Verified by 
Career
How to Create a Thriving Hybrid and Remote Work Culture
Seize a competitive advantage with a culture of “Excellence From Anywhere.”
Posted March 26, 2022 Reviewed by Vanessa Lancaster
THE BASICS
Key points
- Hybrid and remote work can lead to serious tensions around differences in time spent in the office.
- Leaders must create a work culture of “Excellence From Anywhere” that focuses on deliverables rather than where you work.
- The “Excellence From Anywhere” strategy involves adopting best practices for hybrid and remote collaboration and innovation.
The pandemic has forced organizations to recognize that they need to adapt their work culture to a hybrid and remote future. Employees may have different office schedules: Some essential employees might be there full-time, others will be there 1-3 days a week, and some may be fully remote.
However, the danger of a sense of resentment building up between “haves” and “have nots” around schedule flexibility calls for a work culture that addresses such issues. Leaders who want to seize a competitive advantage in the future of work need to use research-based best practices to create a culture of “excellence from anywhere” to address these concerns.
Our Future Is Hybrid
Surveys show that almost two-thirds of all U.S. workers worked remotely during the pandemic. Moreover, two-thirds to three-quarters of surveyed employers intend to have a mainly-hybrid schedule after the pandemic.
Plenty of large companies have already announced a switch to a post-pandemic permanent hybrid model of 1-3 days of work in the office. Meanwhile, several big companies decided to permanently let many or all of their remote-working employees work from home.
These decisions match worker desires, with surveys showing that two-thirds to a quarter of all employees want a hybrid or fully remote schedule permanently, even post-pandemic. Thus, organizations have to adapt their work culture to accommodate these needs.
Why have organizations failed to adapt to the future of work?
Leaders often fail to adopt best practices because of dangerous judgment errors called cognitive biases. These mental blindspots result in poor strategic and financial decisions when evaluating options. They render leaders unable to resist following their gut instead of relying on best practices.
One of these biases is called functional fixedness. When we have a certain perception of appropriate practices, we tend to disregard other, potentially more appropriate alternatives.
Trying to transpose existing ways of collaboration in “office culture” to remote work is a prime example of functional fixedness. That’s why leaders failed to strategically address the problems arising with the abrupt transition to telework.
Another cognitive bias related to functional fixedness is called the not-invented-here syndrome. It’s a leader’s antipathy towards adopting practices not invented within their organization, no matter how useful.
Defeating these cognitive biases requires the use of research-based best practices. It means adopting a hybrid-first model with a minority fully remote. To do so successfully requires creating a new work culture well-suited for the hybrid and remote future of work.
Adapting Your Work Culture to the “Excellence From Anywhere” Strategy
Some organizations may need some essential employees to come in full-time. Others may need to come in on a hybrid schedule even if they worked full-time remotely during the pandemic. A case in point: Some research and development staff are able to innovate better if they can access equipment in the company’s labs.
Some others may have team leaders who want them to come in one day a week to facilitate team cohesion and collaboration, even if they can do all their work remotely. And still other employees have team leaders that permit them to do full-time remote work.
Such differences over flexibility have the potential to create tension between employees. Addressing these potential cultural divides is vital to prevent a sense of “haves” and “have-nots” from developing.
THE BASICS
Leaders can address this by focusing on a shared culture of “Excellence From Anywhere.” This term refers to a flexible organizational culture that considers the nature of an employee's work and promotes task-based policies, allowing remote work whenever possible.
The “Excellence From Anywhere” strategy addresses concerns about divides by focusing on deliverables, regardless of where you work. Doing so also involves adopting best practices for hybrid and remote collaboration and innovation.
Boosting such best practices helps integrate employees into a work culture fit for the future of work while fostering good relationships with managers. Research shows these are the most important relationships for employee morale, engagement, and retention.
By valuing deliverables, collaboration, and innovation by focusing on the shared work culture of “Excellence From Anywhere,” you can instill a focus on deliverables in your employees. The core idea is to get all of your workforces to pull together to achieve business outcomes: the location doesn’t matter.
Career Essential Reads
This work culture addresses concerns about fairness by reframing the conversation to focus on accomplishing shared goals rather than the method of doing so. After all, no one wants their colleagues to have to commute out of spite.
Conclusion
The transition to a hybrid and remote work culture in the post-pandemic recovery leads to the threat of resentment of those who have to come to the office more often to those who come less often. Addressing such concerns requires creating a work culture of “Excellence From Anywhere.”
This reframes the conversation to help everyone focus on pulling together to achieve shared business objectives and prioritizing deliverables rather than where and how you work through research-based best practices.
