Use Crisis Culture Hacking to Keep Employees

Sane Over the Long Haul

Published 27 July 2020 - ID G00728519 - 15 min read
By Analyst(s): Mary Mesaglio, Elise Olding, Kristin Moyer
Initiatives: Executive Leadership: Digital Business; CIO Leadership, Culture and People;
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resource Center; Employee Experience; Total Rewards

COVID-19 can create stress and isolation among workers, which

undermine their performance. Executive leaders can keep
employees motivated, productive and cohesive with culture hacks
that kindle positive emotions like hope, agency, belonging and
pride.

Overview
Key Challenges
■ Executive leaders are expected to manage the COVID-induced stress of their
employees while dealing with their own stress from isolation, family and health
issues, furloughed colleagues and a sustained increase in work.

■ For many, this crisis has created the most challenging business environment in
many decades and challenges look set to continue.

■ In this environment, leaders must rally employees to do great work, but many tactics
that work in normal times will add undue stress on employees that could quickly
lead to burnout.

Recommendations
Executive leaders who are guiding digital business transformation during COVID-19
should:

■ Create swift culture changes that have an immediate impact by learning the art of
culture hacking.

■ Adapt culture hacking to the crisis by focusing on hacks that evoke positive
emotions.

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■ Avoid overprocessing the approach by considering the state of the organization and
the mood of the workforce, matching those with positive hacks and getting started.

Introduction
If you feel like your team is demotivated and could use a shot of morale, you’re not alone.
Executive leaders are being asked to rally employees to carry the enterprise through
perhaps the most challenging business conditions they have ever encountered. In this
environment, leaders must be careful not to add to employees’ stress, which could
overwhelm and render them less productive. Instead, leaders should encourage and
reassure workers by appealing to positive emotions, such as pride, belonging, agency and
hope.

Leaders can use culture hacks — quick, meaningful actions that signal immediate change
— to evoke these emotions. Examples of hacks might include changing the way you start
or end a meeting, instituting a team ritual to celebrate a victory or sending an informal
video out to your people. They could also be a myriad of other small actions that can
trigger a surprisingly sizable response in your people. The advantage of culture hacking is
that it is a quick, low-effort way to engender on-the-ground change, which matters as the
ups and downs of the crisis make themselves felt.

Analysis
Learn the Art of Culture Hacking
A great culture hack is a living thing that exhibits five characteristics (“ALIVE”):

■ Actionable — Ideally, hacks should scale by going viral naturally. The design should
make it easy to adopt the hack. Multiple people, from the bottom to the top of the
organization, should be able to use the hack.

■ Low effort — The hack should be easy to execute. In most cases, it should take
fewer than 48 hours to design and execute. Note that low effort does not mean low
courage.

■ Immediate — The hack should have an instant effect. It should not take weeks or
months to have an impact.

■ Visible — The hack should signal unequivocally to the target audience that
something has shifted in the culture. The change should be visible to everyone in a
meeting room, for example, or be sent to everyone in an email.

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■ Emotional — The hack should incite a deeply felt reaction. Change is primarily an
emotional process, not an analytical one.

Hacking is a way to change the culture quickly and materially using small actions that
leaders often underuse and overlook. These smaller actions can change the perception of
the crisis, at least for a time, and avoid negative emotional contagion of employees. Read
on for examples of hacks in the real world (see “The Art of Culture Hacking” for more
information).

Hack Toward Positive Emotions in a Crisis

The No. 1 difference between “peacetime” hacking and culture hacking in a crisis is the
need to create a positive emotional impact. A crisis environment like COVID-19 differs
from normal conditions. In normal times, executives must often awaken employees from
a business-as-usual torpor, and can use hacks to get people’s attention. These hacks
might provoke change by inciting surprise, shock or even in some cases fear, as a way to
send a clear message that the change isn’t just “talk.”

In a crisis, however, hacking to produce a negative emotion is not useful. Fear is the
dominant emotion in a crisis already, so adding more of it is likely to do more harm than
good. You want to energize people, not paralyze them. In crisis culture hacking, executives
should reach for positive emotions that sustain employee motivation and productivity
over the long haul.

