Organizational Culture

Leader, Manager and Individual Connections to Culture

Unfortunately, only two in 10 employees strongly agree that they feel connected to their workplace culture.

Employees' feelings of detachment align with how they believe their teammates and managers contribute to their organization's culture. Only two in 10 employees strongly agree that their coworkers are committed to their organization's cultural values, and the same proportion of employees strongly agree that their manager explains how the organization's cultural values influence their work.

In contrast, employees tend to think the people who set the direction for the organization -- their leaders -- are more committed to the organization's cultural values than the rest of the organization.

Gallup data show that senior leaders do indeed tend to have a better understanding and sense of alignment with their organization's culture than most other individuals do. In fact, leaders are twice as likely as individual contributors and team managers to strongly agree they feel connected to their culture.

In some ways, it's good for leaders to feel somewhat closer to their organization's values and culture because they set the tone for everyone else. However, a divide this large reflects a disconnect in how leaders and other employees are experiencing their work environment.

Notably, this gap in perceptions of connection to workplace culture is not simply due to the hierarchical nature of roles within organizations. Managers -- who are responsible for creating a strong sense of culture -- are nearly as likely to struggle with feeling connected to the organization’s culture as the people they lead. We often see that this results from managers experiencing the disconnect between the company messaging they are supposed to promote and the actual behaviors lived out in the organization.

Remote Work and Connection to Culture

The remote work twist: Fully on-site work isn't the answer to building your workplace culture.

In the new world of remote work flexibility, there is substantial concern among business leaders and workplace experts that working outside the office too frequently will erode workplace culture and collaboration.

Gallup research shows that fostering culture and collaboration indeed tends to be more challenging when people mostly work from different locations. However, we caution that having employees work on-site does not guarantee a stronger connection to workplace culture, as is evident in the similar connection to culture for exclusively remote and on-site employees. Among all employees, those with a hybrid work arrangement have the strongest connection to their organization's culture.

Interestingly, we asked directly about how remote work might affect their organization long term.

Six in 10 U.S. employees at all job levels anticipate that if remote work becomes a norm at their organization, it will not have a long-term impact on their culture.

Leaders are more likely than managers and individual contributors to be concerned about remote work flexibility hurting their workplace culture: 27% of leaders believe their workplace culture would get worse if many employees work remotely long term, but just 13% of individual contributors say the same.

These insights highlight a need for greater awareness of the advantages and challenges of remote work flexibility, as well as training to work more effectively in a hybrid environment.