One in six people in the workforce feel less loyal to employer since working from home

AMSTERDAM, 25 August 2021 – Over sixteen percent of employees are currently less loyal towards their employer than they were prior to the coronacrisis. This has emerged from research conducted by Zoku among 1,107 Dutch people in paid employment, carried out by Panelwizard. An important explanation seems to be a lack of physical contact. Two thirds of all respondents feel less connected with their colleagues due to working from home for a long period of time.

Changing corporate culture impacts employees

Working from home is here to stay. In order to maintain the connection between colleagues, more and more companies are opting for a more hybrid way of working – with a slight emphasis on remote work versus office facilitation by an employer. By doing this, organizations run the risk of compromising on collaboration and cohesiveness amongst employees, according to the survey. For example, more than 59 percent of employees say that team relationships and business dynamics have changed significantly since the start of the coronacrisis.

More guidance and contact needed

Not only have business dynamics changed, but 43% of survey respondents say that the culture of their company has changed as well. This has a lasting impact and, with this new hybrid way of working, will not return to the same levels as prior to the pandemic. The solution to this problem seems relatively obvious: simply seeing one another more. 78% of respondents indicated that physically meeting with colleagues has a positive influence on their happiness at work. Offering training, tools and guidance from employers on how to improve hybrid (and remote) collaboration: more than half of the employees state they long for this.

“What we have been observing for some time is an increase in location-independence and hybrid working. Before the pandemic, this was mainly for digital nomads, startups, scaleups and the self-employed. During the lockdown, everyone could start working from home and now we see that most people still aren’t going back to the office completely. There is now a shift towards ‘corporate nomads’, people who instead of working together from a fixed location at regular intervals, rather meet with each other periodically to promote connection, cooperation, knowledge sharing and job satisfaction. This will only continue to develop in the future. It is now up to companies to actively focus on facilitating connections and creating a corporate culture that combines hybrid and physical collaboration, something this research confirms.” – says Hans Meyer, managing director and co-founder of Zoku.

This research was commissioned by Zoku, the first home-office hybrid concept in Amsterdam that has been demonstrating the importance of innovative home-work life since 2016. Based on research and experience, they developed the ‘ReConnect’ program, to give employees tools to work together remotely within the organization. In an interactive way, employees within an organization learn how they can work together again, both in person and at a distance, after a long time. In doing so, the feeling of togetherness and cohesion has increased within a responsible environment.