If you take a look at social media, you’ll see that “return-to-office” policies have been the topic of a wide variety of discussions. Company executives love the idea of bringing everyone back into the office regularly to foster a sense of teamwork and culture (while also making use of the office space you’re still paying for). At the same time, most employees despise the idea of coming back to the office full-time. They’ve gotten used to working from the comfort of their home.
If your company has been remote since the pandemic, enacting a return-to-office policy is something that needs to be handled with care and preparation. Being open with your employees about why the policy exists and improving the space and office equipment they’re returning to are key to making this go smoothly.
Talk to Your Employees
First and foremost, you need to keep an open dialogue with your employees during the transition. When you announce that you’re bringing people back to the office on either a hybrid or full-time basis, there are going to be a lot of questions–especially if your company has been operating remotely for years.
Why now? What’s in it for me? Is there flexibility? What does this look like? Those questions and more are going to be floating around in everyone’s head, along with some strong feelings regarding this change. By nature, most humans are resistant to change, so maintaining an open dialogue with your employees will help ease any concerns they may have regarding the transition.
Improve the Space They’re Returning To
Bringing people back to an office with outdated equipment is a surefire way to annoy them. They’re coming all this way only to work with technology that’s outdated and slowing down their work, despite being brought back to “increase productivity”.
Take in your office space and note where things could be made better. Are your desks old and creaky? Were the monitors made back in 2015? Does your office printer even function? Make sure things are in working order, and the space is enticing for your employees to come back to work in the office.
Cultivate Workplace Culture
The biggest complaint that many have about remote work is that there isn’t much opportunity for workplace culture to develop. This is probably one of your biggest reasons for wanting people back in the office, but workplace culture doesn’t magically develop by shoving everyone into the same room. You need to offer spaces for it to develop.
The most successful activities both have food involved and take place during work hours. Hosting something off-site after hours means people have to take time out of their evenings or weekends to participate, which many aren’t willing to do. Consider hosting a catered lunch in your office for people to take part in conversation outside of work but still within work hours.
Be Realistic
While you may want all of your employees to be back in the office full-time tomorrow, that’s not going to happen. Not without sending a lot of your employees job hunting for a company that doesn’t have unrealistic expectations (if they don’t outright quit at the declaration). After years of working remotely full-time, people have adjusted their schedules to that lifestyle.
Give them plenty of time to prepare for the return. They may need to find someone to watch their children after school or find a dog walker to make sure their pets don’t go stir crazy and tear up their home. Being understanding of your employees’ lives during this transition is key to maintaining employee morale and company loyalty.
Return-to-office policies aren’t going to be popular with everyone who works for you. Some of your employees may leave for a different position at a fully remote company because that fits their lifestyle better. You can’t stop people from leaving, but you can make the transition easier (and preserve most of your workforce) by keeping an open line of communication and providing real incentives for your employees to come into the office once more.
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