Toolkit for leaders: delivering ways of working locally

Firstly, as a manager or a leader, it’s important to hold both group and individual meetings to discuss current and working methods.

By nature, blended working is flexible and offers different working styles to compliment different lifestyles, which change over time.

You could invite discussions with your team annually or bi-annually about their working style and team connectedness, to continually strike the right balance and facilitate a supportive working culture. You could invite discussions with your team about: 

• The successes and lessons of how you’re working currently 
• Presenting the department’s/division’s/centre’s objectives for the year and discuss how the team contributes to achieving them 
• Refreshing team identity 
• How to structure social connection into the working week as a team. 

In order to enable Blended Working, you might want to look at alternative working methods as well as equipment, such as setting a clear desk policy to ensure anyone can sit anywhere needed, or inspire this by removing some unneeded desks from the office (Estates may be able to help with this).

Read our case studies to learn how others outside the FWOW programme have delivered new ways of working, and get practical tips on making this work for your area:

Non-FWOW case studies:

• European Institute 
• Department of Management
• Department of Economics

Case studies from areas who were part of FWOW:

• Communications Division
• Philanthropy and Global Engagement (PAGE)

Our staff are clearly the most important aspect of blended working, which is why we are offering training to embed blended working for all staff and managers. This is essential to enhance your staff’s work effectiveness, and job satisfaction, as well as a create a productive work-life balance. 

We recommend actively encouraging your staff and managers to take the following online training at their own pace: 

• Understanding Blended Working (for all staff) 
• Managing Self (for managers) 
• Managing Individuals (for managers)
• Managing Teams (for managers)

Visit our training page for more opportunities to share with your staff, or contact Organisational Learning for a discussion about the change and how they can facilitate this with you. 

You will need to order new equipment for your staff and will need financing to do so, in order to make a list of what you will need and for whom.

To do this, you may wish to consider your financial requirements to provide additional resources such setting your team up with laptops, keyboards, monitors etc and other office equipment for working from home needs. 

Please contact the Space Planning Team (Estates.space.requests@lse.ac.uk) to discuss the furniture, room layout changes and technology which will be needed to enable Desk Booking and Meeting Room Booking in your area. 

Once you’re set up with new technology in your area, read our ultimate tech guide. 

When should we be using hybrid meeting rooms on campus? As we work in a blended way on and off campus, hybrid meetings help us to continue working in a collaborative way regardless of our location. More and more meeting rooms have been set up with specific technology to help you run them successfully. 

Good examples of meetings which suit a hybrid format include: 

• All department/division meetings 
• Training sessions 
• Team days/away days 

To get hybrid meeting rooms set up in your area, please contact Adam Gale. 

Once set up, please read our page on Hybrid Meeting Etiquette and Setting up the technology for hybrid meetings.

An important part of blended working involves sharing workspaces allowing staff to come together for various working needs. To start the conversation about your space, contact Nancy Baltouna or a member of the space planning team. 

We have extensive FAQs on desk booking using Condeco, to get set up with desk booking please contact Dan Print. 

Key information on desks: 

• Anyone with a need for a fixed desk for IT or disability reasons should have one 
• Anyone who is in 4-5 days a week should have one  
• Everyone else should be on shared desks Think about having standing desks and other ergonomic needs

To prevent everyone having a pedestal which is tied to a specific desk, you can order lockers through Showcase (listed in OneFinance).  

Lockers are for personal possessions and any work items, to be cleared from shared desks at the end of the day. 

In order to remove unwanted pedestals, ask your staff to clear them out and arrange for Estates to remove them. 

First identify what you will need the space for. Do your teams hold regular catch up with colleagues/external guests? Do they often run workshops, or need quiet working spaces? Do they deal with confidential matters, or do they need more space for collaborative working? 

• Contact Nancy Baltouna from the Space planning team in Estates for a discussion about how to remove / reuse furniture. 
• Look in the Showcase catalogue in OneFinance for new furnitur
• Read more about making the most of collaborative workspaces
• Estates can support you with moving equipment and disability arrangements. 

We want you to feel confident and supported whether using our workspaces on campus or working at home. We understand that inevitably, you may require further guidance, or just have a general query regarding blended working. Regardless of your need, we’re here to help. Take a look at our dedicated useful contacts page who can support you with your tech, work set up, and more.