How Remote and Hybrid Work Affects Your Organization’s Culture

Check out these tips from leaders at Great Place To Work Certified companies on how to overcome the challenges of remote and hybrid work.

How has the rise of remote and hybrid work changed workplace culture?

While many employees value the flexibility offered by remote and hybrid work, the data shows that loneliness is on the rise and workers are feeling more isolated at the workplace. However, remote and hybrid work isn’t necessarily driving feelings of loneliness, according to researchers.

Instead, the roll out of remote and hybrid work policies have become key inflection points for culture at companies like Nationwide and Edward Jones, both of which made the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For? List in 2024. Both companies leaned on their values to develop policies that supported employees, a tactic that they highlight as a key reason for success.

Edward Jones has 54,000 employees, the majority of which are financial advisors and client team support staff that operate in local communities around the country. These employees work in-person, even during the pandemic, as leaders and essential resources in their communities. About 9,600 employees at Edward Jones are home office associates who work in a hybrid model with three days a week in the office. Employees who don’t live within a comfortable commute to an Edward Jones office are asked to report to an office at least three times a year.

At Nationwide, 50% of associates work remotely, and 40% keep a hybrid schedule. About 10% of mission-critical staff report to the office every day.

See our latest research report on how onsite, remote, or hybrid work drives the employee experience.

Vinita Clements, EVP and chief human resources officer at Nationwide joined Suzan McDaniel, chief human resources officer, Edward Jones for a conversation to explore the challenges and opportunities offered by remote and hybrid work at the 2024 For All Summit? hosted by Great Place To Work?.

Lean on your values

Leaders might wonder how long-term remote work is affecting company culture. Can you maintain an award-winning culture when everybody is working in different places?

“The very first thing that any company has to do is really understand its values,” Clements said. Those values should inform policies and norms, no matter where an employee works.

Nationwide launched a formalized campaign to reinforce cultural values called “We Are the Culture.” “I wanted to dispel this notion that you have to come into the workplace to experience the culture,” Clements said. “You experience the culture by your behaviors and how you treat each other.”

The campaign used storytelling to help employees have a sense of belonging and lean into leadership, no matter what role they had at the company.

The rise of remote work has also expanded Nationwide’s values as the lines between work and home have blurred.

“Before [hybrid work] it was, ‘How is the work experience for your associate? How is the work experience?’” Clements explained. Now employers are asked to care about the full life experience of a person working for their company.

“You can no longer just be concerned with what's happening in the work location,” Clements said.

“It really is about listening, deeply understanding and ensuring that we are able to meet their needs where we can." - Suzan McDaniel, chief human resources officer, Edward Jones

McDaniel also says that cultural values around care and empathy at Edward Jones have been reinforced, not weakened by hybrid work policies.

“Our spirit of caring, of altruism, of helping others, is just paramount to who we are,” she explained. “We know that that’s primarily done through relationships. And those relationships can be virtual; they can be in person; but it’s really important that we focus on those relationships.”

Is remote work a leadership killer?

Some business leaders argue that it’s impossible to mentor and manage people remotely.

Clements and McDaniel agree that remote work requires a different skill set from leaders.

“Not all of them know how to lead in a remote environment,” Clements said. “How to teach leaders how to be empathetic? How to have an empathetic ear when you’re talking to your associates? To listen to not only what they’re saying, but what are they intending to say?”

Nationwide offers a whole curriculum for training leaders on these “soft skills” and how to connect with employees.

When embracing remote work, leaders must drive transformation efforts, McDaniel shared. “Our leaders know our associates the best. They’re closest to them, they’re actively leading this.”

“You can no longer just be concerned with what's happening in the work location.” - Vinita Clements, EVP and chief human resources officer at Nationwide

Edward Jones also helps leaders understand different personas within its workforce by identifying segments with shared needs and wants and then training leaders on how to address these segments of the workforce.

Leaders receive toolkits to be able to address topics like coming back to the office or hybrid work policies. “A lot of our leaders had never had that level of conversation with that level of emotion,” explained McDaniel, “where people felt very passionately about staying home.”

To prepare for tough conversations, leaders at Edward Jones are encouraged to practice with each other, and help coach one another to have better communication with associates.

Performance management

How can leaders ensure that employees are productive and performing at a high level?

“This is a heavy lift, because every organization has to really identify: What are the outcomes?” Clements says. Measuring productivity requires more than just checking attendance.

Even when a business has record-breaking sales or bottom-line performance, that doesn’t always give a clear picture of individual performance. “You have to continually manage to understand the outputs of productivity in your business units,” Clements said.

Reimagining the office

Great workplaces are thinking about different uses for their office space. Nationwide has redesigned many offices into bespoke collaborative spaces.

Edward Jones listened carefully to employee feedback, and learned there were experiences that people had when working from home that could be replicated in the office. When leaders learned that employees missed going on walks during the workday or having walking meetings, they created walking trails near their office. When parents shared how they struggled to have time to make dinner for their family, Edward Jones responded by offering healthy meals that associates can pick up from the office and take home.

“We also have things to make it fun,” McDaniel says. Whether building an indoor pickleball court for associates or giving away tickets to sports and culture events, the underlying principle is to meet the specific desires of the people at the company.

“It really is about listening, deeply understanding and ensuring that we are able to meet their needs where we can,” McDaniel said.

How remote and hybrid work affects equity

While some see offering remote and hybrid work options as building a more equitable workplace, there are ways that hybrid work can threaten fairness in the workplace.

“Leaders would have some of their team members in the office every day, and then some that would be virtual,” Clements explained. “They have the meeting, and the people are on the camera — and then the camera goes away, and the meeting continues.”

In those scenarios, employees on camera were getting incomplete information or missing out on important decisions.

“It started to feel like the people who were in the office had an advantage,” Clements said. “They had more time with the leader, they got to hear more about different strategies.”

To level the playing field, virtual meetings became 100% virtual with leaders hosting a call from their office and everyone dialing in.

Another risk to fairness is whether remote employees get the same consideration as in-person staff for promotions. To ensure promotions are fair, Nationwide relies on its training program and tools that track promotability for all employees.

“It’s important to look at that data because you don’t want unintended consequences of what you’re trying to do in the right place end up hurting you,” Clements said.

Where do you get the data? Start with employee surveys — but be ready to act.

“Once you ask your people what’s on their mind, you have to do something with it,” Clements said.

Join us in Las Vegas!

Register for the next For All Summit?, April 8-10, to connect with leaders and experts from great workplaces around the world.