How will the new reality of remote work impact retention?

Blog, Heidi Williams

In our recent whitepaper, we asked 500 CEOs to share with us their key challenges in effective remote working, and the tools, technologies and tactics they were using to overcome these issues. If you haven’t already downloaded the full report – check it out here.

The biggest issue, with 60% of votes, was maintaining culture. Our research suggested that this is an area Chief Executives feel somewhat out of control – which is hardly surprising; a business’ values, identity and culture not only define how it does business and how it interacts with customers but also steers its employer brand which, in turn, has a massive impact on motivation, productivity, collaboration and of course, retention.

The challenge of creating engagement and trust, remotely

But, as we pointed out in the whitepaper – when a business can’t bring people into an environment its created, and give them the experience of belonging and togetherness and perpetuate itself through daily interactions and shared successes, there is a real fear of fragmentation, isolation, and disengagement. Given that staff retention is all about engagement, and trust, and building relationships – how much harder is it to do all these things, when you aren’t face to face with employees?

For fully remote businsses, that have set up from the start as remote this is less of a problem because they’ve designed themselves around working remotely, it’s a core part of their identity and a key benefit to the people who have chosen to work with them, chosen to be remote workers, pride themselves on being effective remote workers. But for those businesses whose employees suddenly found themselves remote, it has been, for many, a real culture shock.

And as the dust settles – two challenges emerge;

If employers are struggling to retain their identity, their culture, the very fabric of themselves which made them an attractive proposition to employees – what does this mean for employee retention?
Meanwhile, for employees finding themselves in a new normal where a majority of the jobs being advertised are done on the basis of being remote – and therefore, usually, location dependent – what does THAT mean for employee retention?

Added to this, a wave of redundancies has created a surge in supply of talent and businesses find they can now pick from a talent pool that is far deeper than their usual opportunities. Wow! How is that going to play out?

Will businesses, which didn’t intend to continue with remote working beyond the covid19 crisis actually find they want to, because they’re able to attract new talent they previously couldn’t access?
Will businesses, like these, continue with a hybrid model in which some staff are remote and others in-office?
How will this impact not only on office real estate, but also on cities and communities which build up around opportunities of work, will it change the face of our cities irrevocably – and will some of these changes be bad, very bad, as the businesses which sprung up around office centric districts dwindle and die out from lack of footfall?
Will our grandchildren visit museums and point at the exhibit of an office cubicle, and marvel at how their grandparents ever endured such torturous conditions – much as we currently look back at the hardships faced by Miners and chimney sweeps (yes, I’m based in London – chimney sweeps and Dick Van Dyke are real!)

We don’t have the answers of course. Not yet. But it’s an incredibly interesting and exciting time to see how this unfolds and, of course, we’re busy preparing the playbook, swipe-files, expert interviews and insights you’ll need as we enter this brave new reality of the future of remote work. In fact, we’ll be inviting the go-to expert on retention and author of Rethinking Retention in Good Times and Bad, Dick Finnegan, to share his thoughts with you, about managing retention of remote workers – make sure you’re subscribed, to be notified.