Maintaining an Organizational Culture in a Remote Work Setting

What do you see as the key challenges to building and maintaining an organizational culture in a work setting that features a significant degree of remote work among its employees? Does building and maintaining an organizational culture require some degree of in-person presence among employees?

Evaluating key challenges, we first considered organizations that are collaborative in their nature. Chef Robotics illustrates how a team of engineers cannot address a problem as efficiently working from home as within a shared workspace. Further, much of the company's culture is derived from the startup feel, "There's this thrill of being a little hack group of people, on a shared mission, in a startup, with little money, eating pizza and ramen." (Cutter) These groups would require a degree of in-person presence to maintain the established culture.

On a macro-level, if organizations do not define a specific structure of when employees should be in the office or remote, presenteeism threatens equity and culture. While remote work can accommodate a parent caring for their family, historically, a disproportionate share of these responsibilities falls on women. This could lead to an organization where "men significantly outnumber women in the office." (Lufkin) Whether consciously or subconsciously, we hypothesize that these in-office employees may have an easier time advancing within an organization than their at-home counterparts. How can culture exist without equity?

Transversely, polls have shown that many employees favor the ability to work remotely. Some have even shown a willingness to take a pay cut for this flexibility. Capitalizing on an opportunity to improve employee satisfaction could be a part of a new organizational culture. This isn't to assume that every organization's employees want to work from home, as depicted at Discovery Financial Services. However, consideration should be made for the emerging workforce to account for any organization's long-term future. Who will replace my current employees? What working environment will attract top performers? How large does the candidate pool become in a remote work environment? These are some of the questions that organizations should be considering.

We cannot make a blanket statement to address remote work's effects on organizational culture. While a shift to remote work may benefit some companies, others would face considerable challenges. New issues will arise. Bottom line, some organizations will effectively manage this moment in time, potentially improving their established culture, and others will falter.

Submitted 9/22/21