Is it possible in the age of Covid 19 to have a high-performing organizational culture?

. 4 min read

Initially, many companies were concerned at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic that workplace changes would completely overturn their organizational setup. For some companies, this may indeed have been the case. However, a survey on Glassdoor.com shows that the culture shifts that workplaces experienced between March and April of 2020 actually boosted employee perceptions of those cultures.

But how is such a thing possible, when a huge part of the workforce was shifted to working from home? It turns out that employees are giving company culture higher marks based on communication at the corporate level. Company leaders became more transparent in reaching out to their employees to keep them apprised of the rapidly-changing scenarios. Instead of cookie-cutter communications that may have been the norm in 2019 and before, employees “were 88% more likely to write positively about leaders’ honesty and transparency (46%). Employees also expressed more positive sentiment about transparency (42%) and communication (35%) in general.” 

Companies that were already ranked highly for their corporate culture were likelier to handle the transition to remote employment more smoothly, and overall, employees at these companies generally felt like their leaders were being honest with them about the situation. In fact, “[a] separate survey found that employers were the most trusted source of information on the coronavirus, ahead of government officials, traditional news outlets, or social media.”

The bottom line is, yes, it is possible in the Covid-19 era to maintain high performance in your company’s organization. The post-Covid-19 era will likely look very different than what we may anticipate, but employees will continue to value transparency from their leaders. In this case, honesty really is the best policy.