Company culture: Hybrid workers value friendship at work more than remote workers

With the switch to remote or hybrid models, HR teams face a new challenge: keeping distanced employees together. But have employees who can work from home changed their priorities when it comes to building relationships and seeking job satisfaction at work?

Remote and hybrid work has changed the frequency with which people appear at the workplace. The daily commute has become a distant memory for some. With many companies adapting to the use of online collaboration tools and video conferencing during the pandemic, in-person meetings may not be as frequent as before.

HR teams have found themselves having to find new ways to keep teams together and build relationships between employees. With research from Mental Heath UK showing that one in five workers feel lonely at work, this is an issue that shouldn’t be left unaddressed. 

In this second instalment of our Capterra report on company culture and remote and hybrid work, we surveyed over 1,000 professionals to understand how changes at work have impacted social culture in UK workplaces. The full methodology for conducting this study can be found at the bottom of this article. 

How have remote and hybrid models affected satisfaction at work?

With the switch to remote work coinciding with the so-called Great Resignation, HR teams have had to react to attract and retain employees who are increasingly open to job-hopping. To do so, it is important for businesses to understand what elements contribute to employee satisfaction. 

However, the task of pinpointing exactly what employees want is easier said than done. Especially since, according to our survey, 70% of employees are actually satisfied to various degrees with their work.

Hybrid employees are the most satisfied workers

While we saw that overall, there was moderate to high employee satisfaction at work, we wanted to see if differences could be detected between remote and hybrid UK workers in comparison with employees who always worked in an office, store, or central location.

Our survey showed that satisfaction rates were slightly higher between hybrid and remote workers. While 68% of fixed-location staff were satisfied with their jobs, 72% of hybrid and 71% of remote workers expressed their satisfaction with their current job.

The difference was even more pronounced when it came to job dissatisfaction. In the same way that hybrid workers showed the highest satisfaction rate, they also expressed the least dissatisfaction (10%). Meanwhile, 14% of remote workers and 19% of fixed-location employees were not satisfied with their current job. 

How important are work relationships to job satisfaction?

According to our Company Culture Survey, building relationships with co-workers is an important factor in ensuring job satisfaction. Around a quarter (26%) of respondents saw this as one of the three most important factors to be happy in the workplace. However, work-life balance, with 54% of votes, was by far the most important factor for our surveyed respondents. 

The responses only varied slightly depending on whether the respondents were remote, hybrid, or office workers. While the five most important factors did not change, the order of preference did vary, depending on whether or not respondents worked from home. 

After work-life balance, the second most important factor when seeking job satisfaction was job security, with 39% of votes overall. The ranking for the most important factors deviates from each work model after these two points. Office workers value relationships with their co-workers ahead of doing work they are interested in or passionate about and compensation. For hybrid workers, having an interest in their subject of work is more important than building relationships with peers. For fully remote work, relationships with colleagues fall to fifth place, behind compensation and passion for their work. 

For remote UK employees, work friendships aren’t so important

Whether it is due to Zoom fatigue or just because they are used to being at a distance from their work colleagues, remote employees are less interested in making friends at work than their on-site or hybrid colleagues. 

Our survey showed that while overall, 67% of all respondents felt that it was somewhat or extremely important to have friends or other close social relationships at work, the numbers differed between hybrid, remote, and on-site employees.

Over half (54%) of remote employees considered having friends or other social relationships at work to be minimally important or not important at all. These differ from the 33% of hybrid workers and the 30% of on-site workers who felt the same way. 

While work friendships are at risk of declining as a result of remote work, HR teams may need to find ways to build relationships between colleagues. This can be done by promoting more social events, using employee engagement software to increase investment in the company and colleagues, and by facilitating more communication channels. 

Does staff turnover influence investment in relationships?

We have signalled zoom fatigue as a possible cause for disinterest in building relationships for those working remotely, but the increase in employee turnover as a result of the great resignation may also be a factor for workers in general. According to our survey, a third (34%) of respondents stated that employee turnover was somewhat or significantly higher now than before the pandemic. 

Of these respondents, over half (51%) somewhat or strongly agreed that high turnover made them less likely to invest time in their relationships with co-workers. 

However, as expected, the percentages were not the same among the three work models, with 22% of remote workers in companies with a higher turnover strongly disagreeing that it impacted their investment in work friendships, in comparison to 9% of on-site workers and 7% of hybrid workers. This may indicate lower levels of investment by remote workers in the first place, in comparison to on-site and hybrid workers who interact more regularly with colleagues face to face. 

How do UK employees feel about in-person and virtual events?

Even though building relationships with colleagues is not the highest priority for UK workers, our survey showed that a large number of respondents would be likely to take part in activities that could encourage social interactions and impact culture at work. 