Match Organizational Mood to Align With Positive Hacks

Hack for Hope, Agency, Belonging and Pride
Hope, agency, belonging and pride are by no means the only positive emotions to shoot
for. There is a host of other possible emotions that deliver a lot of goodness, such as joy,
empathy, honoring sacrifices made and peacefulness. However, we chose these four
because they are the emotions most at risk during a crisis, and those most capable of
delivering a sustainable positive boost to the workforce as the long, chronic phase of the
crisis continues (see Figure 1).

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Figure 1: Sustainable, Positive Workforce Hacks for Crisis

Hacks for Hope

Leaders can create a more hopeful, optimistic atmosphere by showing that things will get
better in the future and by removing burdens on employees wherever possible. Here are
some sample hacks that we’ve seen being used in the real world (see Table 1).

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Table 1: Hacks for Hope
(Enlarged table in Appendix)

Hacks for Agency

A crisis like COVID-19 can make people feel helpless. It can feel like circumstances
beyond their control are dictating many aspects of their lives. Leaders can restore some
sense of control in employees with culture hacks that signal that they are empowered to
act and have autonomy to improve their situation (see Table 2).

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Table 2: Hacks for Agency
(Enlarged table in Appendix)

Hack for Belonging

A crisis can be a “make or break” point for teams. The stakes are high. A crisis generally
increases or decreases team cohesion, but will not leave it the same. With COVID-19,
people are working from home and in danger of being more isolated from colleagues. In
these circumstances, leaders should do more to reinforce a sense of community among
employees. These hacks help build a sense of community by reinforcing team identity. Of
all the emotions, this is the one most sensitive to particular cultural norms. A hack that for
one culture creates a sense of team might be cringeworthy for another. An extra degree of
cultural sensitivity might be required to get these just right as with, for example, the first
hack on the list below (see Table 3).

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Table 3: Hack for Belonging
(Enlarged table in Appendix)

Hacks for Pride

Pride comes from doing a job well and getting recognized for it. Moreover, in a crisis, most
people want to contribute to solutions. They crave the knowledge that their work has value
beyond money-making. Pride motivates them to help others. Leaders can encourage a
sense of pride with these culture hacks (see Table 4).

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Table 4: Hacks for Pride
(Enlarged table in Appendix)

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With not that much effort, leaders can lead a few crisis culture hacks that create a warmer
climate within their organization, helping employees to stay sane through the long chronic
phase of the crisis. The effect of hacks doesn’t last forever, so leaders should rotate hacks
in order to keep morale up. When choosing hacks, leaders should choose hacks
thoughtfully, choosing with sensitivity for their team/organization and what would
resonate with them. Not all hacks work in all cultures, and there is a difference between
being brave and foolhardy. Many hacks will prove most effective in combination. It’s hard
to feel hopeful if you have lost your sense of agency. It’s hard to feel pride in your work if
your sense of belonging to the organization and community has weakened. For best
results, leaders should choose hacks that will reinforce each other within the
organization’s specific context. Above all, leaders should be authentic — in this
environment, real is better than perfect — and start crisis culture hacking today.

Evidence
This document is based on Gartner’s research into COVID-19’s effects on working
conditions, as well as its compilation of culture hacks gathered from clients and other
external sources.

 “HRE’s Number of the Day: Coronavirus Stress,” Human Resource Executive.

 “Workers Volunteered to Live in a Factory for 28 Days to Produce Millions of Pounds of

Raw PPE Materials to Make Masks and Gowns for Frontline Medical Workers,” Business
Insider.

Recommended by the Authors

Some documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.

