THERE has been a lot of debate recently about the impact of hybrid working on organisational culture, including a recent announcement by Amazon to bring workers back into the office.
Leaders must accept that hybrid work is now a permanent situation and indeed a hygiene factor requested by most office-based employees – and use it to their company’s advantage.
Consultant Gustavo Razzetti in his book ‘Remote Not Distant’ (Designing a Company Culture that Will Help You Thrive in a Hybrid Workspace) spells out what leaders need to do to gain the maximum advantage from a hybrid workforce.
Some corporate leaders initially believed people would return to in-office work, resuming their pre-pandemic routines. These bosses did not understand how Covid changed their employees’ view of work. Before the pandemic, about 25 per cent of employed Americans worked from home at least part of the time. Despite that, remote work had a negative connotation.
Now, results prove that remote work boosts productivity, and the nature of work has changed.
Some of the key take-aways are that leaders must accept that the hybrid workspace has become a permanent feature. To use remote work optimally, you also need to reflect on your corporate culture, because it may not translate in a hybrid workspace. A strong culture is very much about creating a purposeful vision of the future, through fostering employee engagement and belonging by stating each team’s purpose and goals.
However, none of the above happens by chance – we need to design, not leave to luck, what produces effective collaboration. It is critical to assess your organisations’ culture and examine the difference between leaders’ stated values and the behaviours the organisation praises or punishes.
In the face of the pandemic, organisations turned to the ‘work-from-home model’ out of necessity. However, many leaders did not change their thinking. Many senior corporate officials erroneously believed their employees had to work together in person in order for their companies’ cultures to reach their full potential.
To use remote work optimally, reflect on your corporate culture. Culture provides an atmosphere that lets people work productively. It emerges from how people behave, think and feel. Corporate cultures develop gradually. They can evolve by accident or by intent. A deliberately conceived culture should boost employee engagement and enhance a business’s performance and profitability.
If your company’s culture is not working in the wake of the pandemic, do not expect to find a one-time fix. Your organisation must work on its culture continually over time. Culture and strategy do not compete. They are components of a larger whole. Even if you have a vibrant culture that boosts your operations, you still need a proper strategy.
Many companies need to overhaul their in-office culture because it will not work in a hybrid workspace. Companies’ experiences with remote working during COVID – which changed the nature of work – made it clear that those earlier, negative impressions lacked justification.
As Razzetti says: “Digging your heels in, going back to the office and pretending the pandemic never happened is a mistake. And trying to take in-office cultures and practices and copy-paste them into a half-remote/half-in-office experience can backfire.”
These organisations will find that merging old office practices into a hybrid framework is not effective. Instead, executives should re-examine all elements of their existing cultures. They need to experiment and adapt to make sure they do not create dual cultures – one for employees in the office, and the other for those in remote locations.
Companies need to move from letting culture evolve accidentally to designing their cultures with deliberation and intent. Conventional wisdom suggests that companies succeed when they have good leaders, good products, and good technology.
However, the organisations that lead their industries are the ones that forge a “shared future” with their employees. They foster cultures that promote collaboration and alignment.
A shared future keeps employees in sync, no matter where they work.
:: Patrick Gallen is people and change consulting partner at Grant Thornton Ireland
