Even as some companies demand that workers return to the office, remote work is here to stay — in one form or another. But keeping far-flung, work-from-anywhere staffers connected to company goals and culture remains an ongoing challenge. “Before the pandemic, the workplace cultural experience was grounded in the physical environment employees worked in,” said Caitlin Duffy, research director at Gartner’s Human Resources practice.
“Today, it’s much more difficult to build a strong, cohesive culture when employees are more distributed. A recent Gallup survey of 15,000 US workers pointed to a growing disconnect between remote and hybrid remote workers and their company purpose during the past two years. That’s undercut company loyalty and led to “gig-like” relationships between employees and their employers, Gallup chief scientist Jim Harter said in a blog post. This has implications for “customer and employee retention, productivity, and quality of work,” he said. “We’ve been steadily seeing a decline in connectedness over the past few years,” Duffy sai