Hybrid Culture — The Road to Redundancy!

Let us begin by understanding what exactly is the meaning of an office culture.

To put it very succinctly, office cultures are of mainly 2 types:

1. Aggressive: Sales -driven or result oriented

This is a typical office that cares more about the bottom lines than the staff.

The people working in these types of companies know this and like it because they align their values with being:

- Go getters
- Aggressive
- Result Oriented
- Achievers

There are many who think they have what it takes to work in these kinds of companies but leave when the pressure gets way beyond the threshold levels.

These kind of companies have a very high turnover rate but as I mentioned, since they value the profits more than the staff, they care less for who comes in and who exits.

2. Relaxed: More mature in nature

This is a company that has been in the industry for many years and behaves less like a start-up! It is mature enough to understand that over-aggressiveness leads to turnover of staff, which is not very good for the business.

These types of companies have fewer but larger clients as compared to the aggressive ones but the clients have been around for many years.

In fact the key things that clients look for is staff that have been in the company for many years and understand the history of the client’s company, its business and its brands.

The people working in these types of companies are:

- Wise
- Stable
- Honest
- Less flamboyant

Of course, there will be a lot of companies that will be in between these two stereotypes and have several factors that collide.

But the underlying fact remains that the inbetweeners will keep pivoting towards the primary nature of the company culture.

One of the key things that COVID has managed to do is bring in another culture, which seems to be inflicting more offices than we can imagine.

This is called the “Hybrid Culture — A culture that seems to have seeped into both culture types. Hybrid culture is a system where the employee is given an option to work from home a few days of the week.

This is believed to be in the best interest of the employee so that the employee can have a work-life balance. Looks very promising on the face of it.

However, I think this is a major-major mistake people are wilfully committing because they are laying their own foundation for redundancy. Let me explain how.

Office is not a place where you just come to work. It is actually an adult playground where you meet your friends. You laugh, you cry, you scream, you sulk, you celebrate and you despair!

You do all this in the company of people with whom you create a bond with and they eventually become you friends or in some cases, an extended family.

A hybrid culture is the first step in breaking the bond. And as more and more people meet less frequently, most bonds created in the office will eventually start to disintegrate and you will be left on your own to celebrate if you achieve the target or cry if you don’t.

But how will all this lead to redundancy. Remember, when you work from home, you are like a freelancer. However, you charge extra in the form of super (PF), sick leave, paid leave and other benefits like insurance.

It will not take long for the companies to take note of this and start the culling process. And even if you were to get a redundancy package, you will miss out on the friends and family you once had in the workplace. And believe me, a redundancy package disappears faster than a garden thief from your backyard.

They very culture you adopted so that you could spend more time with your family will bite you once you are out of a job because your family will start retracting from the overdose of your continuous attendance and support.

Most people fail to spot the bigger problem that change brings because they get too indulged with instant gratification. This phenomenon may take a few years to flourish, but the doom is inevitable.

People need to think for themselves and decide to be in the office for at least 4 days in a week to preserve the bondings and office relationships and not go overboard with the hybrid culture.

John Khalkho: CEO — Dolores Web Design