How To Entice Employees Back to the Office
Despite the headlines, many employers do not embrace the notion of hybrid work, believing that co-locating yields significant benefits for their employees and their businesses. However, the comfort and productivity of working from home for some, as well as the trauma experienced from the pandemic by others, are causing employees to push back as employers nudge them to return to the office.
LoopNet spoke with Joanna Hoffschneider, a business consultant, trainer and coach that helps individuals and companies in the mid-Atlantic region hone their career and business strategies, who has been on the front line of the hybrid work debate throughout the pandemic. She has counseled both office employees and employers about a range of issues that include concerns about shrinking businesses and falling revenues; excitement about new opportunities and increased demand; shock and grief over the death of loved ones from COVID-19; severe loneliness among many who live alone; and extreme anxiety, stress and exhaustion among parents managing children and work simultaneously.
“The COVID experience has not been the same for everyone. Each person thinks their COVID experience is the covid experience,” said Hoffschneider. But the reality is that each of us has experienced our own unique version of the pandemic, she said, and the timing of societal and office “reentry” will vary accordingly.
”What we have lost is serendipity, or happy collisions, that lead to new ideas and relationship building”
Joanna Hoffschneider
Many of the employers that Hoffschneider has spoken with want their employees in the office most of the time and don’t foresee a future that includes extensive hybrid work. Hoffschneider noted that many of these employers are driven by the notion that “what we have lost is serendipity, or happy collisions, that lead to new ideas and relationship building,” which are two elements that are critical for companies to grow and evolve.
On the other hand, Hoffschneider has also been speaking with numerous employees that would prefer to work from home several days a week. Based on these conversations, she has generated several ideas, beyond the basic health and safety protocols, that employers should consider implementing to attract employees back to the office and make them want to continue returning. Interestingly, many of the concerns expressed by employees relate to challenges found in open-plan offices that existed before the pandemic but seem to be heightened for some after a year of doing their jobs from their homes.
Hoffschneider acknowledged that commuting is a significant part of this equation. However, because the conversations about congestion, parking and transit vary so much between urban and nonurban areas, as well as in other ways, she chose to leave that issue aside for the moment.
Hoffschneider’s key ideas for attracting employees back to the office include:
- Provide reliable Wi-Fi, acoustic privacy, personal space and free food.
- Carve out spaces for individuals and mentoring.
- Adjust your dress code.
- Honor your culture.
- Trust your employees at a scale you can absorb.
For some employees, working from home meant more flexibility to move the laptop around to find places better suited for acoustic privacy during online meetings or personal spaces to take breaks. For those working from home in cramped or busy spaces, they too sought quiet or restful locations that were often outside of their homes. The ability to continue to do these things in a frictionless environment at the office will assuage the concerns of many employees, especially those that have had traumatic COVID-19 experiences like some of those mentioned above.
Reliable Wi-Fi. “Ensure that the office Wi-Fi is evenly distributed and accessible from all areas of the office. Whether at the company or building level, as people move around the office, they will rely on Wi-Fi networks, rather than previously hardwired desktops,” Hoffschneider said. “Make it easy for people by managing the change; proactively share security protocols, communicate logins and passwords, and conduct ‘training without shaming’ for those who may not be as tech-confident as IT thinks they should be. Make the tech landing a soft one, or employees will be heading back to their home offices if they can.”
Acoustic privacy. While many are going back to offices where face-to-face interaction can occur, Hoffschneider said that “meetings will be changed for the foreseeable future,” and potentially forever. So, employers should anticipate ongoing use of videoconferences at workstations and effectively accommodate the need for acoustic privacy. “Employers may need to consider phone rooms and huddle spaces for more than a quick private call, and [have] an increased awareness of visual and auditory distractions in the office now that meetings are not confined to conference rooms.”
