On this week's business leadership podcast, David shares how digital consultancy Red Badger transformed their workplace culture when the pandemic forced remote work adaptation.

As a remote work case study, Red Badger's team had to reimagine their organisational culture. Here's what David learned about maintaining team engagement and company culture in a hybrid workplace model.

"Pre-pandemic, we were very much about being in person. Pretty much 5 days a week and by and large being on client site with our clients," David says. "Getting the work done was not a problem."

However, the shift to remote working began impacting their employee experience: "We've always been a company that has tried to listen to what our employees want and what they think is valuable. We were going into the lockdown, we were thankfully pretty well prepared. We very quickly basically said to everyone, go and buy whatever you need to get set up at home... which is actually something we've kept now - if you join us, you get a thousand pounds working from your home budget to make sure that you've got a really good ergonomic setup at home."

Drawing inspiration from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Dan Pink's research-based book on motivation in creative industries, David explains the importance of purpose, autonomy and mastery for driving productivity, rather than traditional carrot-and-stick approaches.

Red Badger responded by implementing a hybrid work model through workplace transformation and employee feedback. "We got together as a company and reflected on what we want the culture to be now? And how do we achieve that?" David explains. "That wasn't for everybody. We definitely had a bit of churn in implementing that. But I've always believed in saying, let's make a decision for what's right for the business."

Discover more remote work strategies and company culture insights on the Happy Teams podcast.