We wanted to know how employees felt about virtual and in-person events and if remote workplace culture and hybrid workplace culture resulted in different approaches regarding these activities.

Many employers haven’t held social events for staff since the start of the pandemic

Even though social events can help strengthen workplace relationships, these were initially paused during the start of the pandemic. Given the lack of in-person events, some companies chose to host virtual gatherings instead. However, our survey shows that many employers haven’t organised any social events for employees at all since the outbreak of COVID-19. 

Nearly half of employees (47%) said that their company hadn’t held any virtual social events since January 2020, and 43% said their company hadn’t held any in-person events. When trying to find ways to build relationships at work, HR teams should give more consideration to organising voluntary social events to help create bonds between employees, while improving group dynamics and boosting morale. 

UK employees are not turning their backs on in-person events

Our survey shows that 42% of respondents have attended at least one voluntary, in-person social event put on by their employers, such as a happy hour or company party, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

However, are all employees interested in attending social events with their colleagues? When looking further to identify differences between hybrid, remote, or office-based workers, hybrid workers were the group who most attended in-person events when they were invited to them. 

While 78% of hybrid workers had gone to at least one in-situ event they have been invited to, 71% of office-based workers attended at least one in-person event. However, remote workers were less keen, with 46% receiving an invitation but deciding not to attend. With this in mind, companies need to consider other types of activities to encourage social connection between remote employees and to incorporate these employees into their work culture. 

The majority of remote workers have colleagues they have never met in person

With remote and hybrid work, colleagues no longer meet every day in the workplace. Over a third (36%) of respondents say they have co-workers on their teams who they have never met in-person, but these results look very different when compared between remote, hybrid, and fixed-location employees. 

While only 20% of on-site employees had colleagues on their team who they had never met in-person, the number rose considerably to 72% in the case of remote workers. For hybrid employees, 44% of respondents said they had co-workers on their teams or department who they had never met face-to-face. This could indicate that HR teams need to work to include events and engagement activities to ensure that not meeting colleagues in-person does not affect rapport or social culture. 

Virtual social events have been well received by hybrid UK employees

HR teams can try to encourage social interactions with virtual team gatherings and events. Even though 47% of respondents had yet to be invited to any voluntary virtual social event, hybrid workers were the most likely to receive invitations for (72%) and attend (79%) at least one virtual event. Our survey results indicate that remote workers are the least interested in attending virtual gatherings, with only 58% saying they have gone at least once to these events.

UK employees are likely to attend future virtual and in-person gatherings, if given the chance

Whether they are hybrid, remote, or on-site, UK employees who had attended virtual events were generally pleased with the result. Around half (51%) rated these events as good or excellent, while 37% rated them as fair, and only 12% of respondents rated virtual events as poor. 

Along with this, two-thirds (66%) of all respondents said they were somewhat or extremely likely to attend voluntary in-person or virtual social events organised by their employers. However, we have seen that remote workers are less interested in these events than hybrid and on-site workers. HR teams may need to rethink how they foster social connections and how they organise their events. 

HR teams may need to invest in building social connections

Our survey has detected that hybrid workers are generally more satisfied at work, while also valuing social connections in the workplace and being willing to attend gatherings. But HR teams must find ways to connect all their workers. 

Around half (51%) of all survey respondents felt their employers would not be wasting their money if they invested part of their budget in building social connections between employees. Businesses can therefore take this as an opportunity to realign their strategies, tools, and messaging to adapt to what employees are really looking for in 2022. 

But how can businesses adapt to these new trends while bearing in mind the number of employees who do not think that investing in social connections is worth the money? Here are three ways companies can cater to employees’ differing needs:

1. Invest wisely in social gatherings

Although 51% of employees agreed that investing in social gatherings was worth it, that also means that 49% did not feel the same way. HR teams can survey employees to understand what workers want and enjoy and organise social interactions that cater for these interests. These can vary from sports events to fundraisers or company retreats. Whether people are willing to attend events or not, HR teams should also put a clear focus on improving work-life balance and compensation, as these are issues that really mattered to UK employees.

2. Change your messaging

If remote workers are not really into social interactions, then selling your business as a close-knit family and talking about team-building activities may be counterproductive when you are searching for talent. In fact, it can even be toxic. Instead, focus on explaining the benefits and flexibility your workplace offers and what makes you stand out among your competitors. 

3. Get the right tools to encourage cooperation

Not all employees may want to go to parties, but they still need to collaborate. And who knows, the better the collaboration and the fewer the problems, the higher the chance they can nurture healthy relationships with their peers. Collaboration software and video conferencing are just a couple of the tools businesses can turn to in order to help things run smoothly between colleagues, as they can improve document sharing and communication across dispersed teams.