# Article From AI to Zoom: How the Covid-19 pandemic permanently changed remote work - Vox [[Post-Covid and Organisational Culture in EPIP]] #post-covid [[organisational culture]] [[24-03-2021]] [https://www.vox.com/recode/22331447/10-ways-office-work-pandemic-future-remote-work](https://www.vox.com/recode/22331447/10-ways-office-work-pandemic-future-remote-work) ### 8. Culture will be harder to create It’s much harder to make and retain a company culture when workers aren’t in the same room. And that ability has diminished as the pandemic has worn on. “I wasn’t worried at the beginning of Covid about keeping the culture alive — we were all reaching out, everyone was so concerned about community,” said RGP’s Duchene. “Then we got in a rhythm of ‘this is here to stay’ so there’s not as much energy.” In turn, ==workers have been limiting their interactions to a more core group of people — the ones they work with directly — rather than communicating with a wider range of groups that they may have in the office.== And judging from onboarding metrics during the pandemic, that shift is primed to continue. The number of connections new hires make at work — inferred by time spent in small meetings and in the number of direct communications with different people — is down 17 percent compared with pre-pandemic, according to data from Time Is Ltd. “It’s been a good thing for productivity, a bad thing for culture,” Duchene said. ==Without interactions with a wide range of people at your company, company culture suffers since people aren’t exposed to the same set of behaviors and values.== There have been some unexpected consequences as well. It’s notable, for example, that being physically separate from management has led to a [spike in people reporting their employers](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-12/whistle-blowing-soars-to-record-with-americans-working-from-home) for white-collar malfeasance. And the lack of cultural cohesion has implications for how the business operates. ==“This will create silos in the business, massive silos,” Time Is Ltd.’s Rezab said, which can contribute to groupthink and can hinder progress. “The company gets things done by collaborating cross-functionally,” Rezab said.== To rectify this, ==management will have to be more intentional with connecting people across the organization, rather than just their direct colleagues. So far it’s been difficult to mimic online the culture-building that happens in person.==