Corporate culture in the age of remote working

September 2022 | FEATURE | BOARDROOM INTELLIGENCE

Financier Worldwide Magazine

September 2022 Issue

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic was a ‘black swan’ event that upended working practices around the world.

While many businesses were forced to close their doors, causing millions to be furloughed or lose their jobs, other companies embraced remote working in order to maintain operations.

In recent years, the rapid advancement of digitalisation and the shift to a more knowledge-based economy have made the option of remote or hybrid work more realistic. But the pandemic certainly accelerated the trend.

In the post-pandemic era, many employees expect remote working to be the norm. In the UK, according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), 78 percent of those surveyed in February 2022 who worked from home in some capacity said that this gave them an improved work-life balance. Fifty-two percent of respondents said it was quicker to complete work and 52 percent said they had fewer distractions. Forty-seven percent said they experienced improved wellbeing.

Similar sentiments are shared in other jurisdictions. According to the ‘State Of Remote Work 2021’ research by Buffer in collaboration with Doist, Remotive and We Work Remotely, around 97 percent of surveyed remote workers would like to work remotely, at least some of the time, for the rest of their careers.

Companies must decide how much remote work to allow, and whether different sets of employees should have different options when choosing how and when to do their work. Hybrid work, for example, allows employees to collaborate meaningfully in-person when necessary, but with remote flexibility for the bulk of their schedule.

“To be effective, business leaders must regularly assess the current state of their culture and deliberately evolve it so they can achieve their business, staff and customer objectives.”

It is also worth noting that remote working is not for everyone, or all companies. Potential downsides may include additional distractions at home, a sense of isolation, a blurring of the line between work and home life, being inundated with virtual meetings, cyber security concerns and data privacy risks, as well as challenges when onboarding new team members.

Culture and communication

Though adapting to this working model might seem straightforward in theory, and despite its lifestyle and productivity advantages for many, it does create particular challenges with respect to organisational culture.

Whether a company has employees working remotely or in an office, company culture is a vital part of its identity. It encompasses various different aspects, including leadership, ethics, job security, ESG concerns, and learning and development, among many others. Crucially, creating a positive corporate culture is a deliberate act, requiring concerted and well-directed leadership.

It is also important to acknowledge that while remote working has prospered throughout the pandemic, culture may have suffered. Companies have been required to create remote working cultures during an unprecedented time of significant external stress. They have not been able to apply conventional cultural norms.

In the post-pandemic era, there are several steps companies can take to establish, adapt or reinforce corporate culture for remote workers.

Companies should set out a robust set of values forming the heart of their corporate culture, particularly around issues such as diversity, inclusion and belonging. Communicating those values should be a central pillar. Regardless of where an employee is located – at home or in the office – the same cultural norms should be communicated to them and adhered to by them.

For new team members, it may be difficult to familiarise them with the company’s culture, particularly if they have little or no in-person interactions with the team. In these circumstances, company communications, led by senior management, should clearly articulate expectations around company culture to everyone in the organisation.

Leadership must be clear about expectations, how performance is measured and how employees are evaluated for cultural fit, among other things. It is not enough to just state the company’s values and carry out an employee engagement survey. In the post-pandemic era, corporate culture may thrive or wither based on the quality of communication alone.

At the same time, there should be an understanding that corporate culture is not static; it adapts and evolves as circumstances change – as the pandemic starkly demonstrated. Through flexibility, companies can flourish and generate value.

To be effective, business leaders must regularly assess the current state of their culture and deliberately evolve it so they can achieve their business, staff and customer objectives. This is particularly important in the age of remote working, where geographically diverse and distributed workforces have fewer face-to-face interactions.

The effects of COVID-19 will likely be felt for many years, and new tools, practices and cultural norms will continue to be adopted as we move beyond the pandemic. If companies and their employees are to prosper in this new era, communication must be at the heart of corporate culture.

Richard Summerfield