Businesses turn to nature in a bid to restore company culture

Com­pa­ny cul­ture is a cru­cial ingre­di­ent for effec­tive team­work and staff reten­tion. Remote work­ing presents new chal­lenges – and demands new solu­tions.   

Over the course of the pan­dem­ic, some organ­i­sa­tions have seen peo­ple join and leave the busi­ness with­out ever meet­ing their team mem­bers in per­son. Many work­places will be all too famil­iar with the chal­lenge of devel­op­ing effec­tive work­ing rela­tion­ships over Zoom. 

Remote work­ing has made it hard­er to pre­serve com­pa­ny cul­ture. It’s an impor­tant issue for employ­ees, with 54% of work­ers will­ing to walk away from an employ­er that doesn’t pri­ori­tise cul­ture, accord­ing to a recent Cezanne HR sur­vey. 

Some busi­ness­es have attempt­ed to address the issue by encour­ag­ing staff back to the office, but forc­ing this on staff and remov­ing the flex­i­bil­i­ty they’re now accus­tomed to can prove just as unpop­u­lar.  

Solv­ing this chal­lenge will require new solu­tions. Some organ­i­sa­tions are look­ing beyond the four walls of the office to rein­stall the col­lab­o­ra­tive ener­gy and team spir­it that have been miss­ing over the last two years.

Back to nature

For soft­ware giant Sales­force, part of the answer is its 75-acre Trail­blaz­er Ranch. The new ‘well­ness cen­tre’ has been con­struct­ed in Scotts Val­ley, Cal­i­for­nia, and fea­tures a fit­ness cen­tre, sleep­ing pods, an out­door amphithe­atre and com­mu­nal din­ing area. Employ­ees can par­take in nature trails, yoga ses­sions and cook­ery class­es.  

Sales­force pres­i­dent and chief peo­ple offi­cer Brent Hyder says col­leagues have missed being togeth­er and form­ing con­nec­tions over the course of the pan­dem­ic. “With employ­ees work­ing in a new flex­i­ble envi­ron­ment, our phys­i­cal spaces now serve a dif­fer­ent pur­pose today than they did two years ago, so we need­ed to find a way to empow­er our employ­ees to come togeth­er safe­ly, con­nect and col­lab­o­rate, and grow per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly.”

Although 77% of Sales­force staff said they want­ed to meet with their teams in per­son once more, the com­pa­ny recog­nis­es that many peo­ple have ben­e­fit­ted from the flex­i­bil­i­ty of the cur­rent work­ing arrange­ments. “Par­ents have seen more of their kids, recent grad­u­ates moved to afford­able cities, and indi­vid­u­als made more time for well­be­ing.” 

Trail­blaz­er Ranch was con­ceived as a solu­tion. The aim is for 10,000 of Salesforce’s glob­al employ­ees to vis­it the ranch and ben­e­fit from the facil­i­ties this fis­cal year. The space was designed around nature and well­be­ing and the com­pa­ny hopes it will be a place where col­leagues can “forge trust­ed rela­tion­ships, learn from one anoth­er, get inspired, grow in their career, and give back to the com­mu­ni­ty”.  

In the UK, there’s been surg­ing inter­est in nature-based team­work­ing ses­sions. Man­ches­ter-based Fresh­walks, which facil­i­tates hik­ing ses­sions for cor­po­rate clients, has seen an 84% increase in demand between 2019 and 2021. Its founder Michael Di Pao­la thinks this is part­ly due to the shift to hybrid work­ing. 

“Employ­ers and their teams have been look­ing for a team­build­ing for­mat which encour­ages nat­ur­al human con­nec­tion in a safe and healthy way,” he says. “Teams are look­ing for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to get away from their desk and get togeth­er with col­leagues to share new expe­ri­ences and build their rela­tion­ships.”

