How should organisations foster a positive workplace culture as lockdowns gradually ease and employees start returning to worksites? We look at how the work environment will change and how organisations should strategise.

Organisations that have come through the worst of the COVID-19 era are now facing a new challenge: how to tackle changing workplace practices as lockdowns and restrictions are eased. Your organisation will likely be looking at hybrid teams and staff working to different schedules for a while yet.

This article addresses how employers can build and strengthen a positive workplace culture during this transition period. We look at the changes to work which are likely to happen. We also quickly review why you should make an effort to build a great culture before exploring practical strategies for building a stronger working culture.

Changes to the work environment

COVID-19 and its restrictions have seen some organisations furloughing their employees as well as implementing remote working environments. Upon returning to work post-lockdown, your business might be transitioning back to more full-time staff and using hybrid teams. The challenge is to maintain a strong culture, of collaboration and shared values, to drive productivity and engagement.

Full time

Team members who have taken a leave of absence or had their hours cut back might be returning to full-time work at the office and at home some of the time. Your organisation will need to manage this return to full-time hours. You’ll have more staff working on-site and be facing the likelihood of clients coming on-site as well.

Hybrid teams

The transition back to the old normal might never occur for many workplaces - at least not immediately. A lot of your employees might be interested in working from home as much as possible or at least some of the time.

You will be working to establish an optimal combination of onsite and remote working arrangements. Managing hybrid teams of on-site and home-based staff could be the new normal for your business.

Hybrid schedules could also be the norm. This means a combination of full-time and part-time staff and team members who work to individualised or changing schedules.

Benefits of a healthy work culture

A healthy, positive workplace culture supports higher morale and can drive productivity and efficiency in your organisation. In addition, businesses with strong work cultures might have lower turnover, which means major cost savings for the business.

Your employees might be less stressed and more likely to be happy and satisfied with their jobs. They might be more successful at collaborating with colleagues.

In many cases, prospective employees are more likely to want to work for you if your organisation has a positive workplace culture. All of these factors can lead to better performance for your organisation, enhanced reputation, and an improved bottom line.

Creating a positive workplace culture

To create a positive working environment when returning to the office, we recommend you apply the following strategies.

Affirm organisational values

Your organisation’s values, beliefs, and principles make up its culture. What does your organisation stand for and what’s its purpose? With the disruptive changes associated with COVID-19 and post-lockdown rules, your teams could benefit from a reminder of what their work and employer stand for.

To build cohesion and a stronger work culture, remind your staff of your organisation’s mission, values, and purpose. Communicate these clearly and concisely. These could include diversity, inclusion, collaboration, or certain social and enterprise values. In an ideal world, your workforce should feel connected and engaged with your mission.

Ensure effective communications

Without effective communications, your organisation will find it challenging to build a cohesive, consistent company culture embraced by staff. Technology can be a powerful enabler for this (see below).

However, your messaging itself can also make the difference when it comes to buy-in, to your cultural vision, by your staff. Focus on inclusive, open communications which foster employee engagement. Also make sure leaders are available to individual staff who may want to speak to them about concerns or for private catch-ups. People respond to change in different ways, and employees should always have avenues for giving feedback and sharing thoughts with leaders.

It’s also vital to have a communication strategy to manage expectations along the way. In any period of transition, your employees face uncertainty and may feel doubtful and hesitant about how their workplace is changing.

Keep them up to date and let them know what’s coming so they’re not shocked or surprised by unannounced changes or unfulfilled promises. Be transparent and consistent. In this way, you can minimise the risk of your employees becoming disillusioned about the process.

Keep embracing technology

Ensure you have appropriate technology tools to facilitate optimised communication across hybrid schedules and teams as well as remote teams. Your platform(s) should make it easy for everyone to see who’s available when and where. They should have different communication channels, ranging from chat to video conferencing, to suit different collaboration needs.

Casual hallway conversations and other organic interactions are important for fostering goodwill and culture. However, remote working arrangements may have drastically reduced opportunities for these. One solution might be to offer tools for virtual get-togethers so teams can get together for “virtual drinks” and casual catch-ups.

Whole-team meetings and on-site, face-to-face meetings could be scheduled so you bring everyone together on a regular basis. This enables you to share successes and important updates.

Review leadership styles

Consider the leadership styles which best support hybrid working environments in your organisation. This could be, for example, more empathetic leaders prioritising staff wellbeing. Work on choosing the right line managers and senior leadership to guide your organisation through this transitional phase and beyond.

