Looking Back / Looking Forward: The Inflection of Workplace Culture

It’s hard to believe that Memorial Day is finally here. Typically, this holiday ushers in a new season - a season marked by better weather, vacation, water activity, bbqs and children’s joy in the pause of the school break. This year is different, I know, no need to remind. 

Yet, as Eleanor Roosevelt said, “I’d rather light a candle than curse the darkness.”

So, what new rituals can we create to uplift and ground us as we find ourselves in this global pandemic? True, many are still bbqing in a (hopefully) socially distant way. However, others are foregoing traditions with something new.

Is it the weekly baking ritual that feels (and tastes) so good? 

Is it the zoom calls with our colleagues where we find ourselves still wearing our pajama bottoms, introducing our pets or sharing fun facts with each other about life in quarantine?

At home and at work, what do we do memorialize as a way of inspiring us to do better and be better?

This includes founders and executives of companies who are forging new organizational and cultural norms. It’s an opportunity for companies - and their leaders - to ask themselves what do they want to hold onto - memorialize- from precovid times and what needs to shift?

A good starter is to ask:

What values do you hold onto as a company and which are no longer relevant?

How is culture being changed, developed or supported in this new world of remote working? 

How do you engage your workforce in new and meaningful ways in the context of the emerging new normal?