Sacrificing Culture for the Bottom Line is Futile

by Valent Partners

We learned many things during the pandemic, one of which was the ability of so many companies to achieve varying degrees of success while pivoting to a remote and digitally-only connected workforce. As we start to return to per-pandemic norms, a fully in-office workforce is being replaced, apparently, with a hybrid model, as shown in nearly every return-to-work survey from the last six months with an average of 50% of respondents seeking an option for some level of remote work. While organizations will have to continue to ensure they have the right digital collaboration tools, that remote workers have bandwidth and reliable internet connectivity, and that processes are adjusted, they also need to understand how the company culture will shift and what impacts that will have on productivity and ultimately the bottom line. I believe sacrificing culture when presented the opportunity is futile and will negatively impact profits.

A company culture is defined, in part, by how the leaders view and treat employees and how all employees interact with one another in pursuit of a common goal. While some of that is lost in the digitally connected experience, for companies with leadership and employees that inherently trust each other, the culture will remain relatively intact. But if the culture changes and the bottom line stays intact, new questions will arise about how important the culture, and the specific people that live it, are to the company and its successes.

There could be a temptation from leadership to move from traditional employees to nearshore or offshore resources that are less costly. The thought being that if employees are not coming into the office and collaboration happens online without impact to quality or speed, then why keep the geographic constraint of being near an office space. That thinking may produce short-term gains, but I believe would be detrimental to the organization quickly. Leaders must recognize how that will jeopardize the company culture that took years to curate and ultimately is integral to the overall success of the company.

To be clear, I think there can be great value in partnering with or employing near- and off-shore knowledge workers. There is a vast amount of experience, skill sets and perspective to be gained by strategically leveraging these resources. Yet, most companies need highly capable talent, that can quickly come together on-premises, to solve complex or undefined problems and exploring green-field opportunities; and it cannot all reside in the leadership ranks.

Most people want to be a part of a team, feel valued, and contribute. That is a large part of company culture and comes through in the speed and quality of a team’s delivery capabilities. For those concerned with still achieving that while in a remote or hybrid working model, following an agile model makes a lot of sense. Deploying smaller teams with very focused objectives allows employees to continue making meaningful contributions quickly and at high quality levels. For larger initiatives or demand spikes, partnering with a company like Valent Partners, where a premium is placed on long-term relationships, can drive success whether onsite together or collaborating remotely.

Constructing teams around the values of company culture could be a key difference between growing and thriving in the hybrid work model or seeing your past success and bottom-line dollars erode.