Post-pandemic, the hybrid workforce is a permanent reality, but what does this mean for the organizational culture and effective leadership skills? Some changes are necessary to ensure all employees remain connected and collaborative and maintain a sense of inclusion and belonging. -By Dave Desouza

Remember the old saying “out of sight, out of mind”? That is the exact opposite of what organizational leaders should think, when the workforce structure is hybrid. Post-covid, the workforce structure has significantly changed, which has implications for effective leadership skills for maintaining employee engagement and a strong positive organizational culture. When everyone was in the same workplace, it was easier for managers to strengthen the corporate culture with traditional employee engagement best practices, but now employees work in distributed work environments. Your managers cannot stop by the workstation of a remote worker to ask how things are going, hold face-to-face meetings, or support a sense of community among all employees with onsite socialization events. Looking back, shaping the organizational culture seemed much easier before than it does now, when employee expectations about work and work schedules, management and the work itself have changed. Fostering a positive organizational culture when employees work in different locations and have flexible schedules calls for new leadership skills that support the intentional development of a positive, inclusive culture that all employees embrace.

Creating a Cohesive Culture in the Hybrid Workplace

The former CEO of IBM, Louis Gerstner, Jr., once said, “I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn't just one aspect of the game, it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.” Culture is at the top of the pyramid of critical organizational factors for success.

Before the COVID pandemic, most people worked onsite or in the office and could therefore interact and collaborate at will. In the hybrid workplace, many culture-supporting factors disappear or change form. Managers are leading employees they have less opportunity to interact with in person, who work a variety of schedules, and who do not regularly participate in culture-building events in the workplace. Many remote employees do not collaborate as much as they used to with coworkers, nor do they have as many opportunities to interact with employees outside their department or division, which has a real potential to negatively impact innovation and the sense of inclusion and belonging.

The company culture is at risk of eroding without adaptive leadership. Post-pandemic, employers are discovering that maintaining the company culture requires new leadership skills and also new strategies for maintaining collaboration among team members, feedback, and communication. The goal is to create a cohesive culture with new parameters.

Adapting Leadership Skills in the Hybrid Workplace

From the leader’s perspective, the hybrid workplace may lead to the feeling that they have lost control of their teams. Younger employees especially have different perspectives on organizational leadership. They want work autonomy, flexibility, and employee voice. Delivering on these expectations makes it even more difficult for managers and supervisors to effectively manage, unless they have the right skills.

What are these new skills? Obviously, leadership must learn how to develop the aspects that support a positive culture in a blended workforce. Though some workforces are fully remote, the hybrid workforce can take many forms. Some employees may work remotely full-time, but many workforces are comprised of employees who work, for example, two days a week outside the office and three days onsite. This enables opportunities to bring employees together in the workplace, where they can interact like they did pre-pandemic. The difference is that the interactions should include leader-led conversations about what works and does not work for collaboration and workflows between remote and onsite employees.

Giving all employees a voice is one of the most important steps your managers can take to maintain a positive culture. There is always the danger that people with limited time in the office each week will disengage. The onsite interactions must be more intentional by creating opportunities for socialization and collaboration. If all the employees are in the office on a particular day each week, developing these opportunities is simpler. However, flexible schedules mean all employees are never in the workplace simultaneously in some cases. In that case, managers should schedule regular weekly, monthly, or quarterly meetings that all employees must attend.

Defining Purpose and Developing Soft Skills

Managers at all organizational levels also need to develop a high level of trust among all employees. When employees work remotely it is tempting to micromanage, but today employees want autonomy, allowing them to prove their competencies and capabilities. Micromanaging will drive these employees to other companies, but this does not mean managers give up their right to make decisions – even unpopular ones. Laszlo Bock worked at Google and wrote the book Work Rules! He says, “While hybrid is often presented as a new model, the fundamentals of what transforms a group of people into an exceptional team haven’t changed as much as we might think.” His research found that one of the principles that has not changed from the pre-pandemic to the post-pandemic period is that “Purpose matters more than ever.” Every task and project should be mission-driven and tied back to the reasons the work of employees matters. Being purpose-driven is unifying, and both supports a cohesive culture and strengthens feelings of inclusion and belonging.

Ernst & Young’s research found that leaders in hybrid workplaces need well-developed soft skills to provide the level of support employees need. EY shared five insights from their survey of 1,000 employees in hybrid workplaces. Leaders should “lead their hybrid team with empathy, compassion and care, act with flexible working in mind, revive informal and formal learning, hyperfocus on network building, and use hybrid communication to create a working world that enables people to succeed.” The well-being of all employees remains crucial to maintaining a positive workplace culture, and inclusion and belonging are key factors. The hybrid workplace means leaders must rebuild organizational networks and establish new communication systems to ensure teams are not siloed, all employees have learning opportunities, and communication with hybrid workers is effective. It is easy to let some things slip out of alignment with business goals, like the internal communication system that does not fully integrate hybrid employees.

Leadership is the Source of Employee Engagement

Leadership has always been the source of employee engagement, happiness, and inclusion, and that has stayed the same now that the hybrid workforce is here to stay. Organizational leaders can no longer rely on past leadership behaviors without adjustments to accommodate the hybrid workforce. Managers must be adaptable, agile, and open to new ideas. Most of all, they need to have the skills to connect with people and to help people connect with each other no matter where they are working.