The pandemic is over - time to get back into the office, right?
But your staff are resisting. Hard. They are doing absolutely everything they can to avoid coming back to the office regularly. How can you make a policy that people will actually follow?
It starts with anaylzing how your people are working. If you want a FREE on-site evaluation, get in touch!
Reason #1: Your office is a dungeon.
The buzzing fluorescent lights. Windows only for a special few. Carpets that haven't been switched out since the Clinton administration. It sucks to sit in that office.
At home, your workers are in a warm, welcoming environment. They are immediately comfortable when they sit down to work. They have windows. Art on the walls. It's how they'd design their workspace if it was just for them - because they did.
You don't have to turn your office into an Ikea, but give some thought to how it feels to walk in to the office in the morning. Is the executive suite fancier than the rest of the office? Then you already know how bad it is.
#2: Your "collaboration" ploy is bull****.
You want your team to collaborate more, and better. More creative ideas, more innovation. That's all great! It's not easy to do in a cubicle farm. If you look around and see mainly walls, whether they're tall or short, this space is not designed for collaboration.
Watch your employees when they sit down to work. Are they popping in their headphones as soon as they sit down? They're doing it so they can actually concentrate and get their work done. If you've packed them in like sardines they're actually going to try not to interact with one another.
If you want collaboration, it doesn't just happen because everyone is in the same building. It requires intention.
#3: Life didn't actually go back to pre-pandemic.
Can you think of a single thing affecting the workplace that is still the same as it was pre-pandemic? Traffic has actually gotten scarier - so much so that insurers are struggling to keep up with the changes. Lunch has gotten much more expensive, and even bringing it from home hurts the wallet. Childcare is on the precipice of collapse as an industry, so if you're a working parent, you're sweating bullets right now.
If there isn't a compelling reason to go in to the office, who would want to? And I don't mean just dangling promotions in front of people who RTO and shutting out those who don't. They'll just take a job with someone else to get that promotion - it's why most people don't stay more than three years in the same company anymore.
#4: They already know they can work from home perfectly well.
During the pandemic, everyone pitched in and did their best to transition within days from office work to home work. Companies not only survived despite the pandemic - many of them thrived. And amidst all this, workers got to live healthier, happier lives. What a happy ending for all.
Except now that the pandemic is over you have decided it's time to go back. Maybe it's because that's what's always worked well for you. Maybe it's because you have a stay-at-home spouse enabling your career. Maybe it's because you need to justify that corporate lease that isn't coming due for renewal for a couple of years. Either way, your staff know you're not being honest.
You leaned on them to get the company through the pandemic, and now you're not returning the favor.
#5: There are only negative reasons to return.
A mandate to RTO is a negative reason to go back. Positive reasons would be things like learning opportunities, team meetings and morale events. Have you given them any of those?
Take a lesson from retail: what gets people to walk in the door (and not just buy it online) is a unique experience, communication with experts, and a community to be part of. Think about walking in to an Apple store, for example.
Now think about walking in to your office. What do you have to offer? If going to the office just feels like a chore, people won't do it. You can complain, but this is the free market at work. You don't go out and force people to buy your product, do you?
There are so many great things you can do to create an office that actually inspires great work, from the free to the spectacular. If you'd like the help of an expert who will apply behavioral economics to your people operations practices, give me a call! I'm offering free on-site consultations within the New York Metro Area.
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