‘My Colleagues Are All Very Close – They Even Meet For Drinks At The Weekend – But I’m Never Invited. What Should I Do?’

In a world of in­spi­ra­tional memes and #girlboss In­sta­gram posts, it’s easy to for­get that we all get stuck at work, or feel like we can’t find a way for­ward at times. Sue Uner­man is the Chief Trans­for­ma­tion Of­fi­cer at Me­di­a­Com and Kathryn Ja­cob OBE is the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive at Pearl and Dean. To­gether they wrote The Glass Wall: Suc­cess Strate­gies For Women At Work And Busi­nesses That Mean Busi­ness. Their new book Belonging, The Key to Transforming and Maintaining Diversity, Inclusion and Equality At Work is out on now. Each week an­swer your work ques­tions with prag­matic, hon­est ad­vice that’s proven to work…

Question: I work in a team where most of the rest of them seem to have more in common with each other than I do (I know they see each other for drinks and at the weekend sometimes for example, and I don’t get invited). In addition now that we’re going back to a hybrid way of working I am less able to get into the office at short notice than some of them because I have both young children and a dog to look after. I know that I had to have arrangements before the pandemic for five days a week but that’s changed during the last two years and it’s going to be difficult for me to change it back suddenly. I feel as though at the moment this is unfair and I will be at a disadvantage. What should I do?

Kathryn: Managing childcare and a working life is always difficult and hybrid working has made it harder because there is less certainty. Is it possible for you to have a sharing arrangement with another parent in extremities so that you do have slightly more flexibility? In return if it’s another working parent you can have a mutual support system. On your work relationship point you don’t go into detail about why you feel excluded. Is it a lifestyle thing? Is it that you have a different set of experiences? Perhaps with some exploration you may discover that you have more in common with them but you’ll have to take it slowly and build this up gradually.

I think that one way of addressing your colleagues is to take them on individually and make time to catch up with them starting probably with a work issue but then expanding it so that they feel that they know you a little bit better and you know them too. If you’re at a different life stage they are probably a little bit wary of not encroaching on what can feel and definitely is a very busy life so take them on individually rather than as a group and you might discover other things you have in common. At home find a mutual support network that can give you the flexibility you need. Remember you’re in control of the situation. You might not have an immediate solution but you can to decide what steps can take to give you a little bit more flexibility and more closeness with your team.

Sue: Your work employs you because of your talents, because of your skills, any good organisation is going to understand and reward your talents and your skills over your ability to have fun with a set of people who have been thrown together with you. You don’t have to have all of your emotional reassurance from people at work because you have an outside life and you’ve talked about for example children and indeed a pet. It can feel very lonely if you don’t have some emotional connection at work which is why Kathryn’s suggestions are so strong. Remember if you can make friends at work then of course it makes you feel like you belong - however it may be that those people aren’t in your immediate team. You don’t say how big your organisation is but one of the other strategies that you could follow is to reach out to peers across the business or to other leaders in the company and form relationships there. You do not have to only be friends with the people in your immediate team. So reach out, speak to people outside your immediate team and see whether that improves your experience of being included.

Kathryn : Also be aware that this may take time and don’t rush to judgement if it isn’t an immediate success these things can take time. You have a lot of competing priorities so just set yourself one small goal every week.

Sue: Finally, can you influence what hybrid working means in your company so that it serves you better? Rather than expecting you to come in at short notice, your bosses might be open to having set days for each team to work in the office, which gives you a bit of notice and means you can plan properly. It means they can see in advance how many people will be in the building at any given time, so it works for them too! If you think set days and a bit more notice will give you more freedom to be in the office at the same time as your colleagues, then consider asking for this. It's a sensible solution and one you might find a lot of people you work with are craving.

That said, if that doesn't work, over the medium term have the right to consider your position. It may be that the culture in your organisation it’s not a belonging culture and much as you try to change that yourself that you never feel like you’re on the inside. It may be that your company’s policy as far as hybrid working is concerned eventually doesn’t suit you. We are all in the business of nurturing talent and we are all just starting on the experiment of making hybrid working work. I’d also advise that you find yourself a mentor outside your particular office to talk all this through with on an ongoing basis. Good luck - we really hope it all works out for you.

READ MORE: 'Half Of My Team Are In The Office, The Other Half Are WFH - How Can We Make It Work?'