Culture Coaches Being Hired to Help Remote Workers in Dispersed Locales

Corporate retreat booker Moniker has seen it all over the past nine years. Organizing Fiat 500 races through Tuscany’s cobbled streets for top-selling execs, then shifting to the virtual world with court case thrillers and space rescue missions during the pandemic.

But as travel returns, its most requested type of team building is a much tamer affair: intercultural communications.

Many companies, particularly technology startups, grew too fast during the pandemic. It’s partly because remote work became universally accepted, so rather than hiring top developers in, say, Silicon Valley, suddenly they could recruit for a fraction of the price in countries like Ukraine.

Long-distance relationships are never easy though.

Catch the Warning Signals

The first sign a company’s distributed employees may not be gelling together is a drop in activity across chat channels in communication platforms like Slack, according to Moniker’s CEO, who is increasingly being asked to bring in cultural coaches to speak at corporate retreats.

Join Us at the Skift Destination and Sustainability Summit on July 21

“The most common theme or objective right now is intercultural communications,” said Sean Hoff, who recently sat in on one of his customer’s workshops. “The facilitator taught people that when you say something, how does a Brazilian interpret it, or someone from Spain, or Germany. They teach how three people can interpret the exact same sentence completely differently,” he said.

A typical Moniker corporate retreat, before the pandemic. Picture: Moniker

The importance of culture shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s an extreme example, but one former British Airways executive vice president, Richard Tams, previously recounted how he spent his first year in China drinking green tea with government officials. Only 18 months later could he start calling on those people “to get stuff done” and help the airline expand in Asia.

Even the lack of “social capital” will impact businesses. Young bankers, for example, have been missing out on learning their trade and developing contacts by working alongside and traveling with senior colleagues because of the pandemic over the past 16 months.

“More companies are reaching out, asking me to speak about cultural intelligence,” said John Lee of consultancy Culture Mee. “Because they can hire remotely from anywhere in the world, at least those that have mobile workforces, it means we’re now going to be working with a higher percentage of workers from other national cultures, so developing cross-cultural communication skills will be vital skills to have in future.”

The training also ties into diversity and inclusion, Lee added, where having greater self-awareness and understanding of one’s own biases is a critical skill for many companies.

Defining the Culture Budget

More companies are recognizing they can’t just host a low-budget escape room on Zoom and expect staff to be grateful. Queue the rise of “social committees,” staffed by human resources experts, executive assistants and legal or compliance professionals, who are ensuring offsites, retreats and virtual gatherings are relevant for their businesses.

One Moniker customer, with 550 employees, has set up a a dedicated 10-person team to work on its company retreat program, Hoff noted.

Last year, organziations tended to divert their Christmas party budget to some form of online team building. Today, companies are setting predefined budgets. When it comes to investing in generic retreats, they spend an average of $4,000 per employee, for a four-night experience, based on Moniker’s analysis of the 190 retreats it has ran over the past nine years.

Flights tend to make up a quarter to a third of the cost. On the travel side, Moniker will directly charter airlines if there are significant numbers departing one city, otherwise it outsources the travel to Corporate Traveler, or more recently TripActions, which has just launched a dedicated platform for complex group bookings.

Hoff likens the work that corporate retreat bookers — or “culture agencies” as he likes to describe Moniker — do to a coach. “We help companies build better teams. If you’re a sports team, you hire the best athletes. But you also need a coach to make sure they reach their maximum potential,” he said. “You can have incredible talent, but if you don’t have someone helping them, you’re probably leaving a big portion unlocked.”

Sidenotes

There’s a constant drip feed of corporate working habits making the news today. Companies enjoy laying bare their new policies; you could argue it’s one way to boost your profile and attract new talent.

There’s no shortage of twists and turns in what firms are doing, but this week we got to hear about an entire country’s approach to the future of work, with Iceland declaring that a four-day week actually works.

It tested a shorter working week model from 2015 to 2019 with several companies, and after analyzing the data found productivity remained the same, or improved, in the majority of workplaces.

But as we hear that employees are the ones who should dictate how they work, can a government force such a policy on the business world? The trend seems to be veering towards asking for opinions, rather than dictating from the top down. For example, should Iceland’s prime minister take a leaf out of Okta’s book? According to reports, the software giant’s CEO asked all 3,500 employees to email him their vacation plans.

They already have unlimited vacation, but Todd McKinnon wanted to find out exactly what the employees were planning, after he shared his own schedule in order to help staff feel comfortable about switching off themselves.

Burnout is becoming a real problem. In June, dating app Bumble announced it was giving staff a paid week off to address a “collective burnout.” McKinnon has implied that the blame for any burnout should lie with the management, but makes an interesting point about human nature. “What surprises people continuously, even me, is that they’ve forgotten the positive feeling of being around people,” McKinnon said. More than 16 months into the pandemic, perhaps it’s just a case people have forgotten how to switch off, rather than burning out.

10-Second Corporate Travel Catch-Up

Who and what Skift has covered over the past week: AirAsia Digital, Emirates, Extended Stay America, Hopin, Innovate UK, Oyo Hotels, Qatar Airways, Soho House, Sonder, TravelPerk.

In Brief

Amex GBT Workspaces Goes Live in the UK

After launching Workspaces in the U.S., American Express Global Business Travel is now making the platform available to its UK customers. The workspace booking service is designed for remote workers and small teams, and includes day passes at co-working venues. The bookings are made through Amex GBT’s Meetings Express platform, and tap into content provided by Meetingsbooker.com.

“We all understand the value of face-to-face interactions, and that remote workers need to meet with colleagues, partners and customers, when and where they can do so safely,” said Wesley Bergstrom, vice president, global supplier partnerships. “And we recognize that remote workers sometimes need quiet space away from home, where they can work undisturbed.”

Convene Lets Staff Choose How Remote They Go 

Convene, a company that believes hybrid meetings are the future for its customers, is taking the message to heart by operating as a remote-first organization. “This means we will be empowering our leaders and team members to choose the work environments that are the most productive for them — a Convene space, at home, or another third space,” Ryan Simonetti, CEO and co-founder, wrote on LinkedIn.

It will also roll out programs to give the hospitality and technology staff that support its customers across its properties more flexibility and enhanced benefits. Another reason for going remote? “We want to attract top talent in more markets, including globally,” the company said.

A Slow Return to the Desk

The Bank of England has told its 4,000 employees they only need to be in the office for a minimum one day per week, beginning September. This is despite the UK government lifting most restrictions from July 19, including dropping its requirement that people should work from home if they can. After this date, it’s going to be up to employers to dictate whether their staff should be back in the workplace.

Register Now for the Skift Destination and Sustainability Summit on July 21