12 Ways To Prepare For The Return To The Office

Originally posted in Forbes

At the moment, most people are still working from home. Remote work has been one of the best ways to ensure businesses keep running during the pandemic, but hope is on the horizon. With several vaccines already approved, it may only be a matter of time before workers can return to offices once again. Unfortunately, several challenges may present themselves once employees can make their way back to the office.

Business leaders need to anticipate these challenges and pivot to meet their demands. The way employees do work will have changed drastically, and this change in behavior may impact how employees see the office and its procedures. Twelve members of Forbes Business Council weigh in on the potential challenges they see happening when employees return to the office and offer ways for management to deal with these situations.

1. Plan For Employees Refusing To Return

Many employees will question office work practices. If they can do the same work from home just as well, they will ask questions such as, “Why should we come to work?” I believe 20 to 30% of the workforce will continue to work from home. In addition, employees will expect a more flexible office-to-home relation. Companies should start planning for this now. Anticipate that many won’t be willing to work from the office. – Art Malkov, BlockchainDriven

2. Respect Employee Time And Needs

Many people who never expected to enjoy working from home have found it to be an agreeable new normal. Adjusting back to the workplace will be tough on some employees. Respecting employees’ time and need for flexibility in their schedule will be more important now than ever before. – Swapnil Agarwal, Nitya Capital

3. Realign Employees To Business Values

A challenge I expect will be the change in employee values. Working from home has allowed employees to reevaluate their core values, beliefs and drive. Business leaders need to realign employees back to the business values. Evaluate their state of mind, understand where they are at, live and lead by example, reinforce what the brand stands for and recognize and reward value-centric behaviors. – Judy Sahay, Crowd Media Group

4. Understand What Makes Your Staff Tick

Employers will need to better understand what makes their staff and team members tick. Some light training programs may need to be implemented to better train and address less social staff members. An open and direct response is needed from business leaders to address the anxiety and stress that some people will continue to have with working at the office in close quarters with others. – Simon S. Mass, The Condo Store Realty Inc

5. Stop Trying To Micromanage Employees

Since they feel they have effectively worked from home for full pay, employees are going to want the same freedom in working that they have gotten used to. Micromanagers particularly, but all managers in general, are going to be poorly tolerated. – Charles Read, Custom Payroll Associates, Inc.

6. Enable A Partially Distributed Workforce

After working almost a year remotely, I believe employees will find it challenging to have long commutes every day. As leaders, I believe we will need to find the right balance between having employees onsite for organizational culture purposes and giving individual preferences the flexibility of maybe working one or two days per week remotely. – Eric Rozenberg, SecuTix

7. Provide Mental Health Resources

One of the main challenges will be mental health. Fear, depression, anger and anxiety, amplified by months of lockdown, will be present in your workforce. Employers need to be empathetic, offer access to mental health resources and encourage a culture of self-care to prevent burnout as employees make the transition. – Sindhu Kutty, Kuroshio Consulting

8. Allow For A Gradual Transition Period

Understanding habits is key. Some habits take three to six months to take root. By the time vaccines are widely available, we will have been in lockdown for over a year. Transitioning back to the office will require changing our habits and creating new habits for ourselves, our families and even our pets. For leaders, it’s important to allow for a gradual transitionary period to give allowance to build new habits. – Scott Amyx, Astor Perkins

9. Focus On Ensuring Personal Safety

One of the challenges organizations will encounter is satisfying all legal requirements with respect to the personal safety of workers while helping them cope with the emotional stress of returning to the office. Business leaders can overcome these challenges by taking reasonable steps to reduce risk to employees while communicating everything that is being implemented for their safety, including traditional and innovative disease-control measures. – Jean Paul Paulynice, Empowering Confident Youth

10. Change Your Hiring And Engagement Methods

Employees may not want to return to the office as the shift to remote work has influenced their priorities, expectations and even locations. Leaders will need to permanently adapt their hiring, onboarding and employee engagement practices to attract and retain employees. Companies with a strong culture and united vision that translates remotely will win in a competitive market for top talent. – Victoria Lakers, The Lancer Group

11. Learn How To Deal With A Split Culture

With some employees returning to the office and others choosing to continue working from home, your culture may split. Actively level the playing field. If a meeting has onsite and remote staff, have everyone join the meeting virtually instead of having some in the conference room and others virtual. Find after-hour activities that will entice the majority of the staff to physically get together. – Adam Radulovic, XL.net

12. Set Clear Expectations And Protocols

A major challenge may include how a business will handle employees who choose not to get vaccinated. Regardless of legal questions, a decision to mandate or not may significantly impact culture, employee retention and even the recruitment of new workers. Leaders will need to establish clear expectations, provide education and establish safety protocols for whichever direction they choose. – Jay Johnson, Coeus Creative Group