Appoint managers who performed well when managing remote teams during the pandemic. Ultimately, your leadership approaches will likely want to support a safe, inclusive, collaborative, and innovative working environment in a post-lockdown period.

Update induction processes

An effective induction could reduce the risk of turnover and ensure your personnel settle into the organisation as quickly as possible. With 100% remote teams, organisations had to induct employees virtually.

As you shift to hybrid working arrangements, consider how new staff will be inducted. This could be a combination of in-person and virtual processes, as well as buddies and mentors who can provide valuable guidance for new employees.

Induction should cover all the essential details about their employment conditions as well. For example, for new staff in administrative and clerk roles, induction should include detailed information on their awards and entitlements.

Create remote-working policies

If your organisation hasn’t already created formal remote-working policies, do so as soon as possible. If you already have policies, update them as necessary as your workplace transitions back.

These should be practical guidelines standardising remote working arrangements for all employees. Ideally, your policies should also detail how communications take place across both hybrid and remote teams.

For example, you might have a preferred technology platform for bringing together your hybrid teams. Offering guidelines on how the platform should be used can reduce excessive, unnecessary messaging taking up your team members’ time.

Obtain employee feedback

Provide your employees with avenues for feedback to share their experience, whether it’s about remote working, hybrid team working environments, or anything else relevant to morale, culture, and productivity.

Where possible, integrate their feedback into improvements for your work arrangements. This enables you to address the needs of individuals and teams and demonstrate to your staff you’re taking their views into account. In turn, this could support better morale, engagement, and productivity.

Stay flexible

As with any process of change, avoid being too rigid about how your teams are working. Start with a framework which will provide sufficient guidance, but start flexible so everyone feels empowered to adapt when required. The ideal approach is teams, leaders, and top management working together to discover what works well and what processes and approaches should be discarded.

Be fair

More likely than not employees will want to have the option to work remotely for at least part of their week. Be fair when determining who can work from home and who needs to be on site more of the time.

Managers, for example, will likely be spending more time at the office as they need to be leading both in-office and remote teams. As such, communicate these reasons clearly so employees aren’t left in the dark about how decisions in this area are made.

You could end up deciding everyone comes in three days a week or certain teams can work remotely for much of their project duration. As long as you’re consistent, fair, and transparent, it’s likely your employees will be satisfied and not disgruntled about your decision.

Prioritise team-building

Teams will continue to be an important part of your organisation’s structure and culture. Keep making an effort to build strong teams, whether these are for individual projects or permanent teams in certain departments. Use social days, team days, and recognition to nurture a stronger sense of team identity.

Team-building days are a great way to bring people into the office and have them develop stronger collegial relationships, face to face. At the same time, make sure “bubble teams” don’t become isolated and insular. Cross-functional teams and whole-company days are a good way to prevent this from occurring.

Address work health and safety

Work health and safety have taken on broader dimensions in the COVID-19 era. Your organisation’s existing policies likely need to continue evolving as you transition into post-lockdown arrangements.

Ensuring your workplace is safe may include temperature checks at entry ways. It could entail a change to your floorplans, to maintain a degree of social distancing. More stringent cleaning processes might need to be introduced.

Other measures like contactless lifts and taps in toilets and hand sanitisers could also be implemented. You could also broadcast regular reminders to encourage staff with symptoms to stay home.

Seek professional advice from work health and safety experts where appropriate, to develop solid policies in conformance with regulations in this area.

These measures can contribute to a positive workplace culture by allowing your employees to feel safe on site. Additionally, your staff will know your business is fully compliant with best-practice guidelines and regulations in the area.

In Summary

As your organisation shifts back to a new normal after the lifting of restrictions and lockdown rules, it’s more important than ever to manage your workplace culture. A good workplace culture could boost morale, productivity, and collaboration. It can reduce turnover and ultimately optimise the performance of your business.

Your workplace might be transitioning back to more full-time employees, with hybrid schedules and hybrid teams. This presents unique challenges for building a strong work culture.

The following strategies could help foster a positive workplace culture:

• Affirm organisational values

• Ensure effective communications

• Keep embracing technology

• Review leadership styles

• Update induction processes

• Create remote-working policies

• Obtain employee feedback

• Stay flexible

• Be fair

• Prioritise team-building

• Address work health and safety

Building a positive workplace culture requires effective communication and employee engagement, especially when on the topic of organisational values and mission. Use tools like technology and remote-working policies to help staff and leaders navigate the changing landscape.

Above all, seek feedback, stay flexible, and be ready to adapt during this period of change!