Survey finds remote workforce challenged in maintaining team culture

The pandemic-fueled shift from the office to Zoom-anchored work from home has disrupted the sense of workplace camaraderie, according to a national study by Clutch, a Washington, D.C.-based ratings and reviews platform for IT, marketing and business service providers.

In a poll of 301 workers, 43% reported spending most of their time working remotely in the past 30 days. During this time, 63% of respondents stated they have spent less time socializing with coworkers, with 35% working at companies that have yet to hold a virtual team culture event. For the companies that attempted virtual events, the most common activities were professional development sessions (19%), happy hours (13%), activities and games (9%) and sharing meals (5%).

The new corporate version of social distancing did not effect most of the bonds between managers and staff: 52% of respondents said their direct boss or manager”™s availability has not changed since the pandemic began, with 19% reporting their boss has become more elusive and 23% stating their boss is now more available to them.

As for staying in touch digitally, 26% of companies have provided their employees with greater access to communication technology in the past 30 days. The most common method for maintaining communications to a socially distanced staff involved giving employees access to resources about remote work (25%), team or departmental check-ins (21%), discussions about team and individual goals (16%) and increased one-on-one meetings (8%).