This fall, many associations were hoping to welcome their employees back to the office. However, the Delta variant of COVID-19 has wiped out these tools and many companies now plan to continue working remotely for the foreseeable future.
The good news is that it helps keep workers safe. Delta is largely contagious and poses a threat to both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. And remote work should also reduce development.
Numerous studies have shown that there is a significant chance that employees would rather leave than return to the office. But is working from home good for company culture? After months of working remotely, this is a big concern for many managers.
In a recent survey, we found that 51% of senior executives are upset that flexible work arrangements make them vulnerable to maintaining their current culture. Based on various research, there are good reasons for similar concerns.
While telecommuting can improve performance, reduce stress, eliminate real estate costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it can also cause some workplace problems. Researchers of the Project Include determined that remote workers endured increased levels of harassment, stress and anxiety once.
In a study conducted by INSEAD experimenters, 45% of respondents said that partnership and collaboration had decreased since the outbreak. And in a study of more than 27,000 workers in Japan, researchers found that the longer workers worked, the lonelier they felt, especially if they felt unjustified by their managers and co-workers.
Many associations conduct extensive cultural studies to protect themselves from such problems. These reviews often ask organizational members to compare the current culture with an idealized future culture.
This type of gap analysis can be useful when starting a change effort. But this is not an elegant way to understand how current events affect the culture of the association. To understand how the culture of a community changes under the influence of internal and external pressures, a different approach is needed.
Many managers and leaders assume that societies should be stable. But the art philosopher Raymond Williams shows that this is not an accurate assumption. According to Williams, organizational societies are dynamic and fluid, literally shaped by precedents and traditions, contemporary values and morals, and new trends and challenges.
Building on Williams’ suggestion, psychologist Jane Bryson has shown how researchers can gain deeper insights into artistic dynamics by examining the connections between a community’s literal or residual culture, its dominant contemporary culture, and its new and influential culture.
Organizational associations do not stand still. They are constantly changing, informed by many internal and external pressures and events. By looking at your culture through a temporal lens—examining how your legacy culture, your current culture, and your emerging culture interact and shape people’s perspectives—you can better understand the driving currents, leadership hypotheses, and pressure points that influence your leaders.
Managers and employees influence their behaviour. What artistic traditions and elements underlie your business? What’s holding you back? What must-have trends will help your association increase practice engagement, improve customer service, increase creativity or increase efficiency?
What derails your employees? How should your current culture change to make your association future-proof? Use these questions to help guests identify their artistic strengths and weaknesses and create a cultural development plan.
