How to transition staff back to office life
It’s funny: when lockdown hit, there was a flurry of articles about how to transition staff to working remotely; the tech to use, how to communicate, how to manage etc.
However, now that our time under lockdown is, hopefully, almost over, it’s time to start thinking about office life again.
While it might seem like a straightforward problem, us humans are a product of our surroundings, and working from home for eight-weeks straight will have had an impact on all of us, one way or another.
Some of us will be longing for the day when we can return to the office. For others, they will have enjoyed the freedom of working from home, and may not be quite so passionate about returning to office life.
As a manager, we will need to be able to manage people in both camps. So how exactly do we do that?
Firstly, we need to figure out who amongst our staff enjoyed working remotely and who didn’t?
This will help us to identify how to approach the situation appropriately to each given staff member. For example, using a blanket strategy for all of our staff is likely to be ineffective or backfire in a way that we hadn’t considered.
But before we talk about people strategies, I want to touch on why it’s important to not act like nothing happened when we head back to the office. I have no doubt that many employers and managers will go back to the office and after the first day, they will try to make things return to exactly how they were before the lockdown.
Now, this may work for those longing to get back to ‘normality’. However, it could also result in some staff looking at other employment options.
Why? Because something about remote working really worked for them, and if we don’t take that into consideration, we may just lose them.
The lockdown has given people the chance to reassess their lives, including their professional careers. And many may decide to seriously look at other options such as going back to study or looking at career changes.
A report by The Board of Innovation predicts that post COVID-19 there will be a surge in both online training participants and people changing jobs as they look to learn new skills and change career paths.
As a people leader, we need to keep our best talent. And in order to do that, we need to continue to fulfill their needs on a consistent basis.
Management expert Peter Drucker said, “The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said.”
So if we truly want to understand our staff’s needs, we need to ask and listen with the utmost care.
Once we have a better grasp of our people’s needs, we can now implement a few strategies to help transition staff back into office working:
1) Talk openly with staff
Discuss the lockdown period: what went well, what didn’t. Once comfortable, you and the management team can start talking about the old model of working, and if there should be any changes.
As always, ensure everyone in the office gets their opinion voiced.
2) Don’t rush back into ‘9-5 mentality’
Unless your organisation hasn’t been operating during the lockdown, there’s likely no reason to rush back to everyone working in the office nine-to-five, five days a week. Consider offering staff a transition period where they can still work some days from home, at least in the first few weeks of being back.
Without travel time and other distractions, some staff likely found working from home to be both productive and rewarding. Why end it so soon?
3) Implement flexible working where appropriate
Depending on your staff and business model, more permanent flexible working policies could benefit your organisation in the long term. It’s worth assessing the impact of implementing ‘flexi hours’, working from home, or even changing some employee contracts to better suit both their work and personal lives.
The benefits of such initiatives include increased productivity, simplified management, improved retention, attracting outside talent and more.
In summary, as you think about heading back to office life, we all need to avoid falling into the trap of acting like nothing happened, and believing that our organisation wasn’t affected . . . We are all impacted by what happened.
Rather, if you adopt the approach of listening to your staff’s needs, not rushing back to ‘nine-to-five mentality’ and exploring permanent flexible working policies, then you will do your part to transition your organisation back into office life without a hitch.
If you want to discuss workplace policies with an experienced HR professional, contact us below.