Toolkit: 2019 Collection of 85 Culture Hacks From the Real World

The Art of Culture Hacking

The Three Magical Ingredients of Transformation

Culture Change Succeeds or Fails in Leadership Moments
Responding to the COVID-19 Coronavirus and Other Outbreaks
Sustain Employee Experience Through COVID-19 Outbreak
3 Actions Leaders Can Take to Navigate Through Crisis

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Table 1: Hacks for Hope
Hack Description
Default to positive Start a meeting with “What’s
working?”
Postcrisis list Ask employees about their postcrisis
hopes and dreams. Maybe make a list
or draw a picture of the postcrisis
vision. Maybe make a postcrisis
virtual mood board that everyone can
contribute to.
Off-the-cuff videos by leaders and Create short, frequent videos that
employees highlight wins or indicate improving
conditions for the organization. Real
is better than perfect in these kinds of
videos.
Ask, “How would we do this if we only For areas of work that seem
had a day to do it?” gratuitously complicated, ask
employees to ponder what the work
would look like if we only had a day to
do it?
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Purpose
In a bid to resolve issues, many
meetings focus on what’s not
working and leave no time to
showcase progress made.
Raise employee focus from the day-
to-day, which can be dreary, to the
horizon, where the promise of things
getting better lies.
Improve morale by showing that
positive things are happening; that
not everything is bad. Showcase
voices across the organization.
Focus attention on the “critical path”
to be as streamlined and minimalist
as possible. Break the assumption
that “worthy” equals complicated and
time-consuming.
Benefit
This is a simple way to flip to the
positive, breaking negative habits and
anchoring the meeting in optimism.
Writing down or drawing a hopeful
future state gives it more shape and
credence. Even if the dream is small,
like going for a coffee with an aging
parent, the act of describing it in
detail can turn it into something of a
beacon.
As long as they are not too robotic,
short, informal videos convey more
fully to employees what is going on,
how people are feeling, what’s
working, etc.
Apart from creating a sense of hope
that life might get a little easier, this
hack also signals agency, that
employees have some control over
their destiny.
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Create a virtual jar of acts of kindness Everyone can add one thing they like
that lights up their day. if you add
something to the jar, you need to pick
something from the jar.
Example: I love having coffee at 2
p.m. You might pick up this action
from the jar and invite me for a virtual
coffee at 2 p.m.
Source: Gartner (July 2020)
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This emphasizes that, whereas a
knee-jerk reaction is unconscious, the
choice to be kind is a conscious act,
especially in a crisis.
Kindness by your fellow humans can
engender a sense of hope in
humanity, that there are bright spots.
This hack emphasizes how a small
act of kindness can have a big,
positive emotional effect.
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Table 2: Hacks for Agency

Hack Description Purpose Benefit

Create opt-in teams
Instead of management selecting
project team members, allow people
to opt in, as is the case in many agile
development teams.
Avoid mismatches where people
aren’t enthusiastic about the project
or the people. This energy waste
slows down progress.
Opting in sends a message of agility
and autonomy to the organization. It
results in better matches between the
work that needs doing and the people
who do it.

Let it go In a meeting, declare, “I am letting go
of ____.” Name a habit, attitude or
other feature of organizational
culture that is unhelpful during the
crisis. Offer others the opportunity to
do the same.
Give people permission to rethink
what it means to be a good member
of the organization. Let people know
that they don’t have to maintain all
the old standards and deal with the
crisis in addition.
This hack relieves the emotional
pressure on employees to uphold the
traditional culture. Employees can
adopt new standards to meet the
crisis, and management will support
them.

Name your fear
(If it feels safe enough to do so!)
Find someone safe — at work or at
home —- tell them what keeps you up
at night, and invite them to do the
same. Or do this anonymously. This
must be executed well to ensure the
psychological safety of participants.
Naming our fears reduces their power Naming fears makes them concrete
over us and enables us to take steps and tractable. It signals a modicum of
to prevent or mitigate their effects. control, which decreases the sense of
victimhood. It can be done
anonymously to reduce pressure or
with someone outside work.

Be the CEO of your idea
Ask associates to generate
unconventional ways to help
customers during COVID-19, and
make the person with the idea the
CEO of the idea.
This sends a signal that associates Language matters. Using the term
are in control, even if it’s of something CEO viscerally conveys a sense of
small. agency and authority.

