But here’s the deal. The world - especially the working world - was fundamentally transformedby (brace for it) The New Normal. The way we work changed almost overnight, yet it’s taking usmore than a few months to negotiate how we’re going to go back to work as we knew it - or ifwe’re going to do that at all.
Last year, as many workers started to return to their in-person offices in droves, we saw tensionarise between stakeholders who wanted a return to normalcy and employees who werereluctant to give up working remotely. We saw the emergence of the hybrid work model as awell-tolerated solution that satiated everybody’s needs.Three years after office doors closed and Zoom became part of the corporate lexicon, manyworkplaces are still negotiating if or how they are going to return to the office. How areemployees feeling about it? How are HR professionals and managers feeling about it? Let’s getinto it.
As one might expect, employees feel a little differently about returning to the office than their HRprofessionals and managers do. According to a 2021 survey conducted by Workest by Zenefits,68% of HR professionals and small business owners want to go back to working at a physicalworkplace. On the other hand, only 53% of employees who were asked the same questionanswered in the affirmative.
Interestingly, both managers and employees report enjoying working from home. 92% of HRpros and business owners and 94% of employees reported enjoying remote work. So we’re onthe same page there - it’s just that those in management positions are keener to return to theoffice than their employees are.
And for good reason, too. Among HR and management respondents who are pro-RTO, the topreasons cited for wanting to return to a physical workplace included:
On the flip side, the top reasons cited by pro-remote employees included:
Ultimately, the Workest survey demonstrates that everyone is aligned about the benefits ofworking from home. Both parties agree that remote work is conducive to more productiveworking hours, work that is of higher quality, and a healthier work-life balance.That being said, HR professionals and business owners are more likely to support a return tothe office. The employees who responded to the survey were pretty evenly split on the subjectof RTO - 53% said that they wanted to go back to a physical office, while 47% said that they were content to keep working remotely.
You’d think that the tech-savvy job-hoppers would be the ones to favor remote work, but it’sactually Millennials and Gen Z employees who are the keenest of all the generations in theworkforce to return to the office. According to the Harvard Business Review, youngeremployees stand to gain the most from personal connections and mentoring opportunities atwork whereas older workers with longer track records require less supervision and are morefamiliar with their roles. Older folks are also more inclined to exercise caution againstcontracting COVID-19.
This insight is consistent with the Workest survey, which reflects that the top reasons whyemployees want to return to the office are:
Generally, it appears that everybody enjoys the benefits of working from home, but the trendseems to be sliding towards a return to the office. Hybrid models and other solutions haveshown us that when we’re curious about how to accommodate what everyone needs to do theirbest work, we can get the best of both worlds.
One of the opportunities that has arisen from the Great Return to Office has been the chance toreimagine how in-person offices operate. For HR professionals and managers who are dealingwith employees who are anxious about returning to the office, it may be helpful to remind themthat a return to office doesn’t necessarily mean a return to the way things were before thepandemic.
That is to say, if you are conducting a return to office, you should take care to outline all theways in which your employees will be supported during the transition. According to the Workestsurvey, many workplaces are rethinking the perks and benefits that they have on offer foremployees. That’s especially poignant considering that, for many employees, the opportunity forremote work is no longer a work perk - it’s an employee right.
Some of the perks and benefits that offices are rethinking include:
Remaining flexible enough to accommodate the perks and benefits which allow employees todo their best work is in the best interests of all parties involved. Sure, it might call for somecreative thinking, but you know what they say - necessity breeds ingenuity.
If you’re in charge of conducting your organization’s transition from a remote work model to ahybrid model or a full-blown return to office, HBR has a few tips and tricks that you could followfor the best outcomes.
Take care to clearly communicate the vision from upper management so that employees canunderstand the why behind the return to office. If they don’t buy it, it could be received ascoercion.
Employees could receive the return to office as a loss of personal autonomy, so it helps toreframe it in terms of what they stand to gain by going back in. A return to office mightstrengthen their relationships with coworkers, restore a much-needed social element to theirwork, and establish clearer boundaries between work and personal life with a dedicatedworkspace.
A sudden return to work could overwhelm employees, especially if your organization istransitioning from fully remote to fully in-person. In situations like this, it may be beneficial toimplement a pilot program which restores some agency to when and how employees return tothe office. For instance, they could pick one day a week when they go into the office for a coupleof weeks and check back in. Baby steps are never a bad idea.
You could even roll out this approach on an individual basis for employees who are especiallyanxious about returning to the office or have ongoing caretaking responsibilities that keep themat home
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