Seventy-six percent of HR leaders feel that hybrid work challenges employees’ connection to organizational culture, according to a recent survey by Gartner, Inc. A February 2022 Gartner poll of more than 200 HR leaders reveals the most challenging aspect of setting their hybrid strategy is adjusting the current organizational culture to support a hybrid workforce.

While 40% of HR leaders reported they have increased their culture budget since the beginning of the pandemic, a Gartner survey of more than 3,900 hybrid/remote knowledge workers in December 2021 revealed only one in four are connected to their organization’s culture.

“Hybrid and remote work hasn’t necessarily changed our culture, it’s changed the way we experience culture,” said Alexia Cambon, director in the Gartner HR practice. “While employers used to be able to frame their cultural values and hang them on the walls for employees to see, this no longer works today when hybrid and remote knowledge workers spend 65% less time in offices than before the pandemic.”

The prepandemic workplace cultural experience was grounded in the physical environment employees worked in. It was defined primarily by three experiential attributes: Working in an office space controlled by their employers; being surrounded by colleagues and having physical proximity to each other; and experiencing culture at a macroscale via interactions with colleagues that employees worked with directly and indirectly.

Culture Connectedness in Crisis

Culture remains imperative for employees to succeed — 76% of employees say culture is very or extremely important for them to be effective at their job. Sixty-one percent of HR leaders say that to achieve organizational goals, culture is more important in a hybrid work model than in an on-site work model.

For a culture to truly succeed, employees must be aligned and connected to it. Culture alignment means employees understand and buy into the culture of their organization, while culture connectedness encompasses employees identifying with, caring about and belonging within their organization’s culture. Together, these two measures — culture alignment and culture connectedness — are key to assuring culture impact.

“Historically, senior leaders have intentionally invested in driving culture alignment, but have primarily relied on culture connectedness to occur through ‘osmosis:’ relying on time in offices, in-person and at a macroscale to make employees feel connected to culture,” said Cambon. “Employees at all levels, and across demographics, are suffering from a connectedness crisis, which suggests this problem isn’t just related to hybrid and remote work, but to organizations’ lack of intentionality in driving connectedness historically.”

Drive Cultural Connection by Intention

Some organizations are trying to ensure employees connect to the culture by forcing a return to the office. Organizations that take this approach will face a significant attrition risk. In fact, organizations that force their employees back to a fully on-site arrangement could lose 33% of their workforce.

“Contrary to popular belief, flexibility is not in tension with culture. The more flexibility an employee has, the more likely they are to be connected to their culture,” added Cambon. “Of the more than 3,900 hybrid and remote knowledge workers we surveyed in December 2021, only 18% of those with the least flexibility felt a high degree of connectedness to their organizational culture, while 53% of those workers who had radical flexibility in where, when and how they work reported high culture connectedness.”

To drive culture connectedness by intention, leaders must make three key shifts:

• Diffuse Culture Through Work, Not Just the Office. The office is no longer the most common, constant cultural experience. Organizations should identify opportunities to enable employees to see and feel connected to the culture through the new cultural constant: the work itself.
• Connect Through Emotional, Not Just Physical, Proximity. As in-person interactions become rare, HR leaders should identify the moments where employees are most likely to feel seen — rather than be seen — to connect them to culture. These moments of emotional proximity occur when an employee feels important, valued and recognized.
• Optimize Micro-Based Experiences, Not Macro-Based Experiences. The hybrid world shrinks ecosystems. As employees engage with fewer people, these relationships intensify and make up the bulk of the employee experience. Leaders must equip teams to create vibrant and healthy microcultures that encourage greater connectedness.

The organizations that succeed at connecting employees to their culture can increase employee performance by up to 37% and retention by up to 36%.

“In today’s volatile business environment, these gains translate into significant competitive advantage,” said Cambon.

Gartner clients can read more in the report: “Culture in a Hybrid World.”

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