COVID-19’s Impact on Culture Report

SUMMARY

Organisational cultures are not easily impacted. This is what makes changing an organisational culture so difficult. It is well understood that established cultures typically prevent any attempt to change it. The introduction of new values, new business models or a restructure may appear to make progress for a little while but eventually many of such programs do fizzle out. The interlocking elements of an organisation’s culture tend to take over, repel any intended change and pull it back to the existing culture.

The key finding of this research is that the vast majority of organisational cultures have been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. An interesting finding is that while 4/5 practitioners believe the crisis is forcing them to see, think, feel, plan and act differently, organisations are split in how far COVID-19 has adversely impacted their culture. HR practitioners report that the most adverse impacts of COVID-19 on culture relates to the organisation’s morale and to employees’ wellbeing due to social isolation and job insecurity. The findings suggest that the most favourable impacts on culture are organisational courage, values and purpose. We note that organisational leaders with certain qualities define how far COVID-19 is likely to have an adverse or favourable impact on culture. These leadership qualities relate to showing empathy, demonstrating care, energising the organisation, encouraging communication, letting-go-of ingrained thinking and having the courage to address shortcomings as a leader.

A surprising finding relates to the impact of remote working on culture. The majority of HR practitioners do agree that building a culture with a remote workforce is a challenge. But they also feel that employees are connecting with each other in a more genuine way and are more comfortable sharing details about personal situations outside of work. What makes a remote culture work, besides having the right technology, comes back to leadership once again. As it is leaders and managers that can enable the required levels of support, communication, collaboration and ultimately trust.

There is hope – HR professionals generally believe that their organisations are going to persevere, are agile enough to deal with the ramifications and are going to bounce back from the crisis. But the question emerges “bounce back to what”.

The main warning of this research is not ‘just’ the significant impact that the COVID-19 crisis has on culture. The red flag relates to whether organisations will be capitalising on it, or whether they will let a ‘good crisis go to waste’. The research indicates that the majority of HR professionals don’t believe their organisations will be transformed culturally or strategically as a result of this COVID-19 crisis.

Through a range of surveys with HR practitioners across Australia, AHRI has seen the immediate effects that COVID-19 has had on workplaces, in the ways we work and in our organisational cultures. This survey, undertaken in partnership with Dr. Marc Stigter and Sir Cary Cooper, provides a deeper dive into the affect COVID-19 has had on organisational culture.

While this research demonstrates that organisations can indeed change, the question is how sustainable and deep that change is. HR certification provides practitioners with the necessary skills and capabilities to help them drive this change in a positive and strategic manner. Leaders should also be working with their HR business partners to embed the positive changes they have seen in preparation for the future, and take advantage of the changes the crisis has already wrought.

I thank Dr. Marc Stigter and Sir Cary Cooper, and commend this research report to you.

Sarah McCann-Bartlett
Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director,
Australian HR Institute

Dr Marc Stigter and Sir Cary Cooper
Authors of Making Culture Work
marcstigter.com