The hybrid work environment is here to stay

The future workplace isn’t a frosty, over-air-conditioned corner cubicle surrounded by phone lines ringing; nor is it a series of geographically distant workers connecting in a strain of unending video calls—the future workplace is hybrid. However, the definition and implementation of a hybrid workplace and culture and hybrid practices are just as unique as the mission of the organization and teams that comprise it.

The COVID-19 pandemic hastened the adoption of remote work when many leaders and employees were not ready for it, with hybrid solutions continuing to be a trial-and-error experiment with no single right answer. Leaders today must lead, manage, and work differently—often figuring out how to do so as they go along. What separates successful hybrid leaders from those stuck in the past will be how they shape and transform organizational culture—the system of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs that shape how individuals in an organization behave and operate.

Read the full report to learn how you can intentionally shape and mold a hybrid work culture that best supports your organization’s goals and unique blend of work styles.

Hybrid success: 5 ways to lead with culture in mind

Today’s workforce act as both consumers and curators of culture—looking to organizational leaders to inspire and lead with culture in mind. Leaders can reinforce, transform, and sustain organizational culture with five strategic steps:

1. Show you ‘get it’ as a leader and proactively shape culture. Communicate why culture is important for your organization, and specify how it ties to the business strategy rather than speaking with ambiguous language. Share examples and stories to make it clear that how work gets done is critical to successful strategy activation.
2. Model desired behaviors. Reflect on how you are modeling organizational culture today, or ask a peer for an outside view. Consider how you can further embed these positive behaviors into your day-to-day actions and remove or stop behaviors that are countercultural. Be open and honest about this process with your workforce.
3. Hold yourself and other leaders accountable to living out your organization’s desired culture. Make this formal by embedding cultural values into organizational goals. But don’t stop there—go further, leveraging more informal settings to add topics around culture to conversational check-ins, embedding culture in organizational storytelling, and creating calendar reminders to take action related to a given organizational value.
4. Incentivize and invest in culture. Put your money where your values are. Strategically embed culture into your organization’s performance management systems and worker evaluations to create clear pathways for recognizing culturally aligned behaviors.
5. Embed culture into existing processes and ways of working. If “nobody is an island,” then culture shouldn’t be either. Demonstrate how culture spans the organization by using it as a decision-making criterion, enabler of collaboration, and influencer of how work is designed.