The other day I had the long-awaited experience of being back in the office with my much respected, missed and loved colleagues as I am sure many of you have also.

Now, my expectations of this experience have increasingly risen over the last year or so. I’ve been sat in my home office (aka the rapidly and shoddily converted garden shed) on my own, running workshops over zoom, with only my house plants and the garden birds to bounce ideas off. It’s surprising what sort of inspiration you can get from a passing robin or even a cactus!

The initial meeting with my colleagues was euphoric. Seeing them in person and finally being in a room together was so satisfying and rewarding. Apart from our open plan office being furnished with social distancing guidance, yellow tape, sanitising stations, and a mandatory face mask requirement in social areas, I felt like I was home.

However, as the week went on, I became acutely aware of a change in my attitude and motivation. From the first day’s euphoric feeling of being with my team, the diversion of being back in the office and around people started to take its toll… I started to miss the solitude and comfort that working from home offered.

Don’t get me wrong, the banter, chat and social conversations were energising, but I felt differently. The truth is that over the last year I had established some very new and interesting behaviours which weren’t in line with how I was pre-lockdown. It turns out I enjoy my own space, and now, apparently, I find noise distracting. I even found myself getting a little aerated with a colleague who ‘interrupted’ me asking if I wanted a cup of tea; and I lead with yellow energy! In theory, I should welcome this environment.

As human beings, our brains are constantly learning and developing new patterns, the more we do something the more it becomes an established pattern… positively and negatively. Although I never previously found working alone inspiring, rewarding, or fulfilling, like many I was forced into doing it. By doing so I had created some interesting patterns, maybe they are temporary, or maybe this is just part of our evolution as we create hybrid working.

I’m not alone in this. Many people across the globe have been doing the same and as teams reconvene in this new hybrid world of remote, intact, and distributed working we will start to see new differences emerge.

Teams are generally excited to be back in the office with colleagues, but will that last? Or will the honeymoon period of excitement and productivity come to an end now that we’ve experienced other ways of working?

My recommendation is don’t wait to find out. Ride the rising tide and get your team together. Pull out those new nuances of behaviour and use them to your advantage. If your teams are already talking about it, you’re heading in the right direction to sustain performance as we forge through post-lockdown protocols.

As an immediate next step, take a look at the blog accompanying this article and delve deeper into the pros and cons of hybrid working through the eyes of some our Client Practitioner network.

Good news, bad news? Who can say? Blog based on in-house research

James Hampton: People fascinate James: what motivates them to do what they do and what happens between them when they come together. In this article, he discusses what it’s like to deal with change as a team.