Six Significant Impacts of the Pandemic on Organizational Culture
By: Goh Seh Kai
Tags: Leadership Styles, Business Process, Communication Channels, Organizational Culture, Remote Working

By Dr Goh Seh Kai

5 Dec 2020

Organizational culture is the shared beliefs and thinking of workers, which is the norm for guiding their behaviour in organizations. When employers and employees abide by the governmental legislation in curbing the spread of Covid-19 virus constantly, new organizational culture has gradually emerged. Although when the pandemic will recede is uncertain, the new norm would not disappear shortly. Employees may continue to wear a mask, sanitize hands frequently, maintain social distancing during work, etc. Employers would permit remote working, redesign building and workplace layout, etc. I believe some of the new norms might remain even after the pandemic runs its course. In this article, I will like to highlight six of the significant impacts of the pandemic on the organizational culture of most companies.

Six Significant Changes to Organizational Culture Caused by the Pandemic

Work Arrangement: Due to work nature, workers may be able to perform their work entirely or partially online. Employers will realize that they can implement remote-working or working-from-home (WFH) practices since these practices may benefit them and their employees as well. They would contemplate on implementing this practice if it could reduce their operating costs, such as rental, electricity expenses, etc. and benefit their employees as well. The rationale is the cost-saving may be more than the cost-saving of housing their staff in the organization. Also, this work arrangement would help managers to address their workers’ absenteeism and punctuality issues. Likewise, this practice would enable employees to reduce their time wasted and the cost incurred for travelling to and from their workplace. Also, their productivity could potentially improve as a result of satisfaction and reduction of tardiness and absenteeism. In June 2020, PwC, a leading professional services networks in the world, had conducted a remote work survey on 50 executives and 144 employees at US Financial Service firms. The survey result showed that before the pandemic, only 29% of employers had at least 60% of their employees working from home at least once a week. Now, 69% expect at least 60% of their workforce to telecommute at least once a week.

According to the article published by Felicia Tan in The Edge Singapore in October 2020, recently, UOB and Blackbox have jointly surveyed some 3,510 individuals aged 18 to 65 years old across five Asean countries including Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, on flexible work. The survey result showed that almost 73% of Singaporean employees expected that work-life balance would improve as regularly working from home becomes a permanent option. The study also found that flexible work arrangements are essential for achieving work-life balance in the post-pandemic. I believe more and more enterprises would implement flexible work arrangement practice during the pandemic, and they would continue to keep this practice even in the post-pandemic if it could benefit them significantly. It might be part and parcel of managerial decision making on what type of jobs should be done remotely or inhouse. This practice would be the new norm for enterprises in the future.

Leadership Style: Traditionally, managers could interact with their subordinates physically in the workplace. Remote-working or WFH practices have minimized the chances of interaction, and managers have to interact with their workers virtually on an agreed schedule. According to the situational leadership theory, leaders could control their followers by manipulating their task and relationship behaviours according to the situation. The task behaviour is referred to as the work instructions directed from leaders, and the relationship behaviour is about their rapport with followers. Based on the theory, managers could balance these two behaviours to influence their subordinates based on the situation, such as employee readiness, task structure, legitimate power of managers, etc. As a result of remote-working or WFH, it might undermine the effectiveness of managers’ task and relationship behaviours in influencing their subordinates.

I think in the new norm, managers would have to give way of their “command and control” style to “empowerment” style so that they could lead their workers more effectively. Managers should leverage the task structure and standardize work procedures to complement the declining effect of their task behaviour. Managers should also empower their workers so that they could work independently without having to rely on their directives received in the workplace. They should strengthen their mutual trust and relationship with their remote subordinates as well by engaging with them regularly through WhatsApp, Messengers, Email, etc. Also, managers should summon their remote workers to attend social events physically instead of virtually, as the impact of offline interaction will be more influential than online for enhancing their loyalty and commitment to their organization.

Communication Channels: The usage of communication channels has also changed during the pandemic and would most likely continue in the post-pandemic as compared with the pre-pandemic due to more workers are on remote working. Managers would adopt more online than offline channels for communication since they could hold online meetings on a fixed schedule with communication software, such as Zoom, WebEx, Microsoft Team, etc. easily. In the new norm, grapevine and gossip through social interaction physically in informal groups, which could be used for propaganda by managers in the workplace, would be minimized. Workers might communicate with one another frequently during the after-office time since online communication is an easy and convenient way of communication. Also, workers could conduct training, meeting and workgroup collaboration urgently on off-office hours, weekends and holidays. More organizations and WFH workers would enhance their internet bandwidth to cater to the surge in online usage. The nonverbal cues, which play an essential role to complement the offline communication channel, would not work equally well for an online communication channel, except the facial and vocal expression. Hence, managers and workers should enhance their online communication skills to complement the lack of nonverbal cues in the online communication channel. Despite this limitation, I believe a hybrid mode of communication channels with a higher percentage of online than offline communication usage would be a new culture now and in the post-pandemic.

