Rewriting the Unwritten Corporate Rule Book

For far too long we’ve let past working practices dictate the future of work, now is the time to rewrite these rules.

Most organizations with employees working in a corporate work environment have had to either deploy their flexible work arrangement policy or pull together a just-in-time practice in reaction to a global pandemic. No matter the magnitude of the shift, these organizations may have unknowingly revolutionized the working world as we know it (for the better!). We are now experiencing firsthand a shift in working practices bringing work and home together. 

If we look back over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, increasingly specialized office designs – from the office towers of Chicago and New York to the post-war suburban corporate campuses – there is a strong distinction between work and home. Although organizations have historically counted on their employees being physically present to do their work, they are now able to do it from their homes.

Even though technology advances over the past decade changed how we could work (I can still remember a time during my career when I didn’t have a smart phone or a laptop), we haven’t until now allowed our workplace cultures to fully adapt to what these technological advances are capable of. Now is the time to challenge each and every one of these assumptions that we’ve made on what makes an effective workplace. A workplace that can adapt (and evolve) in a time of crisis could be on brink of building something spectacular – the future of the modern working world.

To enable organizations to navigate a new working norm, a commitment to reestablishing what collaboration and working together in a the new world means is required. Further, knowing what is working for your employees right now, and what isn’t, will also be key. While we could look to an employee engagement survey to gather this information, it may not yield the real-time information we want (or need). Take the time to speak with your employees. Tap into already established employee resource groups (or affinity networks) to learn what work practices are working. Ensure that you are creating pathways for dialogue to allow feedback and to share experiences across the enterprise. Now is the time to revolutionize the working world and consider the following ideas for creating a new corporate rule book:

• Flex Time – let your employees choose what days work for them. Be open to a non-traditional Monday to Friday.

• Core Hours – discuss what hours employees need to be available to work.

• Performance Criteria / Measurement of Success – ensure that being “seen” is no longer a conscious (or unconscious) metric of success – look at all employees for talent, not just those that are physically in the office. 

• Communication Channels – allow all mediums of communication to be part of standard work practices. For example, water cooler chats don’t need to move back to the water cooler. They can happen virtually and be viewed as part of a successful workplace culture.

• Being "Seen" – level the playing field for those contributing remotely to be seen and equally contribute from a remote setting. This means developing a “camera-on” culture.

• Building Virtual Relationships – develop programming to allow mentoring relationships to grow across your organization (not just based on physical location). Sponsorship will continue to be a value contributor to career advancement, so ensure that all employees can build these relationship no matter where or how they physically work.

Your new rule book can also address dated dress code policies requiring employees to dress in a certain way. We may have allowed the pendulum to swing a little far to the right (for the sake of comfort), but I challenge us to think about our ability to still be productive even in our sweatpants. Bottom line – you can challenge everything!

This is our time to challenge the legacy workplace ideals that have governed our workplaces. Inclusive workplaces don’t happen on their own. Companies must be intentional about fostering the behaviors that employees want and involving individuals at all levels in creating work cultures where everyone feels empowered to be successful. Based on how the world has navigated uncertainty, the idea of having a redefined rule book could help to reshape our default workplace culture. The absence of a rule book may leave us to fall back on old ways.

While many decisions remain outside of our control, there are certain things within our control. If we can think strategically about the workplace culture, the impact could have lasting change. The jury may still be out on how this new workplace reality will fully play out, but the optimist in me is seeing a workplace re-imagined for an ever-evolving ideal employee. While we never would have asked for this unplanned experiment, we can ask ourselves what IS the new normal?