Hybrid Model - Remote & In Office pandemic culture shift

Organizational culture is the collection of values, expectations, and practices that guide and inform the
actions of all team members. Simply put, organizational culture is “the way things are done around
here” (Deal & Kennedy, 2000).

Prior to the pandemic, my organization was heavily involved in physical face to face meetings. Our
boardrooms & meeting rooms were the sites of many team huddles and discussions. There was the
usual scheduling mishaps & lack of room availability challenges. Outside of the designated conference
rooms, department teams met within their department hall or office space and had weekly team
meetings and end of month get-togethers. The recruitment and one-week onboarding process for HR
was all done physically. There was a strong rapport and feelings of camaraderie among the team as a
result of the regular face to face interactions.

There was infrastructure in place to allow remote access to certain systems by selected team members
(namely IT, senior management and some operations) however, the pandemic accelerated the pace of
establishing further remote work options. The COVID-19 situation forced the rapid and widespread
adoption of remote work practices that otherwise would likely have taken months to be rolled out. The
IT Team had to quickly improve hardware infrastructure to accommodate more network traffic to access
internal services, increase security protocols.

During the initial lockdowns of March 2020, the company fast-tracked efforts to facilitate remote work
strategies with the input from multiple stakeholders, including IT, HR, Marketing, Operations, and Legal,
since these groups are likely to consider different factors and perspectives when analyzing the optimal
mix of home, work and hybrid arrangements.

Some job functions showed that they were not a good fit for remote work or even the hybrid approach
and considerations around staffing were pivotal on the onset. Ultimately, by weighing the different
issues and viewpoints, the company was in a better position to determine the optimal strategy to be
implemented; mix of home and hybrid work arrangements for different teams. A flexible work schedule
was largely devised by department heads.

The company culture has now shifted in that we now primarily have meetings using online conference
platforms. Job interviews are conducted online, and onboarding process is also online. HR Training
instructors were equipped to offer online training. Helpdesk Support Staff can pick up calls from home
through the phone network and provide remote assistance. Productivity remains high in many
departments with the flexible scheduling approach and surveys indicate team morale remains high.

While we would love to have more physical interactions, the Covid-19 Pandemic has taught us to be
resilient, nimble and adaptable.