Safety and Health: The pandemic has indeed enhanced the hygienic practices of people. Although the pandemic might be declared “over” one day, I believe its lasting effect on human beings might even continue in the post-pandemic. Depending on the situation in each country, in the post-pandemic, some organizations might continue to disinfect their workplace frequently, practise daily screening on workers’ health condition, such as temperature checking on them before they enter their work premises. Those workers with fever might not be permitted to come into the workplace but should see a doctor for certifying with Covid-19 virus-free before returning to work. Workers might also be encouraged to wash and sanitize their hands regularly. More workplaces might be installed with sanitizers so that workers could sanitize their hands conveniently. Employers might provide new and existing workers with orientation and training programmes regularly to enhance their awareness of hygienic practices. Workers might be encouraged, though not be mandatory, to wear a mask during social gatherings, such as attending meetings, workshop, seminars, etc. When meeting with visitors, such as customers or suppliers, workers might replace their gesture of handshake with praying hands or nodding head with a smiley. Employers might enforce these activities to protect the health and safety of employees despite these practices would cause inconvenience as well as incur costs to them.

Moreover, there might be a negative social impact on WHF workers if they live alone. These workers might feel depressed mentally since they could not socialize physically with any family members at home and have fewer chances for interacting with their colleagues in the workplace as well. Managers should be aware of their remote workers’ mental health problems and take corrective actions to address the issues should they occur. Since managers could communicate online with their subordinates easily, it might become frequent even during off-office hours. Employers need to establish communication rules and regulations for restraining excessive meetings, especially during off-office hours, weekends and holidays, which might cause stress to employees and become a health issue.

Business Processes: Many companies might have digitalized and automated their business and operation processes to minimize the social interaction among workers and improve their efficiency and effectiveness during the pandemic. These organizations aimed to reduce the infection rate and spread of Covid-19 virus by enhancing contactless transactions and minimizing human interaction. In manufacturing, companies might have automated their production lines to reduce the numbers of workers interacting with one another. Automation has also eased human resources shortage problem due to foreign workers are prohibited to return to work as a result of cross-border travelling control. Digitalization has been commonly practised in all industries, especially the retail sector, for all business transactions. Due to safety reason, consumers will go online shopping and purchase their merchandises, such as groceries, clothing, accessories, etc., conveniently. Retailers would deliver the goods to them at their doorsteps. Even small companies are now leveraging website for advertising, promotion and sales transactions. Many restaurants have adopted the concept of ghost kitchen business model for operating their business. In this model, chefs will cook food based on customers’ online orders, and delivery men will deliver the cooked food to their customers’ doorstep. I think digitalization and automation initiatives would occur in more and more companies in the future since they could benefit them, their employees and consumers. The pandemic has indeed sped up the digitalization and automation transformation process in enterprises. To be viable, managers and workers should adapt well to the new norm and continue to upgrade their automation and digitalization skills.

Building and Workplace Design: In the new norm, companies might increasingly embrace the touchless concept in their building and workplace design so that they could minimize the potential impact of Covid-19 virus infection. Workers might be able to enter their office and meeting rooms with their mobile phone, face or eye scanning. They might be able to use their mobile phone for controlling the devices in the meeting room, such as switching on air-conditioning, LCD projectors, etc. Workers’ seats might remain distancing from one another with one-meter apart for some time. There might be a transparent sheet installed in between face-to-face workers to minimize the spread of the Covid-19 virus through saliva droplets. Enterprises might have to alter their building design to cater for air ventilation with outdoor air, which is crucial for diluting airborne contaminants and decreasing disease transmission rates. Employers might also have to filter indoor air as research suggests that filtration of recirculated air may be useful in reducing transmission of airborne infectious diseases. All these initiatives would result in a more hygienic working environment, which would satisfy workers’ health and safety needs.

In conclusion, the pandemic has caused changes to organizational culture more and less regardless of the nature and size of organizations. Six significant changes to corporate culture in the areas of work arrangement, leadership style, communication channels, safety and health, business processes and building and workplace design are anticipated. As organizational culture is the norm for guiding workers’ behaviour, employers and employees must understand how the changes will affect their actions, costs and benefits. This article has provided an overview of each of these six significant changes worth highlighting for awareness.