Creating a Healthy Culture in a Changed Workplace

COVID-19 has led to a vast experiment in off-site work, which will continue even after the pandemic is brought under control. The number of U.S. employees operating from home almost tripled from several years ago and doubled from mid-March (31%) to mid-May 2020 (65%), according to Gallup. The U.S. now has over 100 million off-site personnel. In fact, a number of credit unions had to move upwards of 90% of their staff to work-from-home environments. Off-site work will be the new normal as social distancing necessitates a decrease in employee density and physical changes to the workplace.

Both management and employees alike are realizing the appeal of off-site work. As a result of the pandemic, more than half of managers that supervise off-site employees plan to increase off-site work based upon its effectiveness. McKinsey research found that 70% of off-site employees believe it is as productive or even more productive than working at the office. Employees appreciate the flexibility that remote work brings, especially to family life. More than half of at-home workers told Gallup that they would prefer to continue working remotely once restrictions ease.

Senior leaders are using this challenging experience to reimagine how their organizations and industries will operate in the future. They face myriad decisions including who should work off-site, how best to manage them and communicate with them, how to create and maintain a desired organizational culture, and how to inspire trust.

Traditional tools that build trust are not readily available with distance work. Human presence is a catalyst for trust. Innovation and creativity happen spontaneously when people interact serendipitously and can bounce ideas off of one another and build upon them. Videoconference is an effective device, and many companies found that where bonds of trust were already formed, there was barely a hiccup among at-home work teams. But eye contact and body language that transmit information important to understanding and empathy can get lost in videoconferencing. New off-site hires and newly formed teams might not be as successful in accessing such in-person insight-producing tools.

The off-site strategies are testing leadership without ready-made answers. Arriving at answers will require myriad decision-making. Greater focus will be required to ensure sharing of ideas and communication on an individualized basis to maintain organizational capacities, continue to build employee satisfaction and ensure a positive member experience.

Decisions about who, how and to what extent people will continue working from home must be tailored to the employee. For each person, managers must consider the job’s task to be achieved and the employee’s ability to do it effectively off-site. For distance employment, the roles, tasks and processes should be well-defined, and have clear timelines and measurable results. The individual must be properly prepared and have the needed technological and knowledge support. Job design must employ a fluidity between someone working off-site and onsite to optimize efficiencies. For tasks involving teams, coordination and the interdependency of responsibilities become important, especially if synchronous collaboration among team-members is needed.

Managers and leadership become significantly more important than the employee location. Pre-pandemic, Gallup reported that 70% of employee engagement was related to the manager. Now, good management becomes even more critical, and a higher level of contact and individualized attention and personalization is required. Good managers must truly listen and hear what people are saying. Listening shows empathy and becomes a way to truly understand the conditions under which employees are operating, how they perform best and how they are handling challenging situations. Managers must coach and advise accordingly with a focus on professional development, ensuring this important work is not just via email, but personalized phone calls.

Managers need to stay in touch with fully remote workers multiple times each week. High quality communication builds and maintains trust, and keeps people connected. Clarity, honesty, authenticity and humanity, all based on values, emanate through their leader’s words and actions. Leaders need to convey their reasoning, intentions and expectations in a way that makes it easy for everyone to understanding their thinking and for employees to share their own.

The communication, practices and routines that you develop during this transitional time are here to stay for a long time. Attention to creating a continued healthy culture will allow your organization to emerge from this crisis strengthened and recommitted to your mission and values, thereby making a positive difference in people’s lives.

Stuart R. Levine is Chairman and CEO for Stuart Levine & Associates and EduLeader LLC in Miami Beach, Fla.