Hybrid headaches: five signs your company culture is suffering

Com­pa­ny cul­tures are hard to main­tain at the best of times. In the era of hybrid work­ing, it’s even more chal­leng­ing to man­age the blend of per­son­al­i­ties – and clash­ing egos – while steer­ing com­pa­ny direc­tion and keep­ing goals in focus.

When your staff are dis­trib­uted and work­ing in a hybrid set-up, it’s much hard­er to keep tabs on who is hap­py with their lot and who is unhap­py. And the problem’s going nowhere, with the work­place of the future like­ly to involve some ele­ment of dis­trib­uted, hybrid work­ing. One in four employ­ees in the UK is hybrid work­ing now, accord­ing to the Office for Nation­al Sta­tis­tics, with 84% of staff plan­ning to blend work­ing at home and in the office in the years to come. 

So how can boss­es iden­ti­fy poten­tial issues in their com­pa­ny cul­ture and head them off before they mush­room into big­ger prob­lems? Here are five signs that act as ear­ly warn­ing blips on the radar, plus some advice on how to stop them becom­ing big­ger issues.

1. New staff don’t know what to do

One of the most cru­cial moments in any employee’s engage­ment with a busi­ness is their first few days and weeks with the com­pa­ny. It’s then that they learn the ropes and begin to bro­ker friend­ships. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this can be dif­fi­cult to orches­trate, espe­cial­ly when work­ing remote­ly. 

Human resources plat­form Applaud got rid of its offices dur­ing the pan­dem­ic and plans on remain­ing ful­ly remote. But its lead­ers recog­nise the risks involved. “Now we have to put more effort into sup­port­ing our work­ers through all stages of their jour­ney with us,” says Ivan Hard­ing, co-founder and CEO of Applaud. “That applies from the day a job offer is accept­ed through those cru­cial weeks of onboard­ing and beyond into career devel­op­ment and pro­gres­sion.” 

The com­pa­ny devel­oped a com­mon frame­work for new mem­bers of staff to ensure they feel ful­ly equipped to join the com­pa­ny. “They have their cal­en­dars pre-booked with meet and greets, learn­ing ses­sions, a hand­ful of socials and, cru­cial­ly, cal­en­dar breath­ing space to take it all in,” says Hard­ing. 

In addi­tion, each new starter is allo­cat­ed a bud­dy. “In the old days, this used to be your desk neigh­bour,” he says, “but nowa­days it’s some­one wait­ing to give their bud­dy sup­port over instant mes­sag­ing or a web con­fer­enc­ing appli­ca­tion.”

2. People have problems switching off

Work/life bal­ance used to be an eas­i­er see­saw to man­age. You would work your allo­cat­ed hours, then trav­el home and turn off your work­ing brain and relax for the evening. But when your com­mute is from the bed­room to the din­ing room table or a home office and your work devices are con­stant­ly with­in reach, that idea of dis­crete shifts becomes more dif­fi­cult.

It’s one of the odd ironies that can blight a com­pa­ny even when they’re offer­ing some­thing that ini­tial­ly looks like a boon for work­ers. “For employ­ers, hybrid work­ing pro­vides a means to cre­ate a hap­pi­er and health­i­er work­force, result­ing in high­er lev­els of employ­ee engage­ment, reten­tion and ulti­mate­ly pro­duc­tiv­i­ty,” says Emma Par­ry, pro­fes­sor of human resource man­age­ment at Cran­field School of Man­age­ment. “How­ev­er, if not imple­ment­ed care­ful­ly, hybrid work­ing can actu­al­ly lead to a blur­ring of the lines between work and life, there­fore dam­ag­ing employ­ee well­be­ing and sat­is­fac­tion.”

3. Meetings dominate the calendar

One of the great­est chal­lenges of hybrid work­ing is retain­ing strong, clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion with­out bog­ging peo­ple down to such a degree that they’re unable to inter­act with each oth­er – or do their jobs. “With­out the face-to-face envi­ron­ment of an office, prop­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion can slip among hybrid and remote work­ers,” says Par­ry. 

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and a shared pur­pose are key ele­ments that con­tribute to a company’s cul­ture, so you need to have reg­u­lar check-ins. But go too far and you risk clog­ging up cal­en­dars with end­less Zoom calls about how many Zoom calls you should have. This can have a neg­a­tive impact on employ­ee well­be­ing, lead to end­less turnover of staff, and tank your com­pa­ny cul­ture any­way.

