who cannot make that day. That is enough for me to give you a slot and a room size. The price is on the rate card, and you can read it before you get in touch.