Personal space. “Whatever COVID-precautions are put in place, there is no vaccine for the anxiety and sustained stress that so many have experienced. Anxiety is not neutralized by logic,” Hoffschneider said, recalling the concerns and even fears that many clients have expressed. People, accustomed to working and flowing through their homes, “will want more space and more choices about proximity to others. Flexibility and freedom of movement will be key.”
”Just as it was hard to move into the isolation of pandemic-driven work from home, the adjustment to sharing our spaces with others will create friction”
Joanna Hoffschneider
She suggested that employers consider how outdoor spaces can be used to supplement traditional indoor gathering spaces, as well as creating spaces where people can retreat from others to reset. “Just as it was hard to move into the isolation of pandemic-driven work from home, the adjustment to sharing our spaces with others will create friction.”
Hoffschneider emphasized that these accommodations represent the basic elements required for reentry. “These are not what make people want to come back, or what makes your space desirable. These things will make people feel safe and comfortable when they are there, but there are other things that will make people want to get dressed, get in their car and commute to the office.”
Free food. “Whether provided at the landlord or the employer level, we've missed the free coffee and snacks,” Hoffschneider said with a chuckle. Some organizations, albeit wealthy ones, provide free snacks and even lunch every day. While this may not be financially feasible for all companies to do, simply offering protein bars and fresh fruit daily can be a safety net for individuals. If there was no time to eat breakfast before leaving the house, knowing these items are available at the office can alleviate stress from the morning routine.
”The path to the corner office is not through the home office; it never has been”
Joanna Hoffschneider
Carve out spaces for individuals and mentoring. “We have learned to execute on tasks effectively from a remote setting, but we've struggled to learn and grow as professionals,” in the remote realm, Hoffschneider noted. “Emerging professionals and very ambitious people want to get back to the office because the path to the corner office is not through the home office. It never has been.”
She qualified this by saying that those in very, very niche professions can advance without a significant presence, but that for the most part, “promotion requires presence.”
“Young professionals who are still learning and honing their craft, particularly if they're new hires, want to be back in the office with the senior staff, because that's who they learn from. Huddle spaces and room for informal conversations will matter more than ever as we go back to the office, escalating a pre-pandemic trend,” Hoffschneider said.
”Young professionals who are still learning and honing their craft want to be back in the office with the senior staff, because that's who they learn from”
Joanna Hoffschneider
Hoffschneider noted that among her clients, generally, “older people do not feel the need to go back to the office because many feel — and I disagree — they have learned their skills and they can do their jobs, so they will work from home,” as independent entities or sole contributors. These are the people who are needed to mentor the junior workers, so giving them carte blanche about where to work creates a void for young professionals.
Adjust your dress code. Working from home meant wearing hoodies and yoga pants for many throughout the day, which introduced a level of comfort many office workers had never enjoyed and recontextualized office relationships, especially between supervisors and direct reports.“We need to recognize that relationships changed; we are less formal people than we were,” Hoffschneider said. She suggested that relaxing the dress code was one effective way to encourage employees to return to the office.
Honor your culture. “If doing service projects together is what made your culture different, then get that back in your mix as soon as you can. If what made you different was that you had a summer softball league, maybe you could do an early fall season this year,” Hoffschneider said. Figure out the “secret sauce to your culture that brings people out.” Reengaging employees with each other around office activities, customs or traditions is a powerful way to reconnect them to each other and to your common mission as a company.
Trust your employees at a scale you can absorb. Hoffschneider noted that one firm she spoke with initially wanted its employees to return to the office full time. “They're an architecture firm and they firmly believe, and I don't actually disagree with them, that mentoring, growth and design synergy happens when you are co-located.” However, to provide some flexibility, every employee, regardless of rank or tenure, is given 15 work-from-home days a year, “that they don't have to beg, borrow or plead for.” They do need to book them in advance and clear them with their supervisor. Fifteen days may not sound like a lot, but this is a firm of 40 people and “this is a work-from-home scale that this small firm can absorb.”