Com­mer­cial prop­er­ty busi­ness Brunt­wood Works has ben­e­fit­ted from such ‘net­walk­ing’ ses­sions. Direc­tor Rob Valen­tine says the expe­ri­ence is a per­fect way to cre­ate a more mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ship with col­leagues. 

“There’s a qual­i­ty to the con­ver­sa­tion that you just can’t achieve on video calls, which has brought immea­sur­able ben­e­fits to the busi­ness. Cul­ture is the beat­ing heart of our busi­ness, and it’s cru­cial that we find ways to pre­serve it even when we’re not see­ing each oth­er as often.”

Back in the saddle

Jude Jen­ni­son, founder of Lead­ers by Nature, has noticed a sim­i­lar trend. Her lead­er­ship cours­es were inspired by her expe­ri­ence of over­com­ing a fear of hors­es. After 17 years at IBM work­ing across sev­er­al lead­er­ship roles, Jen­ni­son set up her own coach­ing busi­ness, which uses hors­es to teach peo­ple how to lead in a clear and engag­ing man­ner. 

“If you exude con­fi­dence and you’re clear about what you’re ask­ing the horse to do, then they will usu­al­ly engage,” she says. “But if you don’t build a strong rela­tion­ship and there’s no trust, the horse will plant its feet and refuse to move. It’s the clear­est feed­back you’ll ever get on your lead­er­ship and team com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills.” 

Although the cours­es couldn’t run dur­ing much of the lock­downs, book­ings are now busier than ever. “Teams have been work­ing remote­ly for so long and some have nev­er met each oth­er,” Jen­ni­son explains. “Where peo­ple don’t have those lev­els of trust, respect and under­stand­ing there’s no sub­sti­tute for that face-to-face con­tact.” 

Eman Al-Hillawi, CEO of busi­ness man­age­ment and IT con­sul­tan­cy Entec Si, has con­tin­ued to take her col­leagues to see Jennison’s hors­es through­out the pan­dem­ic. “We felt that the teams had become more dis­tant and dis­con­nect­ed from each oth­er by virtue of the fact that we’re all remote­ly work­ing,” she says.  

Pre­vi­ous­ly employ­ees were able to vis­it client sites as a team, she says, but the pan­dem­ic made work quite two-dimen­sion­al. “Jennison’s ses­sions have helped the team to recon­nect and prob­lem solve togeth­er.” 

Getting to know you

In the effort to main­tain com­pa­ny cul­ture, some busi­ness­es are even tak­ing hol­i­days togeth­er. Com­mu­ni­ca­tions con­sul­tan­cy Magen­ta has a small team of 13 peo­ple. In addi­tion to flex­i­ble work­ing poli­cies and quar­ter­ly out­ings, the busi­ness organ­is­es an annu­al mini break for the entire com­pa­ny. Hol­i­day des­ti­na­tions have so far includ­ed Lis­bon, Seville, Lyon and a stay­ca­tion in Dorset. 

Man­ag­ing direc­tor Jo Suther­land says it’s “the per­fect way to inte­grate new peo­ple”. She thinks that by cre­at­ing a greater close­ness and cama­raderie, col­leagues work hard­er for one anoth­er.  

The com­pa­ny has host­ed such an away trip every year since 2016, exclud­ing 2020 due to the pan­dem­ic. The hol­i­days have become a par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant part of the company’s cul­ture since mov­ing to a hybrid work­ing set­up. 

“You find things out about one anoth­er that you wouldn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly get to know in an office envi­ron­ment,” Suther­land adds. “I don’t think you always get that same lev­el of under­stand­ing of the peo­ple you’re work­ing with at oth­er com­pa­nies.” 

As more com­pa­nies look to recap­ture the team spir­it that was once fos­tered in the office, a grow­ing num­ber of busi­ness­es are look­ing out­side to rekin­dle their com­pa­ny cul­ture. For these firms, work­er retreats and team­work­ing excur­sions have allowed col­leagues to recon­nect, with­out los­ing the free­dom and flex­i­bil­i­ty that hybrid work­ing offers.