Give them flexibility, or watch them leave?
The real elephant in the room that companies must address: Are your employees as excited as you are to come back to the office?
From both my professional and personal circles, I've been hearing stories from managers who face (in astonishment) a push back from team members who would prefer to keep on working from home, rather than coming back full time to the office. I wonder if they ever imagined having this destabilizing conversation in their management careers.
I’ve heard stories from employees too. Individual contributors who were surprised by sudden announcements regarding their sudden, specific, and minimal expected presence at the office (say 3 out of 5 days at the office, per week, to 5 out of 5).
Now, there is a strong case for enterprises to want their people back at the office. Everything from better collaboration, creativity, innovation, attraction, retention, engagement, and cultivating a solid workplace culture is at play here. Nevertheless, we cannot oversee all the reasons why employees have grown fond of working from home. May it be the fact of not having to commute (and being able to use that extra time as they please, though a good portion is put back into work), as well as newfound access to autonomy, flexibility, better work-life balance, ability to attend family matters, etc.
This creates a push-and-pull situation that is frustrating for everybody. I see some organizations using the command-and-control ways to bring people back, while others try friendly strategies like providing free lunch, free ice cream, music, and live animations at given times. And of course!, communicating on these fun actions with the hope of pushing the FOMO buttons of their absent workforce.
My wonder is: are enterprises addressing this situation with the seriousness it deserves? Because for me, this is the real elephant in the room right now; an uncomfortable conversation that not a lot of people are willing to have, and a potential pandora box that enterprises do not want to get close to, but should.
If left unaddressed, the potential damage could be vast, the reasons being the following:
- A recent study about the future of remote work by McKinsey showed that around 30% of employees would switch jobs if they were to return to fully on-site work.
- Another survey from Bloomberg found that 39% of workers (a number that raised to 49% for Millennials and Gen Z) would quit their job if their current employer is unwilling to allow them to work remotely.
Something you can challenge me on is: “are those employees likely to go through and act on their words?”. Truth is, they may, or they may not, but is losing your top talent a risk you are willing to take especially at a time where top performance, creativity, and innovation will be critical to go forward?
It is likely that amongst your pool of talent, you have people who can’t wait to come back to the office (or never stopped coming for that matter), people that don’t want to come back AT ALL, and then, you may have another group that just wants the best out of both worlds, what we are calling hybrid working. I believe, as a leader, you should want to know how the distribution between those groups looks like for your organization, since there is no way to create a point of view and even less a strategy, if you do not know what you are working with…or against.
Here are 5 ideas to take into consideration if this is a topic of concern to you:
1. Listen to your employees: Employee sentiment surveys that measure employees’ intentions, needs, and expectations help you get the pulse of the situation and give you direction to craft a strategy. Having that face-to-face conversation is important too, and managers should not shy away from it.
2. Make a strong and compelling case: Employees need to understand and experience the benefits of being together. Coming to the office just to sit at a desk and be seen while working does not make for a good reason to return (and will not justify the commuting effort). Make sure to understand your employees’ main motivators to come to the office and deliver on them.
3. Manage the transition: Transitions are hard for everybody, and people just got used to a new normal. Address this transition by effectively and authentically empathizing, communicating, coaching, and managing change.
4. Prototype: There is no recipe for the new normal, which is why prototyping and addressing this situation with a learning mindset (with a proper method) will be key for your organization to find that sweet spot between the needs of the enterprise, the teams, and the individuals. Don’t forget to make your employees part of the solution, co-creation is what works best.
5. Ramp up your work experience: unfortunately, your office is now in competition with the experience that homes have provided so far. This means that you will need to deliver an experience so compelling that people will choose to come to the office because of the value it provides to them (personally) and to their work (professionally) and not because they are being told to do so.
Ultimately what you want is an office worth commuting for, an office that was designed around the needs of its users, one that supports and inspires them to do their best work, helps them be an active member of a community, and provides them with a sense of purpose while keeping them safe.
