Getting employees back in the office has become a hot topic recently and will last at least until 2023, companies are still looking for ways to get them back in the office.
However, forcing employees to return to the office is not a wise option as requiring the employees, who are accustomed to working flexibly, to return to the office can only have a negative effect, and even lead to talent loss.
The best approach is to adopt an incentive-based policy that provides an incentive to attract employees returning to the office. You also need to know that your workplace is ready to welcome them back.
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Incentives to Encourage Return to Your Office
Workspace renovation – Redesign your office into a dynamic and comfortable workspace.
Commuter benefits – Provide your employees with travel allowances, and even free shuttle buses.
Free meals – Some companies offer complimentary snacks and lunches to employees.
Health and wellness facilities – Provide a gym in the workplace or a spiritual retreat room with a focus on wellness.
Hybrid work schedules – Allows your employees to work remotely sometimes and provide personalized work hours for each staff.
Workplace concerns you need to know
In addition to implementing the above motivational measures, you also need to be aware of the problems your employees encounter when working remotely so that you don’t repeat the mistakes in your workplace.
We’ve collected some data and made some analysis to support your decision to return to work.
Workspace management
When employees return to their workplace and find too many empty workspaces, they feel empty and sparse.
Therefore, you need to optimize your office space, most importantly by centralizing work areas and rebuilding spaces for teamwork. This will help attract employees back to the office. Some data shows that centralized work areas make employees happier, and their attendance steadily improves.
Microsoft’s report found that 85% of employees enter the office because they are motivated by a renewed team bond, so when rebuilding your workspace, you need to pay attention to a clear division of work areas.
Facilitate communication everywhere
Another thing employees crave is the ability to talk face-to-face. The epidemic causes employees to work alone for long periods of time, making them mental fatigue which can affect the quality of their work. Face-to-face conversations can provide immediate feedback and make work run more smoothly.
Microsoft reports that employees will visit the office more often if they know their immediate team member will be there (73%) or their work friend is there (74%).
Communicating with supervisors in a relaxed space makes for a more casual work atmosphere and brings both parties closer together more easily, which helps build a good work culture.
Some companies create their offices as friendly and casual environments and also provide equipment that is conducive to work.
Appropriate Work Flexibility
Employees like to work from home because working remotely has high flexibility. So, when they work in the workplace, it is important for you to provide a flexible work style in your workplace.
One simple thing is to provide them with flexible office facilities, such as a hot desk, so that they can change their work location in anytime and feel as relaxed as if they were working at home. This policy can relieve employees’ anxiety and will not highly refuse to return to the workplace.
Reports indicate that more than 80% of managers expect to adopt more flexible work principles in the post-epidemic era to support employees to work from home and encourage them to return to the office.
Systematic work devices
Nowadays, hybrid workplaces are implementing different collaboration tools or management systems to improve employee productivity. For example, Microsoft Teams is a great collaboration tool that allows employees to have real-time conversations and store their work progress in the company’s cloud-based system.
Then, workers can keep track of their remote work progress when they go back to the office. A report shows 70% of companies are using collaboration tools and are seeing significant improvements in team performance.
Moreover, workers expect their workplace to provide them with a well-connected network. In an internal study of Microsoft employees, 59% of interviewers said they had to use their phones as hotspots to avoid disconnections.
Thus, you must provide employees with a good network system to attract them back to the office.
What setup can support your hybrid office?
A hybrid office should use a functional office management system, which helps Singapore employees use office resources efficiently, such as rooms, desks, and office equipment, and support them to have remote work and virtual meetings with their colleagues in the office.
ONES is one of the famous all-in-one smart office systems that can help you to easily implement hybrid working at ease. ONES can easily help you to perform virtual meetings, desk hoteling, and digital office management with our Room Booking, Desk Booking, and Visitor Management feature.
Contact us: hello@ones.software, or visit ONES Software official website for more information: https://ones.software/.