Gartner says 76% of HR leaders feel that hybrid work challenges employees’ connection to organisational culture. A February 2022 Gartner poll of more than 200 HR leaders reveals the most challenging aspect of setting their hybrid strategy is adjusting the current organisational culture to support a hybrid workforce.
While 40% of HR leaders reported they have increased their culture budget since the beginning of the pandemic, a Gartner survey of more than 3,900 hybrid/remote knowledge workers in December 2021 revealed only one in four is connected to their organisation’s culture.
“Hybrid and remote work hasn’t necessarily changed our culture, it’s changed the way we experience the culture,” said Alexia Cambon, director in the Gartner HR practice.
She explained that while employers used to be able to frame their cultural values and hang them on the walls for employees to see, this no longer works today when hybrid and remote knowledge workers spend 65% less time in offices than before the pandemic.
The pre-pandemic workplace cultural experience was grounded in the physical environment employees worked in. It was defined primarily by three experiential attributes: Working in an office space controlled by their employers; being surrounded by colleagues and having physical proximity to each other, and experiencing culture at a macroscale via interactions with colleagues that employees worked with directly and indirectly.
Culture connectedness in a crisis
Culture remains imperative for employees to succeed — 76% of employees say culture is very or extremely important for them to be effective at their job. Sixty-one per cent of HR leaders say that to achieve organisational goals, culture is more important in a hybrid work model than in an on-site work model.
For a culture to truly succeed, employees must be aligned and connected to it. Culture alignment means employees understand and buy into the culture of their organisation, while culture connectedness encompasses employees identifying with, caring about and belonging within their organisation’s culture. Together, these two measures — culture alignment and culture connectedness — are key to assuring culture impact.
Cambon commented that historically, senior leaders have intentionally invested in driving culture alignment, but have primarily relied on culture connectedness to occur through ‘osmosis:’ relying on time in offices, in-person and at a macroscale to make employees feel connected to culture.
“Employees at all levels, and across demographics, are suffering from a connectedness crisis, which suggests this problem isn’t just related to hybrid and remote work, but to organisations’ lack of intentionality in driving connectedness historically,” she continued.
Drive cultural connection by intention
Some organisations are trying to ensure employees connect to the culture by forcing a return to the office. Organisations that take this approach will face a significant attrition risk. In fact, organisations that force their employees back to a full on-site arrangement could lose 33% of their workforce.
“Contrary to popular belief, flexibility is not in tension with culture. The more flexibility an employee has, the more likely they are to be connected to their culture,” added Cambon.
The December 2021 survey of the more than 3,900 hybrid and remote knowledge workers revealed that only 18% of those with the least flexibility felt a high degree of connectedness to their organisational culture, while 53% of those workers who had radical flexibility in where, when and how they work reported high culture connectedness.
To drive culture connectedness by intention, leaders must make three key shifts:
Diffuse culture through work, not just in the office. The office is no longer the most common, constant cultural experience. Organisations should identify opportunities to enable employees to see and feel connected to the culture through the new cultural constant: the work itself.
Connect through emotional, not just physical, proximity. As in-person interactions become rare, HR leaders should identify the moments where employees are most likely to feel seen — rather than be seen — to connect them to culture. These moments of emotional proximity occur when an employee feels important, valued, and recognised.
Optimise micro-based experiences, not macro-based experiences. The hybrid world shrinks ecosystems. As employees engage with fewer people, these relationships intensify and make up the bulk of the employee experience. Leaders must equip teams to create vibrant and healthy microcultures that encourage greater connectedness.
The organisations that succeed at connecting employees to their culture can increase employee performance by up to 37% and retention by up to 36%.
“In today’s volatile business environment, these gains translate into a significant competitive advantage,” concluded Cambon.
