Corporate Culture Post-COVID

Throughout the last several weeks, businesses have been focused on simply continuing operations in the midst of a global pandemic. While we have discussed maintaining culture during this time as well as using your CoreVals™ to facilitate difficult conversations, have you considered what your corporate culture may look like once offices are back open? Though shelter-in-place orders will soon begin to expire, our daily lives will still be far from the normal that we once knew. From new cultural habits learned during a months-long work from home to taking precautions to keep your employees healthy and safe, now is the time to begin thinking about how your workplace will look once reopened.  

Let’s begin with the obvious: ‘business-as-usual’ will become more casual. From the daily timeline to attire, business leaders have learned that their employees were capable of productivity while working in a less formal environment. The “work longer=better performance” attitude will disappear, and it’s about time! The need for flexibility will lose its stigma, because it has been learned during this time that if someone needs to come in late or leave early for a personal reason, it doesn’t have to affect their work. Not to mention, personal life has certainly made its entrance into the workplace during Zoom meetings and virtual happy hours from the kitchen. Have to work from home for x, y or z reason? No problem. We simply all relate more to the real lives of our colleagues, and this will make a significant difference in the workplace. 

This increased relatability will absolutely lead to increased performance. Why? Because connection leads to trust, and trust leads to performance. In this same vein, your CorePurpose™ and CoreVals™ will be more important than ever before to maintain a great culture. By acknowledging what the company is about in big-picture terms, where they fit, and how to operate, especially while moving forward from COVID-19, you will increase this relatability. It also makes employees feel valued and like they are making meaningful contributions to the world, not just showing up to work because they have to. More than anything, people don’t want to do frivolous work- they want to spend their time wisely. It might sound obvious, but people care about how they feel, and they want to feel real, especially in times like these. 

While the overarching culture will become more casual in general, there are certain precautions that will begin to take shape in the physical office space. With a huge push for open and shared workspaces in the last decade, how will these adapt to a socially distant world? Cushman & Wakefield has introduced their “6 Feet Office” concept, a 6-step process to help their clients prepare for their return to the office. Air Traffic controllers are bringing their own keyboard and mouse to work each day, and are also working with the same crew on all their scheduled shifts, so that if a tower employee becomes infected, that person would expose only the other members of his or her crew and not members of other crews. A mega-insurance company in Chicago is toying with the idea that upon return, only 25% of any given "team" should be in the office at once, the rest working from home on a rotating schedule. Some may wonder if we will lose human connection through this process. The irony of it all, is that while physical human connection may lessen as we shun handshakes and hugs, better human connection could result overall. 

As we get closer to re-integrating into the world post-COVID, keep in mind that there is a certain generation of future entrepreneurs and employees that will be called Generation C for the generation that was so impacted at such a tender time in their young lives. Kids that are currently between the ages of 2-10 will remember the time where everyone was at home, and may have strong feelings about keeping personal distance and procedures that will stick with them as they enter the workforce. That said, it is safe to say that office culture will never fully return to what it was pre-COVID. 

While we get ready to gingerly return to our office spaces, be comforted by the fact that these changes won’t necessarily adversely affect the company culture that you have worked so hard to establish. In fact, it could do quite the opposite. I want to leave you with this article that was recently published in the New Yorker: What Submarine Crews and Astronauts Can Teach Us About Isolation. It is a great perspective on both actions that can be taken in the now, but also those that can be applied for the future to maintain a healthy team. 

If you are looking for some additional perspective on your company’s re-entry to the office, feel free to send me an email to Will@cultureczars.com and we would be happy to set up a call! 

Will Scott