A mas­sive sur­vey by MIT Sloan School of Man­age­ment analysed 76 com­pa­nies with more than 1,000 employ­ees each. It found that when com­pa­nies intro­duced one meet­ing-free day per week, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty rose by 35%. Slash a sec­ond day of meet­ings from the com­pa­ny cal­en­dar and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty rose 71%. 

It’s a fine bal­ance to strike, but if you can insti­gate meet-free Mon­days while keep­ing employ­ees abreast of what’s expect­ed of them, you can improve the work­place cul­ture even when your staff are dis­trib­uted.

4. Conversations revolve around work

Casu­al chats in the office kitchen or around the water­cool­er have long been the bane of busi­ness lead­ers’ lives. The idea that some staff daw­dle in those shared break­out spaces in offices has often been seen as a prob­lem for pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, with hard-line man­agers keep­ing track of time spent away from the desk and crack­ing down on any­one who drags on the company’s effi­cien­cy.

Yet respon­si­ble employ­ers recog­nise the soft ben­e­fits those con­ver­sa­tions have on a company’s cul­ture. “Like many com­pa­nies, we found that the intro­duc­tion of hybrid work­ing required a change in how we approach com­mu­ni­ca­tion between teams,” says Alexan­der Wiede, HR direc­tor at SAP UK & Ire­land. “To ensure staff do not feel iso­lat­ed from col­leagues, we launched our Nev­er Lunch Alone dig­i­tal ini­tia­tive, con­nect­ing remote employ­ees around the world for vir­tu­al lunch­es dur­ing the work­ing day.” 

The idea is to pro­vide a place where staff don’t have to talk sole­ly about work and aren’t behold­en to an online meet­ing agen­da, but instead can con­verse about what­ev­er they want. This could see them raise issues that can be thrashed out among them­selves before they spi­ral into big­ger prob­lems.

5. Staff won’t always come in 

There remain some things that are too impor­tant or dif­fi­cult to do well remote­ly. In a hybrid work­place where remote work­ing is a pos­si­bil­i­ty, at times you might strug­gle to con­vince peo­ple who are used to work­ing from home that some things are best done in per­son. 

“While we’re embrac­ing an open approach to flex­i­bil­i­ty for our peo­ple, it does mean that coor­di­nat­ing those ‘togeth­er moments’ – which are an impor­tant part of our cul­ture – is more chal­leng­ing,” says Eliz­a­beth Hard­wick-Smith, group peo­ple and cul­ture direc­tor at con­struc­tion con­sul­tan­cy Pick Ever­ard. “All of our peo­ple are work­ing dif­fer­ent pat­terns that suit their own needs, but also any work­ing pat­tern must allow us to uphold our oblig­a­tions to our clients.”

Some Pick Ever­ard staff have pre­vi­ous­ly queried whether they need ever come back into the office. “We’ve had to set a pol­i­cy where if you’re need­ed for a par­tic­u­lar piece of work, a dis­cus­sion or event, then it has to be in per­son,” says Hard­wick-Smith. That’s impor­tant because of the sense of togeth­er­ness it brings. It also helps cut back on the dupli­ca­tion of work involved with catch­ing up employ­ees who couldn’t be there in per­son.

“We’ve also pushed our­selves to think more broad­ly about ways in which we can bring peo­ple togeth­er,” she says, “so that such events are more acces­si­ble for every­one. Main­tain­ing a mix of vir­tu­al and in-per­son occa­sions works well.”

Company cultures are hard to maintain at the best of times. In the era of hybrid working, it’s even more challenging to manage the blend of personalities – and clashing egos – while steering company direction and keeping goals in focus.

When your staff are distributed and working in a hybrid set-up, it’s much harder to keep tabs on who is happy with their lot and who is unhappy. And the problem’s going nowhere, with the workplace of the future likely to involve some element of distributed, hybrid working. One in four employees in the UK is hybrid working now, according to the Office for National Statistics, with 84% of staff planning to blend working at home and in the office in the years to come. 

So how can bosses identify potential issues in their company culture and head them off before they mushroom into bigger problems? Here are five signs that act as early warning blips on the radar, plus some advice on how to stop them becoming bigger issues.