COVID-19 was the biggest driver of culture change in the last year
- There are dramatic differences between good and bad remote work cultures
- Management practices are evolving to adapt to the new ways of working and the expectations of the workforce
- Creating real psychological safety and focusing on employee experience is hard, but pays off in terms of engagement, motivation and outcomes
- Ethical issues, diversity and inclusion and tech for good make a difference and need to be addressed purposefully.
COVID-19 was the largest influence of change in the culture and methods space in 2020 and the knock on effects in 2021 are driving many of the trends we see at this time. The previous trends report was released early in the pandemic and we now have a year’s worth of content to explore how the IT world has adapted and responded. There have been many examples of great collaboration, teamwork and adapting to new ways of working along with plenty of stories of hardship, Zoom Fatigue, mental and physical health challenges and other impacts as people have adapted to working from home, managers have changed long-held beliefs about remote work and organisations have adopted new technologies to support the shift.