Along side other things, Covid-19 will stress test your corporate culture

Across many countries, remote working has been enforced, many are strapped to their laptops and other devices peering through video calls.

A few organisations may have seen what was coming, others may have had to act suddenly. Alongside side the publicly known economic head wins, covid 19 will be a true test of an organization's corporate culture.

A test to see if it permeated? If the power point culture presentations, exercises worked.

Without physical body language it gets harder to unpack meanings, nuances and most importantly team dynamics.

Let’s take Communication, respect for one another, unbeatable client service as company X’s top 3 Corporate values- respect undoubtedly means a different thing via video communication- what’s the right video etiquette to follow for clients for each Client’s culture? Must I wait for the client to sign off from the calls or is it okay for us to sign off together? In running video meetings are we transfering the standard meeting etiquette to video calls or is there a new approach to this?

What does unbeatable client service mean when it is delivered physically, delivered by a combination of physical and digital and perhaps now fully digital?

As the Chief People Officer in your organisation-  you may do you well to pause and think about which part of your corporate culture needs to be reiterated at this time? The manner of reiteration also counts given the emotional upheaval people are going through.

As culture is simply the way you do things (repetitively) - the leaders can be the first to receive the reminder of what guides you as an organisation so that they in turn find ways to reinforce as work goes on.

In one organization i once worked for ,  fun is a key part of their culture/value,  I’m sure the Chief people officer is now needing to unpack what fun means in light of now connecting remotely.

The online birthday parties happening quite frequently now might provide good examples including the newly introduced houseparty.com type sites.

As this may become a stay on culture when the covid -19 issues are well past, it may well be useful to review your organisational culture in the light of the changed ways of working.