The Happy Village: Hybrid Working, Communication, and Culture

Lessons from Zappos, Bank of America, and MIT's Ben Waber

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Once upon a time, there was a happy village where people chatted over garden fences, in the queue at the post office or in the village coffee shop. Often, if one of the villagers had a problem, one of the other villagers would be able to help them. The villagers knew each other well and had a strong sense of belonging to their happy village. They were proud of their little village and everything it stood for. Life was good, and everyone was happy.

One day, a storyteller arrived in the village and told tales of a faraway land where people talked using boxes and invisible magic called ‘the internet.’ The villagers were fascinated, and they couldn't wait to try this new way of communicating.

They set up their own boxes and began to talk to their friends using their boxes. They didn’t even need to leave their little cottages. At first, it was exciting. They could buy bread from the bakers and stamps from the post office and these would be delivered to their door. The village postman, Jeff Bezalot,  set up a village store and delivery service called ‘Hundred Acre Woods’ and promised to deliver anything by the next day. All as good.

 However, as time passed, the villagers began to realise that their previously strong community was beginning to break down. They found that communicating through the boxes was different from their old face-to-face chats. Without body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice, it was harder to express their emotions and what they really wanted to say. Misunderstandings began to pile up, and the villagers started to feel lonely and disconnected. They started to miss the simple pleasures of chatting with their friends and neighbours. They missed the sound of laughter and the warmth of a hug. They missed chatting in the queue at the post office and having coffee together. They began to feel like they no longer belonged in the happy village and some started to move out looking for a nicer happy village…

This is an analogy for the reality hybrid working in most organisations. As more and more people work remotely, it can be difficult to maintain the same level of connection, collaboration and creativity  that comes with in-person interactions. The lack of face-to-face communication can easily lead to misunderstandings and a breakdown of the company culture.

While it has its benefits, hybrid working also poses serious long term challenges to building a strong organisational identity and culture. The physical separation of employees can make it hard to maintain a consistent company culture and foster a sense of identity within the organisation. People miss the ‘chats in the post office queue’ and having coffee in the ‘happy village coffee shop.’ And, some even move away to a nicer ‘happy village’ or different company because they feel they don’t belong or even feel part of your ‘happy village’ organisation any more.

What lies at the heart of this problem is communication. Or rather the often sterile transactional style of virtual communication. We're now relying on virtual communication tools like video calls, instant messaging, and email to stay connected. While these tools are in many ways helpful, they're just not the same as face-to-face interactions that spark creativity and foster a sense of belonging.  When you're not in the same physical space as your colleagues, it's easy to miss out on nonverbal cues or tone, leading to all kinds of misunderstandings and breakdowns in communication.When communication is impaired, there is no emotional connection.  Misunderstandings occur, causing confusion and sometimes hurt, potentially harming the overall team dynamic.

Hybrid working also makes it harder for employees to identify with and feel a sense of belonging to the organisation. When employees work remotely, they can easily become disconnected from the company culture and feel like they are not really part of a team. They get into a contractor mindset rather than a group member mindset. This can lead to decreased motivation and engagement, ultimately impacting productivity.

Let's take a look at the story of Tony Hsieh (pronounced ‘Shay’), the former CEO of Zappos, to illustrate how hybrid working can inhibit creativity and impede the development of a strong company culture. Hsieh believed that creating a culture of innovation required building strong relationships among employees and fostering a sense of community. Hsieh argued strongly for the importance of "collisions" or chance encounters between team members, for building a creative and innovative business (Hsieh, 2010). He said that these serendipitous ‘collisions’ produce unexpected ideas and solutions to hard problems. To facilitate these collisions, he purposefully designed Zappos' headquarters with an open floor plan and common areas, making it easy for employees to interact and share ideas with each other as much as possible.

These informal social interactions in the workplace also have a massive impact on reducing stress anxiety and burnout. A decade ago, Bank of America was experiencing high levels of burnout in its call centre teams. Because of the stress people were leaving in droves. Staff turnover was a big problem. To address this issue, they brought in Ben Waber, a scientist from MIT who specialises in using social sensing technology, to conduct an analysis. Waber found  that the employees were indeed highly stressed and many were on the verge of burning out. His analysis suggested that the best way to alleviate this workplace stress was by building systems and an environment  that encouraged employees to spend time together away from their desks. He recommended that the company arrange team member schedules so that they could all take a 15-minute coffee break together every day. In addition, Waber suggested that the company invest in high quality coffee machines and place them in convenient gathering spaces to encourage interactions between team members. 

These changes had a significant impact: surprisingly turnover decreased from 40% to 12% and even more surprisingly, productivity increased by 20%. Waber’s study also found that replacing four-person tables with ten-person tables in the staff restaurant resulted in a 10% boost in productivity. The takeaway from Ben Waber’s work is that creating spaces that encourage interactions between employees dramatically improves team performance and reduces burnout and turnover (Waber, 2013).

Waber also looked at how the performance of remote working teams could be improved. For example, is it worth getting everybody In a remote team together, even if that means the cost of travel and hotels, before  starting a project? Does the additional expense, in terms of money and time, have a significant return on investment? Following his analysis, Waber concluded with an enthusiastic yes! After having a face-to-face meeting, the remote team saw significant improvements in their understanding of each other and more importantly an increase in mutual trust; as well as their ability to collaborate effectively. As a result, both the quantity and quality of communication within the team significantly improved after the team resumed the project working online. (Waber, 2013). 

Hybrid working has been great for most businesses and employees. But it has its risks and downsides. People don’t talk as much. There are fewer, if any serendipitous ‘collisions’ resulting in creative ideas. People tend to feel less attached to the organisation and find it easy to move on. A ‘happy village’ organisation is great for employees and for performance and profit. The key to holding on to your villagers seems to be increasing the opportunities for social (rather than virtual) interactions and ‘collisions.’ This is a strong argument for bringing your staff together physically rather than virtually as often as you can.

So if you're leading a team that prefers to work in their cosy pyjamas, or Pink Floyd hoodie rather than their business attire, you might find my current book project of interest.  I am writing about how organisations can make the best of hybrid working. I’m drawing on psychology literature to figure out the best way to balance out remote and office based working. I’m three quarters of the way to finishing chapter four (of ten). Among other things I’ll be writing about: building a sense of identity in a hybrid business, the best way to communicate, personality and hybrid work, health and wellbeing, motivating a hybrid team and ESG in a hybrid business.

References:

Hsieh, T. (2010). Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose. Grand Central Publishing.

Waber, B. (2013). People Analytics: How Social Sensing Technology Will Transform Business and What It Tells Us about the Future of Work. London: FT Press.