How Remote Work

Affects the Culture

Conversation
Survey of 1,000 respondents split among HR and employeess

October 2021
The rise
has brought a fundamental shift in how leadership,
employees, and HR experience and cultivate
their culture, leading many to question the norms

of the
workplaces everywhere have experimented with for
decades to inspire productivity and satisfaction. In
a recent survey, almost half (43%) of office workers
reported that the reality of returning to the office is

remote
not what they expected.

BambooHR asked 1,000 employees in HR, leadership,

workplace
and other positions how they define culture, who
in their organizations is responsible for culture, and
how remote work has affected their company culture.
The answers highlight many interesting points of
agreement and a few areas where perception (and
experience) differ at each level of the organization and
across different generations.

2
What is Culture?
Let’s begin with perception. We asked respondents to choose
from several definitions for culture:

When you think of company culture, what exactly does that mean to you?

The values and principles a company tries to operate by 75%

An organization's overall vibe or feeling 66%

How coworkers interact with each other 62%

Norms around when and how work is expected to get done 46%

The culture that forms in physical office environments 43%

The perks a company provides like food and game rooms, etc. 25%

The non-work part of work like activities and fun stuff 22%

The most-chosen answers on this list focus on the theoretical Younger workers are more likely to see culture as a practical
aspects of culture, with “values and principles” as the most concern, with 67% of Millennial office workers including the
common and “a vibe or feeling” as the next choice. Two in three interaction definition compared to 59% of Gen X and
respondents chose the definition of interactions in the organization: 53% of Baby Boomers.
the definition that takes the theory and puts it into practice. Only
48% of respondents selected both the values definition and the
interaction definition.

3
One thing is clear—in the conversation about culture, we’re not all Areas Where Culture Needs to Be Stronger
speaking the same language. And this may influence our perception
of who should improve culture and how it should be done.

Companies have been working to adjust culture to fit hybrid work

realities with increasing communication from leadership (50%),
43% 41% 40%
Pay and Benefits Communication from Work-Life Balance
support for mental health (46%), and a focus on DEI (45%) as top
Leadership
ways organizations have worked to change. However, employees
are looking for more.

Now one in five employees (19%) say declining culture is the reason
they are looking for a new job and another 16% say it’s out of fear of
what new culture might develop as offices reopen.

It’s clear there’s a need for cultural change. There’s less consensus
on who is most responsible for making these changes. We asked
where the buck stops for company culture, and the answers varied.

4
 Who is viewed as the ultimate decision maker at your
company when it comes to company culture?
This begs the question: is defining culture enough to create a strong
and consistent culture? We asked about consistency, and 71% of
office workers say that their company has expectations for new
employees and junior staff that don’t exist for senior employees and
leadership. These include:

52% 20% 14%

39% Working Fixed Hours

34%
CEO HR Management Another Executive
Always Online/Immediate Response

26% Must Work In-Office

7% 3% 4%
46% of individual contributors say that senior staff and leadership
An Employee Other My company can get away with nearly anything, compared to 38% of company
Committee doesn't have someone
that takes ownership leadership and 37% of middle management. This may explain why
of internal company leadership is the most likely group to say that their overall
decision making company culture is strong currently (94%), compared to middle
management (83%) and individual contributors (65%).

52% of office workers say that their CEO is viewed as the ultimate
decision maker at their company when it comes to company culture,
while one in five list HR management. Paired with the analysis
of the definition of culture, there appears to be a correlation
between defining culture as the company’s values and the majority
perception of the CEO as the primary culture decider. In other
words, for a majority of employees, culture begins when leaders
define company cornerstones.
These results indicate significant emphasis on executives defining
culture instead of seeing culture as a factor everyone works to
cultivate in the workforce. This perception extends to HR: while
HR managers are more likely to see themselves as the ultimate
decision makers when it comes to company culture, with 27% of
HR managers making that selection compared to 14% of non-HR
respondents, these low percentages show a large gap to overcome
in seeing culture as a practical concern in HR’s wheelhouse.

