A shared space helps create a community and define an identity.
Also the corporate one.
Until recently, large groups have favored new offices as their headquarters, which could define their organizational identity, thus reshaping the skyline of cities.
However, with the health emergency, everything changed: more than half of businesses (53%), according to a Cisco Systems survey, have reduced or even canceled these spaces.
And among employees, there is still a fear of crossing the threshold of the office – according to data from UniSalute Spa and Nomisma, due to the fear that colleagues will not follow safety protocols (45%) or the risk of being infected on the commute from home to work (31%).
#RemoteWork has therefore become the "new normal," as over 90% of those surveyed by Cisco stated that they will not return to the office full-time.
A new corporate identity
How can we redefine and strengthen corporate identity in the era of physical distance? What words and messages can replace daily rituals like coffee with colleagues or business lunches?
Beyond the current fears, many miss – and miss a lot! – this daily social interaction.
Being at home, which in many cases is not designed – neither in terms of square footage nor space division – to be there all day, can feel alienating.
One in five employees (21%), according to LinkedIn, struggles to "unplug," but also to focus during the day (26%) and to sleep at night (27%).
Not seeing each other in person, not having informal moments of exchange, is detrimental, especially when we consider that 90% of what we say is non-verbal, meaning it passes through our tone of voice and body language.
It’s difficult, therefore, to interpret what a superior truly wanted to communicate and whether they are satisfied, for example, with our work.
A new sense of belonging
This is where the other crucial factor comes into play: corporate identity and the organization's ability to build on solid foundations, which are no longer the physical ones of the office, an identity and a sense of belonging.
A series of words and messages that can replace smiles, more familiar and "physical" gestures.
Not by chance, in many companies during the pandemic, the CEO or the general manager, as we used to say, "took pen to paper" – today it’s an email or a social post – and conveyed to all their employees the company's closeness, recalling shared values and identity.
As the consulting firm McKinsey wrote in a recent article, “Communications get personal”:
Today’s leaders must know how to speak to people’s hearts and motivate them in a gradual return to the new normal.
Words and new rituals: it is just as important that human resources and communication managers, together, know how to recreate a sense of daily life with new gestures – respecting all safety regulations – based on a shared storytelling of what has happened and future prospects.
The period is challenging, but the opportunity is unique: to strengthen corporate identity and involve people in the change through dialogue.
