Cultivating corporate culture in an increasing virtual age

By Matthew Dunham

Every day tried-and-true corporate methods are being tested, requiring business strategies to pivot while keeping culture constant. While leadership has spent the last few months reassessing and restructuring their businesses to survive recent economic challenges, and while workplaces are finally returning to some degree of normalcy, the virtual workplace will continue on.

While large businesses have long operated virtually, the heartland and small businesses just recently went over the proverbial waterfall of remote working. Here are keys to cultivating corporate culture in an increasing virtual and remote age.

Workplace culture is synonymous with recruitment and retention. When culture is predominantly virtual, void of carefully-crafted workplaces, how is it cultivated? Airbnb has become a household name and revolutionized the tourism and hospitality industry, challenging the long-standing companies to critically assess their virtual strategies.

Airbnb’s founder and CEO Brian Chesky has said, “Culture is simply a shared way of doing something with a passion.” The challenge is keeping employees passionate about the work they are doing and the value they are providing when they are working independently. Cultivating this passion requires keeping a close eye and pulse on the

MATTHEW DUNHAM.

process - which is why my company, JLG Architects, recently conducted a company-wide survey to assess corporate culture while working nearly 100% remotely.

Anchor Values and Culture

When understanding how to cultivate corporate culture, we must first look to the values of the company. “You cannot deliver value unless you anchor the company‘s values; values make an unsinkable ship,” stated Indra Nooyi, former CEO of Pepsi-Co. No organization or business is big enough to have conflicting messages. In fact, the bigger the business, the simpler the message. It is often smaller businesses and organizations that struggle to clearly define, in simple terms, their values and set realistic goals for fostering a healthy culture.

Values are not just for letterheads and PowerPoints – but rather serve to inform a living, active, exciting business model and company culture. On the leadership level the key is to know who you are. Anchoring is always intentional, just as before you cultivate something it needs to be planted. It is important to know how leadership’s perspective can vary from others in the company who are not in as many vision-minded conversations.

Ask yourselves honestly: Who are you, really? What are the elements of your culture that you cannot exist without? This is key so that regardless of working within the confines of an office or virtually, your workplace corporate identity is defined. The JLG Architects survey results indicated 67% of employees thought the culture had maintained or improved over the previous three months of working entirely remotely. This is attributed to longstanding defined values, culture and mission, which transcended virtually.

Culture Encompasses Everyone

Everyone in the company contributes to the culture. Every level of your organization should know and express your values. Communicating the values clearly and tangibly to every employee is the next key step. When you think you have over-communicated about it, you have likely just begun.

It is important to remember everyone wants to belong and contribute. It is easier to categorize some people, roles, or personality types as less interested in engaging, contributing, attending events, or impacted by workplace culture. While there always will be employees disinterested in events and quieter about values, it has nothing to do with rank, role or personality type – culture encompasses everyone, and management should offer a variety of opportunities for staff to engage in and communicate the culture.

A JLG survey question based on personality types – introverts vs. extroverts – indicated no correlation between personality type and views of corporate culture while working remotely. Sixty percent of people who stated that the firm culture improved while working remote identified themselves as extroverts. Additionally, with no correlation to personality type, 12% of employees (33% introverts, 25% extroverts and 42% both) indicated feeling that their value to the company had decreased since moving online.

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Control Your Environment

The evolution of workplace design is moving away from the notion of one-size-fits-all towards a much more flexible and organic model. Being able to adapt and control your own environment is paramount – not just lighting, temperature, and ergonomics, but noise and the distraction of spontaneous drop-in colleagues.

Likewise, virtual and remote work is equally impacted by one’s freedom to find an appropriate working environment, home office, coffee shop, or kitchen table. This flexibility and control over the personal working environment will likely be one of the longest-lasting elements to influence people after COVID-19, as everyone has experienced the benefits of agility and flexibility of working remotely. People will be less likely to return to the office without that similar flexibility and customization of their environment.

The survey results found that of the 26% of employees that stated their contribution and value improved since remote/virtual work, 77% attributed it to “greater control over their working environment” and “ better connections with staff beyond their normal office team members and daily routine.”

Business is Personal

The best way to cultivate culture is through meaningful relationships. We often separate personal life and work. However, sports and entertainment investor and billionaire entrepreneur Robert L. Johnson writes, “Business is personal … make your friends before you need them.” Nothing replaces face-to-face interactions, a smile, and a strong handshake. Our increasing virtual age means each of us must become more intentional about connecting with others.

Author of Designing for How People Learn, Julie Dirksen writes, “I have this really amazing teacher. … Nobody ever says, ‘I had the most amazing textbook’ or ‘there was this really great PowerPoint.’” It sounds like a contradiction, but the more virtual we become, the more people-focused we must be. In the upper Midwest face-to-face communication is part of our fabric and connecting digitally is different than connecting in person. When working virtually, it is important to provide multiple opportunities, moments, and pauses to allow people the opportunity to connect.

Prior to the impact of COVID-19, JLG hosted weekly social hours and lunches at our locations, in addition to many other internal and community activities. Following the shift to completely virtual work, the company’s survey found that 42% of employees still considered virtual social hours and lunches to be how they best connected to the company’s culture. This is because they could engage with a larger number of employees in a relaxed environment without an agenda. Additionally, what connected people most was standard “medium size” meetings and weekly staff meetings (24%) – all larg- er-group activities. Finally, what best connected people was “calling co-workers just to check in,” essentially getting coffee virtually (18%), and having cameras on while meeting virtually (15%).

Cultivating corporate culture in the virtual and remote workplace is not a deviation from the values of the company – it is an extension. Normal relationships take work and long-distance relationships take even more intentional work. With the right strategy and opportunities, company culture can maintain and thrive both virtually and remotely. That said, nothing replaces the value and importance of gathering in person to nurture your company.

Know when and what meetings and annual events are important enough to pull everyone together. The more virtual and remote the workplace becomes, the more personal it must also become. The tools of every profession and industry are exponentially reliant on technology, while the users will always be individuals reliant on community and vibrant culture.

Three join Houston Engineering FARGO, N.D. • Houston Engineering Inc welcomes Justin Kassen and Victor Gronvold to its Fargo team, both as Engineer I.

Kassen will support water resources and municipal-related projects by preparing detailed engineering analyses, technical reports, and design plans as well as collaborating with CAD designers, engineers, and subcontractors. He is a native of Goodhue, Minn., and earned his bachelor's degree in civil engineering with minors in mathematics and psychology from North Dakota State University.

Gronvold will support water resources-related projects by preparing detailed engineering analyses, technical reports, and design plans as well as collaborating with CAD designers, engineers, and subcontractors. He is a native of Rugby, N.D., and earned his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from North Dakota State University.

Taylor Foley has joined HEI at its Minot, N.D., office as a Technician I.

Foley will work in the field and in the office providing construction observation and CAD drafting services along with some survey and construction staking.

He is a Minot native and earned his associate degree in civil engineering and land surveying from the North Dakota State College of Science.