5
The prevalent culture strategy involves leadership defining How much has inappropriate and unprofessional
culture and trusting workplace norms to carry it out. But when behavior at your company increased or decreased in
technological change and current events upend these norms,
how do people perceive the impact on culture and the (virtual)
the last year due to remote work?
workplace? We asked participants to respond to some opinionated
statements (both positive and negative) about remote work, and
here’s how it played out:
5% Greatly Increased 26% NET: Increased

8% Increased

Agree Disgree
14% Somewhat Increased
Expectations differ between
62% 18%
junior and senior staff 52% No Change

Remote work was the best thing that

happened to my career 56% 20% 9% Somewhat Decreased

There are unspoken rules that have to be 8% Decreased

followed if employees want to be viewed 51%
26%
favorably by leadership 5% Greatly Decreased 22% NET: Decreased

Senior staff and leadership can get away

with nearly anything 39% 41%
This may not just be a holdout of office traditions from earlier
generations, either: nearly one third of Millennials say that
While none of these trends appeared overnight, there are some
inappropriate and unprofessional behavior has increased in the last
indications that remote work has made unprofessional behavior
year due to remote work, compared to 24 percent of Boomers and
more likely.
18 percent of Gen X.

While it’s taken a toll across the board, HR managers in particular

seem to have struggled with the shift to remote work, with 86% of
HR managers reporting challenges and adjustment periods.

6
 Responding to the increase in inappropriate activity appears to be taking its toll: nearly one in four (22 percent) of HR managers say that
remote work has caused them to spend most of the workday on tasks they dislike or hate.

Least Favorite HR Tasks Favorite HR Tasks

55% 34% 30% 30% 67% 49% 32% 30%

Fire/lay off Conduct disciplinary Confront employees Listen to employees Connect with Recruitment Onboarding Conduct benefit
employees action on sexual harassment, tattle on other employees analysis/selection/
racism, ablelism, etc employees training

29% 28% 16% 16% 24% 24% 21% 20%

Address inappropriate Receive complaints Update policies / Address employee Payroll processing Evaluate new Maintain employee Update policies /
employee hygiene/ about inappropriate handbook timeliness issues software records handbook
attire behavior/comments

7
 As our previous study indicated, many employees prefer remote work over in-office work.
Recognizing this trend, employers are asking themselves how to best manage a hybrid workforce of
remote and in-office employees. Here are policies that our respondents’ companies have implemented:

43% 41% 33% 30% 21% 18%

Invest in technology Require remote Host a full company Require set hours so Require video cameras My company
that makes remote employees to make or team get-together employees are online to be on during calls doesn't have any
employees feel more visits to the office so everyone can at the same time no matter location policies in place for
included and present occasionally meet at least once in incorporating remote
person workers with in-office
workers

8
 We also asked employees how their company promoted a positive remote work experience:

Allowed work hours flexibility 55%

Virtual employee bonding (classes, games, social hour, etc.) 33%

Encouraged boundary setting around online vs. offline hours 31%

Desk/home office stipend 28%

Regular paid for lunches/meals 21%

Gifts shipped to each employee 21%

My company hasn't done anything to a promote a positive
17%
work from home/hybrid work environment

In spite of these mostly-in-sync efforts, 77 percent of office
employees wish their company would have done something
different in the past year to help promote a positive working
environment while working from home or hybrid. Clearly, we’re still
grappling with unprecedented difficulty in adapting to the flux in
modern remote work expectations.
With workplace policies seeming to match employees’ stated
wishes, what accounts for this desire for something different?
We asked whether employees were getting consistent messages
from their direct management, HR, and leadership teams.

9
How often have you experienced HR saying one thing, Since the pandemic began, how frequently have you
with direct managers and leadership contradicting it experienced HR saying one thing, with direct managers
with something else? and/or leadership contradicting it with something else?

33% 67% 21% 52% 26%

Often–Somewhat Only a few times–
More frequently About the same Less frequently
regularly Never
amount

From these results, it seems both employers and employees know what it takes to create a successful
remote or hybrid work experience. All that remains is getting everyone on the same page in defining
culture and consistently executing those policies. As HR and leadership communicate on measuring
culture and developing strategies to shape it for the new normal of the hybrid workplace, this aligned
approach will help preserve a great working experience for employees.

10
About this Survey
BambooHR conducted this research using an online survey prepared by Method Research and distributed by
RepData among n=1,000 adults ages 18-64 in the United States who work full-time in an office/desk job setting
and have worked remotely in the last year. Half of the respondents work in their company’s HR department and
have a manager title or higher (n=500), and half come from any department and title (n=500). The sample was
equally split between gender groups, with a nationally representative geographic spread of respondents. Data was
collected from September 27 to October 26, 2021.

11