Winter Candidate Sentiment Survey – Part 3: How new working habits have impacted workplace morale
Part 3 of our Winter Candidate sentiment survey, as first published on The Currency.
Twice a year we run a Candidate Sentiment Survey to assess candidates’ attitudes to certain topics.
- 2,158 candidates completed the survey.
- The candidates surveyed were from junior management to “C” suite level across the IT, finance, accounting, legal, HR, and ESG professions.
- The candidates were presented with a multiple-choice answer for every question, bar question 1, where they chose every answer applicable to them.
- Where the same question was asked in our Autumn 2022 survey, we provide a comparison to Autumn 2023.
- The survey had a “free text” box at the end, and over 10 per cent of the candidates chose to give us their observations on certain topics. Their observations are under the relevant questions in italics.
Part one examined views on working from home, flexible jobs, and the future of the office.
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Has a negative workplace culture ever been the main reason you have left a job?
We believe in the saying, “You don’t leave your job; you leave your Manager”. A lot of negative workplace cultures are the fault of the leaders within the business; sometimes, it can be just one overpowering presence. That said, three out of four respondents left a role because of a negative culture, which is much higher than we envisaged.
What the respondents said:
“Employers continue to pay lip service to culture, inclusion, diversity, etc. Not so much from an LGBQ perspective but more from an appreciation of opinion, background, experience, etc. Will definitely be leaving my current role due to the above.”
“Being connected is not really a function of remote vs in-office. It’s about management and culture of the staff. Bad management is just amplified a bit by being remote.”
“The sense of belonging can be difficult to achieve in fully remote working. It takes more effort to instil culture, but it is crucial for success.”
“In general companies need to accept the new norms and understand that culture can still be proactively driven in a positive way. Connectivity is important but needs to be a priority and front and centre with the leadership team.”
“Culture of a business is based off our interactions. Productivity is now viewed on time in the office together.”
“I think staff morale and bad behaviour by line managers are very mixed. Blind eyes are turned, and HR can be the worst culprits as they don’t want to have failure pinned on them. They are often complicit and not trusted.“
If you work in an office less than 2 days per week, do you find it more difficult to connect with the culture of your organisation?
One of the questions we were keen to ask was about company culture and the possible disconnect that people may feel from being in the office for two days or less. Interestingly, over one in four respondents feel disconnected; we were expecting this figure to be higher. This question generated a large organic response, with some interesting observations from the respondents below.
What the respondents said:
“Difficult to get colleagues back to the office, a definite drop in connection.”
“Workplace cultures can be very complex these days, often obscured by political correctness and a tendency for certain behaviours and prejudices to be hidden from plain sight. Genuine openness and transparency are thus increasingly rare.”
“I feel working fully remotely is not beneficial. In terms of building relationships with colleagues, some in-office time is important. A minimum of one day a week.”
“Culture is a word thrown around but rarely defined by companies. Most use it as a generic term to force an agenda or change, returning to an office for no reason, as an example. It’s usually set by people at a level who are quite disconnected from the general workforce, so they don’t actually know what they are talking about. I’m a big fan of promoting and embracing culture, it’s just done terribly, and no amount of pizza and beer in a dreary IFSC building will change that.”
“Likely that many firms will continue to ask employees to go back to the office, not just for culture but also so that graduates can learn from experienced employees.”
“The remote and hybrid options are good for the employee and great for productivity and lifestyle choices, but definitely impact the connection to the company and the culture.”
“If you only work certain days or in a different time zone, it’s very difficult to be included; you need to make yourself available to become part of the culture of the company. If you’re not interested, then you’re never going to be integrated.”
“The issue of hybrid working and how that is most effectively deployed in organisations is yet to reach a full conclusion. While remote working is valued by employees in being more time efficient and effective in use of time, the necessity of in-person attendance is increasingly becoming recognised. In-person attendance is essential to fostering workplace culture, brand loyalty and safeguarding the long-term wellbeing of employees by providing social and networking opportunities for support and to avoid burnout.”
“While I feel connected to the culture of the company, I understand that a remote set-up makes it harder to bring people into the team and the culture.”
“I believe if hybrid working is to work well, there needs to be effort on the part of the employee to connect with corporate culture. It’s not going to happen as organically as when you are full-time in the office.”
“As a contractor, I have mostly noticed HR and People Teams have become disconnected from their workforce. Lunches, merch, etc. are not what people look for. Vision, roadmaps, product strategies, etc. is what makes them excited.“
We would like to thank all the respondents for filling out the survey. Special thanks to those who chose to add comments; these were particularly illuminating.
This article was initially published on The Currency website.