So Your Team Is Back in the Office.
Now What?
The
reason behind the return-to-office movement is simple: you can’t build culture
in the cloud.
EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V
AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1
Jan 26,
2026
As the business world
becomes increasingly virtual, with an estimated 35 million folks working from
home, it’s critical to make sure that whatever in-office interactions still do
take place are meaningful and effective. This applies not simply to customers,
clients, partners and other visitors, but—even more importantly—to your own
team members as well. In addition to being offered a good reason and a
compelling explanation as to why they need to be physically in the office to
get their jobs done, your employees need to find an active and alive operation
going on and a powerful and positive environment rather than the quasi-morgues
and silent shells which too many offices have become. Ordering your people back
to the half-empty office so they can sit at their desks all day staring at
their screens and doing Zooms is a culture and morale killer.
To be clear, there are
plenty of good reasons why the troops (especially the younger employees) should be present more often than not. You simply can’t
build a sustainable culture or a committed community online and you can’t
replicate the serendipitous collisions, watercooler conversations, and other
synergies that are a crucial part of the day-to-day activities, and which form
a significant and informal portion of any organization’s internal communication
channels. You can’t build culture in the cloud.
While Zoom and Teams
teleconferences may get the job done in terms of distributing updates, facts
and figures, no one would claim that they’re anything more than sterile and
mechanical forums where there’s nothing in the way of actual, person-to-person,
emotional connection or empathetic communication. The fact is that the more
elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate. Even the best
tech distances us instead of bringing us closer together. In fact, on a remote
call, you can’t even be sure that all the folks “attending” are even working full-time for your business. You might just as
well be talking back to the radio or TV.
Staring for any
significant period of time at a digital checkerboard of tiny faces or profile
pictures is a painful and soul-sucking experience. You can’t generate any
passion, energy or even see any clear audience reaction, so there’s absolutely
no feedback loop or way to determine whether your jokes are landing, your
arguments are hitting home and resonating with the group, or frankly whether
anyone is even paying attention.
All of which simply
demonstrates the criticality and importance of absolutely optimizing and
maximizing the in-office experiences for everyone for whatever periods of time
they may be physically present. Your team isn’t exactly a family, but to
whatever extent you can make them into a tribe with some memorable shared
experiences, the more likely they are to bond and stay together especially in
these very precarious and politicized times when many of the traditional
structures, behaviors, frameworks, and foundational beliefs are being
challenged and imperiled.
Every business and every
team (like every family) will be happy and unhappy in their own ways, but
certain strategies can help almost every organization if taken as advice and
conformed and applied in a manner appropriate to your shop. Here are several critical
ideas to keep in mind.
Make it matter. Don’t bring people in for B.S. reasons or make-work
projects. Education, special speakers, training to upskill your folks—all make
sense—and you can always throw in a charity project or community event as well.
Anyone in an environment that is not preparing him or her with new skills and
tools to face a tougher and more competitive future should move out fast. And
anyone who can’t get with the program should find another job. Our motto was
always that our average workers now work elsewhere.
Take your team’s
temperature. Get them to enlist
or re-enlist in the company’s mission and vision which you may have to
clearly and regularly reiterate. If people don’t want to be there and buy in,
that’s fine. “Whatever” is not a word you want to hear from anyone. Slackers
and straddlers need to leave. Some people cause happiness wherever they go and
others whenever they leave. Don’t let anyone talk you out of your future.
Have senior management get
out and about in the office. Do
some of what Tom Peters used to call “management by walking around” where you actually have
some conversations with employees you’ve never met before regardless of how
long they may have worked for the business. You’ll never appreciate how much of
a positive impact small gestures like this can have on your people. Ask people
how they are and what’s new in their lives outside the office. People need to
know you care. They know you love the business, but you’ve got to show you care
about the employees as well. Culture isn’t what you say, it’s what you do.
Seeing is believing.
Accept the fact that you
can’t “create” high morale in your business—just like you can’t chase after
happiness. I don’t believe in happiness
that isn’t based on effort, pain and work. High morale, deep commitment and job
satisfaction are all outgrowths and byproducts of the team doing worthwhile and
important activities well and together. Excellence in a business
is born from observation – when newbies enter an environment with a
strong work ethic, they’re
like sponges – and that ethic becomes their own. Great morale comes from shared
values and a coherent moral culture (which may be especially needed these days)
where the members aspire to succeed in order to earn each other’s respect. We
want talented and motivated people who take their satisfaction from
achievement.
Remember that
pre-pandemic, most of your employees spent as many of their waking hours at
work as they did at home with their families. The office was a second home, a nest of friends who
“understood”, a refuge for some to leave the outside world behind, and a place
where their efforts were recognized, valued and appreciated. COVID took a great
deal of this warmth, comfort, camaraderie and support away from millions of us
and it’s nearly impossible to rebuild it remotely. You have a
chance—face-to-face—to undertake that serious effort and important challenge
every day when your people return to the office.
It’s on you to make it
happen. It’s not ever easy to build your future on the fly and in terribly
uncertain times, but that’s the leader’s job. The future isn’t a gift—it’s an
achievement that you work hard toward every day.
