What is the impact of hybrid working on workplace culture?

In the four years since the outbreak of the pandemic began, companies are now more used to hybrid work. How does the location of a workplace affect culture as the debate continues about remote versus on-site working? Gary Cookson examines the arguments in an excerpt from his book Making Hybrid Working Work.

Hybrid working is still popular despite some calls to have employees return to work full-time.

Few people are willing to work remotely, and even fewer want to do so onsite. Unispace’s research found that there are three main reasons why people don’t want to commute, spend money on commuting or work onsite. They also do not see the point in working onsite if they can complete their tasks remotely. This is the last point that organizations must consider.

All of this comes back to the importance organisational culture. Although there is no universally accepted definition of organisational cultures, almost everyone knows what we are talking about when we mention it. All the little things that make an area unique.

We think about a common understanding when it comes to behaviours, mindsets and interactions. Culture is so important that according to various sources, around 70% of all organisational change initiatives are unsuccessful due to a failure of culture understanding. Does hybrid working have an impact on this?

Culture: Kill or cure?

Chris Herd is the founder of collaboration software FirstBase. He has stated that “distributed working doesn’t kill cultural, it just reveals it”. It is easy to understand why two thirds of companies struggle to maintain culture and morale due to hybrid and remote working.

The hybrid working model reflects culture. The glare of that reflection can erode the culture if left to chance. But the reflection also shows where you need improvement, which areas are performing well, and any blind spots.

Organisations and leaders should therefore give clear direction to the hybrid elements that are onsite. Prioritising and focusing on in-person collaborative opportunities, socialisation and other things can be difficult when working remotely.

It means rethinking physical space in order to encourage these natural interactions. You can also experiment with new ways to bring people together and find a solution that works for everyone. Hybrid working will undermine organisational culture, at least across the board, and not just for individual teams.

Team Dynamics

Relationships with immediate team members are important to remote and hybrid employees. We should make them a priority. However, we also need to guard against the danger that each team will become isolated from the rest.

Each team could be given the freedom to determine the best hybrid working model for their team and the culture they need to achieve the best results from each member.

The danger is that the team culture can become so dominant that it prevents any awareness of or conscious reflection on organisational culture.

Organisations are naturally a conglomeration of different teams, but they must have a culture, or else it is as if the organisation does not exist.

It is better to have individual workers sit with those from another team on the day of their onsite, rather than bringing entire teams to their onsite.

Does culture have a connection to being on-site?

In order to answer this question we can start by looking at the role a physical workspace can play in creating an organisational culture.

Many organisations have created vibrant, diverse, and bright workplaces, even before the Covid-19 pandemic. They see this as an expression of their culture.

Physical workspaces are a valuable asset for most businesses. They either own them or rent one that meets their needs. In almost all cases this was before the massive increase in hybrid and remote working.

Culture is not limited to a building. It can be expressed in its style, layout, and general look and feel. It has never been and it never will be.

The physical workplace can help to ensure that employees are connected to the larger purpose and values, as well as to each other. This is done by creating an environment where these things are visible and encouraged.

This is not confined to a physical location.

Different place, same culture

For many organisations, however, who haven’t consciously created a workplace which embodies their own culture and are unable to mandate employees back on site for part of their time or for the entire period may not solve any cultural problems. They may be moved to another location.

According to a study from the University of Leeds for example, its office is still used for solo working, with 60% of tasks requiring individual focus and only 20% of them requiring face-to-face interaction.

Before deciding how much time an employee should and could spend on site, organisations must consider the tasks that they need to complete.

Having a presence on site can have significant benefits. Leeds’ research found that having an onsite presence can improve connections between employees and help build a stronger network. However, this is only significant for those whose job requires it, since the improved information flow and informal cooperation are supported.

For this to work, regardless of the job, we may need to review the success many leaders and their teams experienced during the Covid-19 enforced lockdowns. Check-ins and team bonding on a more social level were given higher priority.

This was almost all virtual, and it happened without a physical location. It shows that, although a physical location is helpful, such benefits can also be achieved virtually.

Culture is not something you should leave to chance

What does it mean properly? What is the major factor if it doesn’t seem to be the number of days spent on site? Many organisations have never been on site and have built successful cultures through deliberate effort.

We must consider how to encourage people to collaborate strongly and creatively when they are at a physical location.

The collaborative tasks can be coordinated onsite while the independent tasks are done remotely.

Being onsite has its downsides. Some organisations and employees claim that being onsite is detrimental to productivity, especially if you spend the majority of your time socialising, collaborating, mentoring, and so on.

It is important to not only reframe the meaning of productivity, but to also achieve consensus within our organizations about how our physical sites will be used.

The importance of working onsite is important, but not all. Only if we make onsite work a priority can we reap the rewards.

We will achieve few, if any, benefits if we leave the onsite work to chance. If we are going to maintain and create the culture that we desire for our organisation, we must be deliberate about hybrid and remote working.

This edited Chapter from Making Hybrid Working Work By Gary Cookson (c 2025) is reproduced by Kogan Page Ltd. with permission.