The Inevitable Change In Work Culture

Does remote work help or hurt?

Businesses are talking transformation in almost all industries right now. Yet, since March of 2020, businesses did respond quickly to the pandemic by having their workforce work remotely. The reality is that, this transformative event for businesses set a new bar given the speed with which Covid-19 policy changes occurred. If this had been 10 years earlier, many more businesses might have failed, rather than persevered.

Since the beginning of this pandemic, there has been a wealth of articles extolling the benefits of working from remote work (the new normal). In fact, many companies have established—and are implementing—policies for working remotely even after the pandemic is over.  

Given these new policies, what else have we learned from the pandemic?

It is difficult for many companies to maintain or improve a company’s culture, when everyone is dispersed. Think about those companies with offices located in different states, countries, or continents (pre-pandemic). One of the most common complaints I’ve heard through the years is that when these offices are involved in a project or a change in policy, there are always exceptions for certain regions or certain offices. Differing policies generally equals resistance: “We aren’t like headquarters…;” “We have different needs…;” “This way works for us, so you go do this for everyone else but leave us alone…;” and so on. Now, your internal workforce is the “remote office.”

How do you bring a common mindset to an organization that may not have as strong of a connection to your mission? It isn’t easy. All the things that were said early on about the pandemic, isolation, and mental health…still hold true.  
 

Though the idea for open office spaces began in the 1960s, Google really popularized the idea in 2003. But somewhere around 10 years later, they changed their minds; it hadn’t brought the results they anticipated. Even prior to the pandemic, companies were still spending millions of dollars to move to the open space model. Why are companies still jumping on the bandwagon of solutions that have proven to be anything but?

In the same manner of open office spacing, I believe that too many organizations are jumping on the bandwagon of remote working without thinking through the long-term effects. As I’ve written in previous articles, IBM is a great test case for this. They had 40 percent of their workforce remote from the 1980s to the mid-2010s. They brought everyone back at that time because they realized that productivity goes up when they are remote (common observations in most companies) yet innovation went down. While an increase in productivity is a phenomenal goal, it was at the cost of innovation (the lifeline of any company).

I may sound like a broken record, but it is an important lesson. Short-term goals of productivity can make the case for remote work yet what happens to your company when new ideas stop? Innovation is not done in a vacuum. An idea is expanded by sharing as you head to the proverbial water cooler and stretched when you have five extra minutes to throw out some ideas in a face-to-face meeting at the end of the day. I’m not claiming that innovation can’t happen when everyone is remote but it’s far less likely on Teams or Zoom. Even our workday process of back-to-back meetings (on productive stuff) doesn’t leave much room to discuss new ideas.

The companies that think through a remote work policy for certain skills, should consider a hybrid-to-full time in office model for the staff who are involved in innovation or project work. They have a better chance of focusing on innovation and competing harder with those companies that are purely remote.

Let’s not forget all of your employees that were just hired or have little experience in your company. There’s a stereotype that they will, considering the current climate, enjoy remote work. But what can we expect in the future? We aren’t mentoring them, developing them, or bringing them along to develop them as we have done for prior employees. We also won’t necessarily be able to easily recognize those employees with more potential. It’s not an impossible situation, but it’s definitely more difficult and requires more deliberate thought and planning. Leading by example is a great practice, complicated by remote work, but still, the best way to develop new employees and our next generation of leaders.

Being remote is isolating. It’s hard to develop the next generation of leaders, if you don’t have an opportunity to physically work with them, lead them, and understand their strengths (and weaknesses). If this continues in most companies, even after the pandemic is over, we risk creating productivity resources that don’t understand the importance of continual improvement and growth through innovation. We risk resources leaving because without the culture, they realize that they don’t enjoy the work anymore and can get more money elsewhere. And just as important, we are creating more divides in our society.

We teach our children to learn how to socialize while going to school. We also teach young adults how to work together and how to grow into the executives of the future. Can that happen on Zoom or Teams? Maybe. But it may be very difficult for those with potential. The short-term benefits may be overshadowing the long-term goals we ultimately need—and want. Try not to follow the pack on this. Every organization should be transforming their office/work-from-home policy to ensure that long-term goals are addressed once we are done (or at least freer) from the pandemic.