Introducing… the New Hybrid/Remote Office Culture

There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle now. Considering how quickly corporate America transitioned to working from home in the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s safe to assume once life returns to normal, a large portion of the workforce will continue operating this way. According to a report by CNBC, 41.9 percent of the American workforce was fully remote nine months into the pandemic. And while this number is expected to drop in 2021 as offices reopen, projections indicate by 2025, more than 36 million employees will work remotely, an increase from pre-pandemic rates of 16.8 million.

Now that the health crisis precipitating this dramatic shift has begun to abate, today’s companies are beginning to take stock of what worked and what didn’t in their forced experiment into remote office culture. As a result, they are considering new ways of doing business to retain the best aspects of this experience while mitigating the challenges.

To this end, London Business School professor Lynda Gratton identifies several factors contributing to a successful remote office culture in the Harvard Business Review. One crucial component concerns properly managing not only space, but also time, depending on employees’ tasks. For instance, those whom she dubs “strategic planners” require long stretches of uninterrupted time working alone. Their job is conducive to working remotely any time, day or night. What she terms “Product Innovators,” on the other hand, tend to perform best when bouncing ideas off others. (It should be noted, shared workspace and synchronous work schedules are also critical for face-to-face interaction.)

What comes out of Gratton’s writing is also a caution to companies in taking a one-size-fits-all management approach. Employee preferences should be considered. These can be determined by a number of dynamics, such as commute time, personal obligations, and living arrangements. For instance, someone who shares an apartment with roommates who are home during the day may focus better in an office setting. Likewise, someone with a long commute who lives alone may get more done at home. 

But before we get too locked into working remotely as the wave of the future, we must take a step back. Going forward, office culture may not be so easily defined as one or the other: working from home or the office. In fact, many companies are contemplating a hybrid office culture combining elements of both. 

Returning to Gratton, she makes mention of Fujitsu, a Japanese multinational information and communications tech outfit employing 80,000. Its hybrid approach entails three kinds of workspaces: hubs, satellites, and shared offices. Hubs are open-office spaces located in major cities suitable for brainstorming and team building. Satellites are designed for collaborations within smaller groups, either in person or through videoconferencing. And shared offices, constituting the bulk of Fujitsu’s office space, are located all over Japan near public transportation stations. They’re meant to provide a quiet place to work to both shorten commute times and foster camaraderie amongst coworkers who might feel isolated.  

Regardless of where an employer’s remote workforce performs its duties, the onus is on management to continue cultivating a strong culture, fostering team building, especially to attract and retain top talent. How to achieve this when everyone is working from different locations and at different hours is a challenge, but not an insurmountable one. “With a lot of intention and a lot of hard work, a company with a remote workforce can build a strong, positive culture that fosters teamwork, productivity, and innovation,” says Jonathan Steiman, founder and CEO of Peak Support, in Inc.

According to Steiman, the key to success is a combination of communication and community. He recommends using tools, such as Skype or Slack, to facilitate daily communications. His company also has a separate Skype channel for each team, as well as specific channels devoted to shared interests, like yoga or video games. He makes a point to engage in these channels on a regular basis, using tech for a weekly company-wide video chat to share company news, give shout-outs for jobs well done, and introduce new employees. 

Telling your company’s story well—and often—can also be an important component to creating a successful remote office culture. “I’m a strong believer in storytelling,” says Ariel Rosenfeld, VP of business development for 3d Signals, in Forbes magazine. “When operating in a remote mode, managers need to keep repeating the company’s story—its values, vision and mission—and share how every individual is contributing to the success of the company and, more importantly, creating value for its customers.”

Ultimately, the benefits of a remote or hybrid office culture are plentiful. For corporations, it can reduce the cost of leasing as well as maintaining and operating office space, which can be significant. For employees, added flexibility reduces the stress of commutes and conflicts with personal obligations. It also gives workers more ownership of their workday. According to Business Insider, employees who work remotely are happier and likelier to stay in the job longer than those who work in an office. And as everyone in business knows, happy employees make happy customers, producing a win-win for everyone. 

Even before COVID, I was talking about creating and maintaining strong office cultures in a profile with Forbes. If you need help providing support to your workforce, my team and I are ready to help as business culture specialists. Want to learn more? Contact me at laura@conoverconsulting.com and let us know how we can help you.