Culture in the hybrid workplace

photo: Duy Pham

What does hybrid work do to our organizational culture? How do we help nourish a sense of culture within a distributed team? Why do I feel so disconnected from my colleagues, or so isolated in my time at home?

These are questions I hear when speaking with organizations about hybrid work. As one of the Lavin Agency’s top 5 corporate culture speakers , I address these issues as facets of one fundamental challenge: How do we foster culture and collaboration in a hybrid workplace?

If we struggle with this as both teams and as individuals, it’s often because our idea of “culture” is kind of fuzzy. That’s exactly why so many social scientists are critical of the way people use the term “culture”: It means different things to different people, and is often used as shorthand for the intangible something that makes organizations more or less successful, or that makes us feel more or less engaged with our colleagues and teams.