As We Unshackle the Workforce From Physical Offices, Is Our Culture Getting Left Behind? Plus, Lessons from George Constanza on Pretending to Work and Dunking Booths on Zoom Calls.

To maintain an edge in recruiting and retention, companies need to be in the people development business. If people aren’t growing and learning or given equal access to exciting opportunities in the company, they will leave you and go to a competitor that does.

With multi-billion dollar corporate mergers, publicly traded companies putting the shareholders ahead of employees, and a general focus on performance over happiness, people have woken up from their comas and realized that they have been living the lives of zombies.

Workers would fade away into dead-end positions for years. Like the walking dead, they would go through the motions, barely concealing their utter lack of interest in the job. They saw no future for themselves at the company. No one showed any interest in painting them a picture of what their future would look like if they stepped up their game.

So they pulled a Constanza. As the character George Costanza suggested in Seinfeld, just having an annoyed look on your face all the time makes people think that you’re stressed about work even if you’re not doing anything.

Although they will never admit it, employers lived with the dead weight.

The promotions, plumb assignments, and raises went to a small inner circle of employees before hiring managers posted the job to the company’s listings on its internal job board. The position was out of play before anyone could touch it.

Bosses already knew who they wanted to win the so-called competition before it even began. But now that the great leveler of technology has enabled a transparent marketplace of skills, job mobility has never been more fluid.

Workers are job-hopping and freelancing and starting businesses in record numbers. Last month, a report from NPR showed that applications to start new businesses hit 5.4 million in 2021, a new record.

Considering all the disruption to our personal and professional lives during the health crisis, the crash course in remote work struck a universal chord about finding meaning and a higher purpose in our work.

While reflecting significant changes in our social beliefs throughout the evolution of work, equal employment opportunity, worker’s safety, fair labor practices, the script that people followed has been relatively the same for over a century.

You would get good grades in high school, score well on the SAT college entrance exams, get a 4-year degree, and land a job with the same company for life. That was the old social contract. Be loyal to the employer, and the employer will be loyal to you in return.

That social contract has changed. The fundamental belief that it is the employer’s responsibility to take care of its people has been and will continue to be, rocked to its foundation.

Meanwhile, we can all point to examples of companies, from startups to large corporations, that challenge the status quo in this arena and put people’s happiness first. Many are outperforming their peers with less enviable cultures. In fact, please weigh in with examples of great cultures in the comments.

That being the case, there’s still a general feeling of unease in the lack of security that scares the heck out of people. It doesn’t matter whether it’s right or wrong that workers are left to be in charge of their careers. It’s emotional.

The uncertainty gives people the confidence to take a leap of faith in themselves, and that’s why they’re bolting. Whether real or perceived, the risk of leaving the corporate nest doesn’t appear to be any higher than the risk of venturing out on their own or charting a new career path.

New internal and external talent marketplaces level the playing field and make the best career opportunities available to the most talented and qualified workers. In this environment, the crème rises to the top because outdated considerations such as seniority or office politics aren’t in play.

Here, there is nowhere to hide. The most successful employers will offer fast-track programs that teach employees new skills to survive and thrive in this fiercely competitive arena.

It all comes down to embracing new ways of working and standards of behavior that create a common culture. Social bonding on teams and shared values make the remote model work.

“Spend time building trust. Trust is an incredible motivator. One of the benefits of remote work is having flexibility in the hours one works and knowing that even if a team member puts in different hours than you expect, the work will get done. If you begin to micromanage, constantly checking in and wanting routine updates, understand that you are doing more harm than good, “ said Ahmed Shabana from Parkpine Capital, as originally reported in a Forbes panel discussion.

The biggest threat to the hybrid model is a rapidly growing divide between the “in-house” and the “remote” staff. It is possible to have two conflicting cultures coexisting and competing for resources.

A high-level executive and Forbes Business Council contributor told The SWOT Report, “When this happens, remote workers can feel disconnected, isolated, and depressed. Company leaders need to build a cohesive model and provide equal technical capabilities for remote and in-person workers,” she said.

Whether your workforce is distributed or centralized or both, you can’t take shortcuts with culture. Focus on the common ground that brings all of your people together. Look closely at your own leadership style and the executives around you to ensure that the relentless focus on shared values and common beliefs is intact.

Even if it means pouring a giant tub of Gatorade on your sales manager’s head live on a national video call for making his numbers that quarter. Or, even better, do you know that humongous tank of water over which a volunteer sits on a collapsing seat?

Yeah, picture that. Then a handful of his salespeople show up at the office to take turns throwing balls at him, trying to nail the target and knock the seat out from under the magnificent bastard, sending him crashing into the water!

Then everyone laughs until they’re blue in the face, and the culture of keeping egos in check after victories translates into the new world of work. That, and reminding him that he didn’t do it alone. Boom!

Andrew Ellenberg is President & Managing Partner Of Rise Integrated Marketing, a global management consulting firm specializing in original journalism for national distribution. To submit story ideas or inquire about our custom publishing services, email andrew@riseintegrated.com or call 816–506–1257.