could take place online; team discussions could be held on Slack or WhatsApp.
Managers knew their staff’s individual strengths and weaknesses and thus whom to nag
and whom to leave alone.
Over time, however, this coherence could deteriorate. Managers and staff will face new
problems and will need to develop methods for tackling them. New staff will join and
existing staff will transfer to new jobs. Accumulated knowledge will be less useful. New
ways of working will have to be developed, which may need closer co-operation than
can be achieved over a video link.
An element of productivity also results from serendipity: the chance discussion with
someone outside your team. Those water-cooler moments are less likely when people
are working from home. Employees may start to relate only to those within their
immediate team or messaging group. The sales team may lose touch with product
design, for example. Eventually this will erode the networks on which a company’s
health may depend.
That is why companies will spend 2021 trying to restore the collective spirit. Even if
employees do not come back to the office full-time, they will probably be asked to
return for at least one or two days a week. When they do, they will be engineered into
meeting with those outside their immediate hierarchy, to stop the company turning into
a battle between “us” and “them”.
All this may also involve some socially distanced version of awaydays, designed to break
down barriers between departments. Zoom drinks events are already common but
some employers have sent wine or beer to employees to encourage participation. Other
events include trivia quizzes, online karaoke and scavenger hunts in which workers
compete to find items within their own homes. Companies will survey employees to test
the state of morale. Human-resources departments will be called upon to do a lot of
extra work, beyond the firefighting role of sorting out problematic relationships.
The big risk in the medium term is the emergence of two cultures, as has happened in
the gig economy, where the workforce is split into a small number of core staff and a
larger number of contracted or casual workers. The pandemic may create another split,
as older, established workers stay at home and younger staff, despite going into the
office, have fewer opportunities to bond with colleagues, build professional networks
and climb the ladder. Team spirit will be harder to create than before—whatever fine
words the chief executive uses.
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