Cultivate a Positive Workplace Culture in a Hybrid Workplace | #hrmanagement #hrexecutive

During the pandemic, companies offered remote work options to keep their businesses afloat. However, with people working remotely, employees cannot build meaningful relationships with their co-workers.

This statement highlights how company culture remains crucial in today’s era of remote and hybrid workplaces. Take a closer look at how company culture can improve employees working in-office and remotely.

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Why is company culture important?

Company culture refers to the shared ethos of a company. Often, it can be based mainly on how employees interact and respond to changes within the firm. 

Now that businesses offer remote and hybrid work options, fostering a positive workplace culture has become a challenge.

Today, loneliness is one of the most significant hardships for employees working from home. Data from a survey of remote workers in 2020 showed that 35 percent of respondents struggled with loneliness or isolation.

However, a stable remote work culture can give employees a sense of unity outside the office. 

This advantage also helps build and strengthen work relationships among employees. If your company decides to return to the office sometime in the future, strong company culture can help promote a seamless transition. 

How To Cultivate a Positive Workplace Culture in a Hybrid Workplace

A positive company culture is crucial because it can help improve employee retention. This process is not only about paying your staff the wages they deserve. To support this effort, check out these secrets to developing a great company culture.

Know your team well

By helping create a positive workplace culture, you prove that you care about what drives people. One way to determine what drives your employees is to ask them to take a personality test during onboarding. 

These tests can educate managers on the different types of people that naturally gravitate toward specific roles. They can also be strong predictors of job performance.

Moreover, the tests help them understand employees and their needs better. It can also be an excellent first step to knowing new hires. If you know your employees well, it can be easy to be empathetic toward them. 

For example, one member of your company’s marketing team struggled to be happy in their role. Rather than avoiding confrontation, you listened to them and encouraged them to pursue what they wanted. 

This way, you encourage people to work where they would be happy. If you force them to stay, the culture will suffer. 

By knowing and connecting with your employees, you can communicate and resolve issues easier, which is mutually beneficial. Being genuine and staying true to what is happening with everyone has been vital in creating a solid and open culture where honesty and self-reflection are encouraged.

Learn the difference between development and training

In 2021, research non-profit The Conference Board surveyed human resource (HR) executives about employee acquisition and retention. Results showed that 80 percent of HR leads struggled to find qualified manual workers. 

Paul Osterman, a Human Resources and Management professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, had a theory of what’s causing the issue. He believed businesses are having trouble hiring because their own internal supply chains have declined due to a lack of employer-provided training.

This statement highlights the importance of investing in your people through development training. By missing out on opportunities to help your employees grow, you are crippling the framework of your organization. This mistake could lead to repeated mistakes, which could be costly for your company, especially if most of your staff lack proper training.

Some business leaders think providing their staff with relevant training can solve this issue. However, employee development involves more than bringing new hires up to speed on their responsibilities. You must train them to increase their potential for future higher-order assignments.

As an employer, you must continue to develop your employees so they can improve their skills and capabilities. Think of it this way: you are not training employees to increase profits. You want to train your staff so they can improve, even outside their roles in the company.

Celebrate wins and failures

It is common for most companies to celebrate wins to show appreciation and reward employees. However, most entrepreneurs must realize that celebrating failures and mistakes is just as important.

New entrepreneurs are afraid to try new things because they are afraid to make mistakes and fail. Unfortunately, this mindset could lead to missed opportunities, which can be detrimental to startups.

In a company where managers scold employees for failing, employees will be reluctant to try something new. This practice discourages initiative, which might make the organization’s strategies outdated.

For example, your marketing team’s new ad campaign failed to deliver desired results. Instead of scolding employees, educate marketers and take the opportunity to develop solutions as a team. This way, employees learn from their failures and can improve their future campaigns.

This practice also shows your team that you encourage and support them to take chances and be innovative. It fosters a mindset that promotes teamwork outside the office while boosting job satisfaction.

In a speech in front of Hult International Business School alums, former Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent underscored the importance of celebrating failures. According to Kent, creating an atmosphere that allows for mistakes can help you learn and be crucial for success.

“We are not bold enough to take enough risks, and risk is critical for success. We do not make enough mistakes. Do not be afraid of making mistakes; just do not repeat them. Celebrate failure, not just success,” he told aspiring professionals.

The former Coca-Cola CEO believed that celebrating mistakes creates a great organization and family. This advantage can make a company highly attractive, especially from the perspective of those feeling isolated while working remotely.

Let employees make their own goals

Letting your staff make their own goals might sound strange at first. You might ask yourself, “If my employees are making their own goals, how will I know they won’t go off track?”

However, the point is not to let them do what they want independently. By allowing your staff to set goals, you empower them to define what they want to achieve and evaluate their own performance.

Moreover, this mindset prevents you from micromanaging your team. In an Insights article, management consulting company Gartner outlined the harmful effects of micromanaging in a remote work environment, including the following:

• Lack of engagement and trust
• Lower self-esteem
• Lower productivity
• Depression

These effects could lead to lower job satisfaction, which affects company culture. If you want a positive work environment for employees, give them the freedom to do their jobs and set their goals.

In Summary

With more companies offering hybrid work arrangements, maintaining a solid company culture is crucial now more than ever. This way, you ensure that workers feel connected and engaged, regardless of where they work.