DHL

Meredith Wellard

Meredith Wellard is the VP of Learning, Talent and Growth at DHL Group and an innovative and tenacious executive-level professional with extensive global experience and a diverse career spanning 25 years in customer service and human resources.

Through this article, Wellard highlights the growing frustration among leaders who struggle to foster teamwork in their organizations. This challenge reflects the broader complexities of modern leadership, where managing remote work, embracing diversity, balancing work-life dynamics, and personalizing employee experiences have become critical tasks, all while trying to maintain productivity and a positive workplace culture. Leaders today must not only manage remote workers who are dispersed across different countries, time-zones and work environments, but they must navigate the blended work model where employees split their time between in-person and remote settings.

A leader I spoke with a month ago was pulling her hair and wondering what to do about the fact her team was not working as a team. “I give up, I cannot even start to think how to get this team to identify as a team and work together well.” This frustration is not uncommon in the modern workplace where the roles of leaders and managers have become complex puzzles, including remote work, diversity, work-life balance, personalized people experience and engagement and the list goes on, all while maintaining productivity and a positive workplace culture.

An obvious start is the complexity of managing remote work. Leaders today need not only to cater for remote workers who live in different countries, time zones and environments but also to those who have a blended work model. The behaviors of team members can make team building very difficult. Whether it’s because sometimes team members appear in person and sometimes not, or dealing with the challenges of videos on or off and who knew that Wi-Fi was so unstable? Today’s leader needs to develop a clear set of expectations and guidelines jointly with the team to ensure the team can adhere to the team norms even when remote or blended work is in place. By identifying the norms with the team, the leader not only ensures everyone understands the expectations but also ensures they feel they have had a say in creating them. Additionally, and importantly, the team are aware of the implications if they do not adhere to them.

The leader’s role is to reinforce expectations and promote adherence to agreed norms consistently. This is not always easy, as today’s teams are more diverse than ever, which is both a tremendous asset and a significant challenge. Leaders must navigate a myriad of cultural norms, communication styles, and work habits while ensuring that everyone feels included and respected. It’s a bit like hosting a dinner party where everyone brings their favorite dish from home, but you, as the host, need to ensure all the allergies and food preferences are catered for.

“DEI is not just a moral imperative but a powerful business strategy; diverse teams drive higher profitability and innovation, making it essential for organisations to commit to long-term, systemic change to unlock true potential and opportunity”

The key for the modern leader is to ensure all differences are recognized and to provide a safe space for team members to share if something is not working for them. A great way to do this is to have a team barometer or mood board, a place where the team can share how they are feeling and why. This builds trust and understanding even in a remote environment.

Building trust is difficult to build in a modern workplace. For many years, workplaces have celebrated and promoted individual success. In the modern world, where self-promotion is still seen as a strength in many workplaces, it can lead to a situation where team-building feels more like a competition than a collaboration. Leaders must navigate this landscape carefully, encouraging personal development and ambition while fostering a team-first mentality. This requires leaders to really get to know their individual team members and encourage them to get to know each other. Balancing attention, time and opportunity for individuals is more important than ever to avoid suspicion of favoritism or bias. A key activity is to regularly check in with team members, not just about their work but also about how they are feeling at work.

It sometimes feels to team members that favoritism is at play when they look at the working conditions of their teammates. Work-life balance can be one of the topics of frustration for a leader, with team members becoming more aware of their rights and entitlements, particularly in a global team where there can be differences in what one country or another is allowed to have, for example, for leave entitlements or benefits. Transparency and openness are critical here. Teamwork is never improved by keeping information hidden. Instead, try opening the discussion and giving the team the challenge to create ‘fairness’ across the team, allowing for all the differences, regulations and family demands. In addition, ensure you have set a standard set of principles that you always adhere to as a team. No weekend emails are a great start!

So, how does one build a team in this complex, modern world? The key is flexibility, empathy and a bit of creative problem-solving. Leaders must be willing to adapt to new realities, understand the unique needs and strengths of their team members and create a culture that values collaboration over competition. It’s not an easy task, like assembling a puzzle, it requires patience, attention to detail and sometimes the ability to step back and see the bigger picture.

In the end, the message is clear—building a successful team today is about more than just putting the right people in the right roles. It’s about creating and adhering to an environment where diverse individuals can come together, where differences are recognized and celebrated and where the collective goal is greater than any one person’s ambition and everyone is recognized equally for their contribution. And if you can do all that while keeping the puzzle pieces from flying off the table, you might just be on your way to building a team that can thrive in the modern workplace.