The pandemic’s effect on the workplace is a bit like having driven off a cliff – no matter how much we want to turn around or go back to the way things were before, it simply isn’t possible, especially when it comes to company culture in a hybrid work environment.
“Some leaders are thinking about what new culture and a new way of working might look like, and how to perpetuate a culture in a primarily hybrid world,” says Bryan Hancock, the global leader of McKinsey’s talent work. “Others are saying that they need everybody back in the office to preserve their culture. And there’s some truth there; environment shapes behavior. But you can’t assume you’ll return to the same culture that existed pre-pandemic. There’s been too much change, both at the individual level and at the business level."
Gartner says that 68 percent of executive teams are reevaluating their company’s culture to reflect the new normal of virtual and hybrid work.
“As organizations continue to manage the large-scale shifts in the way we work, culture is top of mind for HR and executive leaders. Many are concerned that their organization’s culture will suffer or change in a virtual-first or hybrid world and are not sure how to maintain cultural ideals when employees don’t consistently work together in one place,” wrote Jordan Turner and Mary Baker for Gartner.
For many old-school executives, there is a collective furrowing of eyebrows over the future of their company culture.
“With employees working in distributed environments more often, executive leaders worry their organization’s culture will become fragmented and weaker, leading to lower levels of engagement, performance, and innovation,” says Elisabeth Joyce, Managing Vice President at Gartner.
Others, however, argue that company culture is more about connection than location.
“One of the biggest challenges I have encountered advising companies on their shift to hybrid work is convincing executives that culture doesn’t live in an office,” writes Erin Grau in HR Brew. “No, people aren’t more productive in person. No, the water cooler isn’t where the most innovative ideas are born. No, not all employees feel a sense of belonging (or want to brainstorm with others!) once they walk through the door.”
The Gartner duo of Turner and Baker agrees with Grau’s assessment.
“The trick to operationalizing culture is making employees feel connected to it whether they are distributed or co-located. Some leaders may believe that the physical workplace is the key driver of future culture connectedness, but the environment isn’t the driver of culture; the ways in which we behave and work together are,” they write.
McKinsey senior partner Bill Schaninger says that executives shouldn’t approach this sea change in company culture with trepidation but should seize this rare opportunity to put their imprint on the work environment.
“This is an unbelievable opportunity to remake culture. It’s rare in a leader’s lifetime to have such a clean drop for reshaping how you run the place,” says Schaninger.
Grau argues that simply offering free food as an inducement to return to the physical office won’t cut it, but that HR leaders and company executives can rely on the following tactics to help build a culture in a hybrid environment:
o Productivity
o Well-being
o Resilience
o Retention
While some might question that “the work” is really what matters and company culture is simply a luxury, the research says culture is very important to business health.
“When we think about culture, we think about a common set of behaviors, plus the underlying mindsets that shape how people work and interact day to day. What we see in the data is compelling: companies with healthy cultures have three times greater total returns to shareholders,” says McKinsey partner Brooke Weddle. “ We’ve also looked at causation and have seen a positive relationship, where health drives performance. And vice-versa: 70 percent of transformations fail, largely due to people- and culture-related challenges. That’s a sobering number.”
Getting culture right in the new hybrid work environment can drive success.
“The organizations that get this right will understand the new drivers of culture and how culture is operationalized in the environments in which we now spend more time. They will embed culture into the new way of working to help employees understand, believe in, and live the desired culture in a hybrid or remote environment,” writes Turner and Baker.