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What should we STOP doing? Ask associates for suggestions on Crises provoke dramatic triage. This highlights unnecessary stress
what we should stop doing, including Identifying what to stop doing points, bureaucracy and other low-
bureaucratic work, low-value work focuses attention on what’s value work. It uses the crisis to “clean
and tick-the-box work. important and provides direction. house” and focus on priorities.

Source: Gartner (July 2020)

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Table 3: Hack for Belonging
Hack
Create a team symbol
Dial into meetings 15 minutes early
“One big thing” for work-life
integration
Tell your team story
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Description
Develop fun markers of team identity,
such as adopting a virtual team
mascot, having everyone wear the
same color on a certain meeting or
beginning or ending every meeting
with a team ritual.
Schedule 15 minutes before a formal
meeting begins to give people a
chance to chat informally, as they
often would in an in-person office
environment.
At the morning check-in, each team
member shares one work priority and
one home priority.
Recount the history of what you’ve
accomplished as a team in the
COVID-19 response, highlighting the
positive can-do traits, values and
competencies of the team.
Purpose
Belonging comes from identity, and a
visible symbol can reinforce team
identity.
Informal chats restore some of the
casual meetings and water-cooler
conversations that occur in a physical
workplace.
Working from home blurs the
boundaries, and extra activities such
as home schooling must take equal
priority and happen during the work
day.
The power of storytelling has been
well documented. Recounting the
accomplishments of the team
reminds them that they already have
the “right stuff.”
Benefit
The symbol or ritual makes people
more aware of sharing common
points of reference with team
members. Caveat: be sensitive to
team culture. For some, this could be
cringeworthy.
Informal chats give teammates an
opportunity to share news beyond
their strict work duties, adding to the
social glue that creates belonging.
Progress toward an objective, work-
or home-related, creates satisfaction
and a sense of progress. It signals
that it’s okay to bring the “whole
person” to work.
Well-told stories of overcoming
adversity can create a sense of
belonging by affirming the
characteristics that will help the team
to move forward as well.
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Start a fun common activity For example, start a challenge such
as 10,000 steps daily or eating
healthier, create a club to discuss
books or TV series, hold team happy
hours or quiz nights, etc.
Source: Gartner (July 2020)
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This hack creates a sense of
commonality and inclusion.
Teams discover shared interests,
learn more about colleagues and
bond over having some fun together.
Shared activities also foster
compassion and trust.
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Table 4: Hacks for Pride
Hack
Take time for peer recognition
Cross-team recognition
Set a stretch goal
Create a recognition video
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Description
Request that every employee write
down the name of a colleague and
one thing they want to thank them
for. Extend by asking them to name
one thing they themselves did today
that they are proud of.
At leadership team meetings, a leader This creates awareness outside the
authentically highlights the good
work an employee did. The other
leaders are then asked to
congratulate that employee for what
they had done.
Set a stretch goal, like getting delivery Pride comes from achieving
time down from 2 weeks to 2 hours.
Get associates to record a video that
describes an accomplishment by a
Purpose
With employees going the extra mile,
it can be easy to lose sight of all the
small ways people are contributing.
Pausing to say it out loud around the
team can evoke a sense of deep pride,
not to mention belonging.
immediate team and breaks down
silos.
something big. Even though
associates may be working long
hours, setting them a big goal can
actually be a motivator, especially if
you combine with a clear mandate for
things they can stop doing.
When done well, video can be an
awesome way to stoke team pride,
Benefit
Unexpected recognition is a simple
way to give people a nice jolt of
positive energy; the fuel they may
need to keep going. Plus, it goes a
long way in building better internal
relationships for future collaboration
in the “new normal.”
Employees interact with leaders
outside their direct team, which
breaks down silos and builds trust. It
fosters collaboration. Recognition
promotes employee engagement and
amplifies desired behaviors.
A stretch goal triggers pride because
a seemingly impossible goal moves
constraints and encourages
associates to question norms. This
hack gives associate permission to
think big, which can lead to pride in
their work.
A recognition video increases
appreciation of the organization and
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 colleague or team in the organization. among other positive emotions. fuels people’s desire to contribute to
its success.

Source: Gartner (July 2020)

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