How do you create office culture without an office?
Covid-19 digitised even the most analogue of businesses. Even those who had flexible working and digital tools in place weren’t prepared for the seismic tsunami of 2020.
It’s been 7 years since the founders of Basecamp published the sentinel book on remote working. A lifetime in terms of technological advancement during which an entire new generation entered the workforce. In a fantastic article by Steve Galevski he articulates the 5 levels of remote working that companies must move through to reach nirvana. Many organisations are still trying to catch up with how to communicate asynchronously or facilitate a Zoom meeting properly, other companies are trailblazing.
Some will argue things have irreversibly changed, others suggest that we’ll revert to old habits in the blink of an eyelid. Either way, one thing is certain, we will be confined to WFH for some time. Google and other tech giants have publicly suggested that employees won’t be returning to the office until mid 2021. Long may their legendary free gyms and cafeterias gather dust.
We know culture eats strategy for breakfast, but without a team in a centralised location, how does one create the culture to thrive? How do you maintain motivation and collaboration when you don’t have an office to facilitate it? Or a very empty one at that?
Well the good news is that free lunches and ball pits don’t actually create the company culture. They are merely a representation of it. Digital transformation taught us that change is 10% technology and 90% people, and arguably our office culture is defined by a similar ratio.
As the lines between work life and personal life blur, and with 4/10 employees saying the balance between the two has deteriorated since they started working from home, this is going to be a big mountain to climb. Our five step process will help you explore what this means to your team and organisation:
1. Start at the heart
Remember your company values? Yes, that thing that was hanging in your office somewhere? Go back to that. No matter what you do, and what the world throws at you, this is what your organisation set out to achieve. Your values should be credible and steadfast but revisit the relevance of them to reflect current circumstances. These values should be the guiding principles for the culture you strive to create, so even without a physical office, start to think about how you can bring them to life in other ways.
2. Listen empathetically
This is not the time to talk. Dial up your empathy and listen to your staff in an open and non-judgemental way. How are they feeling? What’s important to them? Get a professional coach invoiced if you feel you can’t manage this yourself, but start by gathering the data and deepening your understanding about what they do and don’t miss from the office. Anonymised surveys can also work a treat.
3. Define what “wellness” even means
According to the dictionary, wellness can be defined as:
“the quality or state of being healthy in body and mind, especially as the result of deliberate effort”
What constitutes this is going to be different for every individual. We don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach, plus we aren’t interested in the latest fads. Wellness for each individual is going to mean something completely different.
Listening to your body may sound simple, but for an anxious, burned-out worker it isn’t always so easy. Encourage your team to take time out for reflection, and ask them to schedule 30min every Monday morning to reflect on the following questions:
What did I learn last week?
At what points last week did I feel anxious and why?
What do I need this week to enable me to be my best, both at work and personally?
This is a personal reflection and doesn’t need to be shared with others.
4. Create a plan for change
This isn’t just about fluffy wellness promises or positive thinking, but about sustainable, purpose-driven change that can genuinely help your business thrive in the new normal. It also won’t happen overnight, but it’s useful to have some idea of what you want to achieve. Workplace wellness isn’t just on the agenda anymore, it is the agenda!
Start by asking your team to look at the outputs from the previous three steps and define one clear objective they would like to achieve. This could be something like:
Improve work/life balance.
Become physically fitter.
Improve nutrition and lose weight.
This can be audacious, but also achievable. Quantify this objective with smaller, more measurable activities that will drive you towards this goal.
Work no more than 40 hours per week
Practise yoga twice a week
Reduce alcohol consumption to only Friday and Saturday night
Go for 30 min walk every day
Find 5 minutes to meditate or reflect daily
5. Remind yourself to start small
The journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step. Don’t try to reinvent and reboot everyone and everything in a single breath. This is a journey or discovery. Encourage people to try things out, see if it feels right. Learn from doing, and then scale accordingly. It’s far better to start with smaller more achievable objectives than to strive for unsustainable, lofty goals that look impressive on paper.
Encouraging teams to take small actions every day to find their own balance is the greatest gift an employer can give. Happy people. Productive teams. Successful companies.
For decades, we’ve been relying on physical proximity to substitute for true unification, but in 2020, that’s no longer an option. If culture is the sum of its parts, invest in the ones you can.
Your employees are your greatest asset to navigating these new and uncertain times. Help them build resilience and then invite them on this journey with you.