How Has Workplace Culture Changed After COVID-19? Where Does Art Fit In?

Think about the last time you had an unplanned conversation with a colleague.

Maybe it happened while making coffee. Maybe someone stopped by your desk and a five-minute conversation turned into twenty minutes. Perhaps you discussed a weekend plan, complained about a meeting, or discovered something you had in common.

These moments rarely appeared on a calendar. Yet they were part of what made a workplace feel like a workplace.

Then COVID-19 changed where we worked, and many of those small interactions disappeared almost overnight.

The question now is not whether remote and hybrid work will disappear. It is what organisations can do to build connection when people are no longer sharing the same physical space every day.

This is where art can offer an interesting possibility.

The Workplace Has Changed, and So Has Workplace Culture

Before 2020, working from home was still relatively unusual for many employees. During the pandemic, that changed dramatically. By May 2020, around 61.5% of paid workdays in the US were being completed from home, compared with 7.2% at the beginning of the year. (Oyster HR)

The numbers have fallen since then, but they have not returned to pre-pandemic levels. Research cited by Oyster shows that employees now work remotely for roughly a quarter of their workdays, around five times the pre-pandemic level. (Oyster HR)

Hybrid work has therefore become part of everyday working life for many people.

And this has created an interesting contradiction.

Technology has made it easier than ever to communicate, but communication is not the same as connection.

Zoom is a good example. The platform went from around 10 million daily meeting participants in December 2019 to more than 300 million by April 2020. Importantly, these figures referred to meeting participants, not unique users, because one person could participate in several meetings in a day. (Zoom Investors)

We became remarkably good at meetings. But did we become equally good at connecting?

When the Casual Moments Disappear

Workplace culture is often discussed through values, policies and leadership programmes. Yet culture is also built through ordinary interactions.

A quick conversation before a meeting. Lunch with someone from another department. A colleague asking how your weekend went. The unexpected exchange that happens because two people happen to be in the same place.

Hybrid work makes these encounters less predictable.

That does not mean hybrid work is bad. In fact, research shows that flexibility can bring meaningful benefits. Oyster's review of remote-work research notes that fully remote and hybrid employees can report higher engagement than fully on-site employees, while Gallup data indicates that many remote-capable employees prefer hybrid arrangements. (Oyster HR)

The challenge is therefore not getting everyone back into the office. It is creating meaningful opportunities for people to connect, wherever they work.

And organisations are aware of the problem. A survey of business leaders by LinkedIn found that 30% identified maintaining corporate culture as their biggest concern when managing hybrid teams. More recent CBRE research puts the challenge even more strongly: 70% of leaders surveyed identified building team culture as their greatest challenge in managing hybrid or remote teams. (LinkedIn)

So what can fill some of the space left behind by those informal interactions?

Perhaps We Need More Shared Experiences

This is where art becomes interesting.

Not because every workplace needs more paintings on its walls, but because art can create a reason for people to pause, talk and share perspectives.

Think about what happens when a team looks at an artwork together.

One person might notice the colour first. Another might respond to the subject. Someone else might dislike it completely. Another person may connect it to a memory.

There is no single correct answer.

That changes the nature of the conversation.

Instead of discussing a deadline, a target or a project update, people are talking about what they see and how they interpret it. Someone who rarely speaks during meetings may have a completely different perspective on an artwork. A senior leader and a new employee can respond to the same image without their job titles determining who is “right”.

That can create a different kind of interaction.

Research into art-based workplace activities supports some of this potential. An exploratory study involving health and social-care workers found that art viewing supported expression, playfulness and relational interaction, while art-making helped some participants articulate emotions connected to work-related stress. (ScienceDirect)

Another workplace intervention involving nursing staff found that arts activities were associated with improvements in wellbeing, stress, creativity and a sense of community at work. (PubMed)

The evidence is still developing, and art should not be presented as a cure for workplace stress or disconnection. But it does point towards something worth exploring: creative experiences can create different conditions for people to interact.

Art Can Make the Workplace Feel More Human

There is another side to this conversation.

When employees spend part of their working week at home, the office itself has to become more than a place where people come in to complete tasks.

If people are going to commute, they need reasons to want to be there.

That does not necessarily mean adding more amenities or designing increasingly elaborate offices. It can also mean creating spaces that encourage curiosity, conversation and a sense of belonging.

Art can contribute to that experience.

A thoughtfully selected artwork can give people something to talk about. An artist-led session can introduce employees to a completely different way of thinking. A discussion around an exhibition can bring people from different teams into the same conversation.

Research on physical workplaces has also found that elements such as natural materials, windows and artwork representing diverse identities can influence measures including stress, creativity and belonging. (ScienceDirect)

The point is not that art automatically creates a better workplace.

• It is that the environment sends signals about what an organisation values.

• A completely functional space tells employees that work happens here.

• A thoughtful space can tell them that people matter here too.

From Decoration to Participation

This distinction is important for organisations considering art.

There is a difference between putting artwork on a wall and creating an experience around art.

The first changes the environment. The second can change the interaction within it.

This could take the form of an artist-led workshop, a conversation around a collection, a creative session for employees, or a programme connecting an organisation with an artist or wider community.

For Artlune, this is where art-based workplace initiatives become particularly meaningful.

We believe art works best in organisations when it is treated as part of the employee experience rather than a decorative afterthought. The aim is not to make employees “understand art”. It is to create an environment where people can be curious, express a perspective and encounter something outside their usual working routine.

That can be valuable in a hybrid workplace where opportunities for spontaneous interaction are harder to create.

The Future of Workplace Culture May Need New Rituals

COVID-19 did not destroy workplace culture. It changed where and how culture is created.

Some of the old rituals have disappeared. Others have moved online. New ones are still developing.

Perhaps the next step is to think more deliberately about what brings people together.

Not every connection needs to be another team-building exercise. Not every employee experience needs to be measured through productivity. Sometimes, people need opportunities to talk about something that has nothing to do with their job.

Art can provide that starting point.

It gives people something to look at, question and interpret together. It creates space for different voices. Most importantly, it can remind us that a workplace is made up of people, not calendars, screens and meeting links.

The future of work may be hybrid. But workplace culture still needs to feel human.

And perhaps one way forward is to create more moments where people can stop working for a while, look at something together, and simply have a conversation.

References

1. NCCI. (2020). Remote Work Before, During, and After the Pandemic. National Council on Compensation Insurance.

2. Oyster. (2025). The State of Remote Work in 2025. Oyster.

3. Zoom. (2021). A Year Later: Reflecting and Looking Ahead. Zoom.

4. NCCI. Remote Work and Workers Compensation Frequency. National Council on Compensation Insurance.

5. Clift, S., & Morrison, I. (2011). Group singing fosters mental health and wellbeing: Findings from the East Kent “singing and wellbeing” project. Arts & Health, 3(2), 111–120.

6. Daykin, N., Mansfield, L., Meads, C., Julier, G., Tomlinson, A., Payne, A., Grigsby D., & Victor, C. (2018). What works for wellbeing? A systematic review of wellbeing outcomes for arts and cultural activities. Wellcome Trust.