A key takeaway from a Microsoft-sponsored study of global work patterns suggests a new challenge: Leaders must establish the why, when, and how of the office,” says Microsoft. “This means defining the purpose of in-person collaboration, creating team agreements on when to come together in person, defining hybrid meeting etiquette, and rethinking how space can play a supporting role.”
That’s different from pre-pandemic work modes where “going to work” was simply accepted as the way work gets done.
Social capital also is an issue. Social capital refers to network of personal relationships within an organization or external to it that are helpful in achieving organization objectives. Social capital matters because it includes the shared sense of goals and belonging; culture and values that participants share.
The point is that social capital helps organizations achieve their goals by increasing trust and willingness to help others; reducing organizational friction. As with friendships, social capital has to be built and cultivated.
One aspect of enforced remote work such as we have experienced during the Covid pandemic is the inability to create new social capital as easily. We are, in a real sense, working off of social capital already created.
And the supposition most of us likely share is that it is much harder to create new social capital when people are not in proximity, interacting face to face and building trust.
Rebuilding social capital looks different in a hybrid world. With 51 percent of hybrid workers considering a shift to full remote work in the year ahead, companies cannot rely solely on the office to recoup the social capital we’ve lost over the past two years, says Microsoft.
Forty-three percent of leaders say relationship-building is the greatest challenge of having employees work in a hybrid or remote environment.
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