With so many people more than happy to work from home these days, a few still want to return to the office. If you, as a business, are at that point where you think you would benefit from having most of your staff return to the office, you have to give them real tangible reasons. With that in mind, here are a few things you could do to ensure that your employees return to an office environment that is nurturing and actually makes them want to return.
Making Your Employees Want to Come Back to the Office: Look After the Place
It sounds so simple; however, many people don’t want to return to an office because it brings out the worst in them. You’ve got to think that if you want your employees to feel nurtured or supported in any way, they’ve got to want to come to an environment that provides all of those lesser-discussed notions of support.
If your employees work in a cold environment or constantly have to watch what they say, they’re not doing to be as creative. Therefore, thinking about incorporating breakout spaces so they can work by themselves or in teams and commercial preventative maintenance methods will give those employees a greater sense of security.
Provide More Perks
If you want to entice people back into the office, you’ve got to give them more than just a good working environment. After COVID, people changed their priorities, which is why you may want to follow the lead of many companies bringing their employees back into the office using incentives.
Incentives comprise a number of different components; it’s not just the pay, but it could be increasing their holiday quota or implementing a hybrid policy that favors the office that’s a 3:2 ratio of office to home working.
Optimize the Space for Progression and Fun
If you want your employees to return to the office, you’ve got to give them something that either makes them feel like they will benefit, or you can try to get them to feel fear of missing out.
While we don’t necessarily recommend the latter option because, over time, this will force employees to reprioritize and potentially leave their job, if you can make the space more conducive to fun and collaboration while also providing more progression opportunities, this will help your employees think about what they can achieve in the office and hopefully come to the realization they can do a lot more in the office than they will at home. It’s not about alienating those people at home, but about ensuring the office becomes the better option of the two.
You will need to keep it presentable and make it a thriving hub of activity, but you may also want to bear in mind that people have made significant changes to their lives and are not just thinking about work as a means of getting paid! So if you want to bring them back, you may have to be creative.
