Beyond Incentives: More Advice on Enticing Workers Back to the Office
Leaders need to make clear their objectives and help work be more productive and pleasant.
Cutting-edge office design and layouts, bigger windows, more comfortable ergonomic chairs, healthier snacks, free parking, no mandated attire throughout the week and staff available to keep each other from feeling isolated.
All may be incentives to return to the office all or part-time but making the decision and implementing it can be a challenge. There are other hurdles to overcome to make RTO work, including communicating policies so employees are motivated and follow any prescribed timetables.
A recently released report from CBRE’s Occupier Outlook shared the best RTO practices it heard from its global clients.
Goals should be clearly articulated to motivate staff. Workforce communications must be empathetic, engaging and encouraging.
In the best-case scenario, technology should be available and enhance both virtual and in-person work and experiences. It should help make an office feel accessible wherever employees work.
Nobody’s expected to do this on their own or in a vacuum. Instead, proper training can help make hybrid work the best experience it can be. Returning to work isn’t just about having more bodies in an office. It can lead to participation and belief in a company culture. How is this done? By executive leaders developing a vision, setting goals and guiding managers to offer support to employees personally and professionally as a new era of office work begins! Furthermore, managers need to rally for goals to be executed with tools that help team members reach the stated objectives.
What happens needs to be measured. How well is office utilization occurring? Does the office design reflect how employees use the space? This means going beyond lofty plans for how they should use a space but studying how they really do. Leaders and managers can analyze usage data that highlights what types of environments lead to greatest productivity and focus on future occupancy spending. Every square foot requires measuring employee usage and sentiment, leveraging data and using it to enhance employee experiences over time, the report concludes.