70 hours a week or 90 hours a week or the complete opposite 4 day work week whatever it might be, the most persistent question has been- should people return to office. As more and more companies are looking to implement the Return-To-Office (RTO), the pushback has been immense.
According to a Gallup survey- 8 in 10 people work hybrid or remotely, while only two in 10 are completely on-site. The question of the hour, day and year remains to office or not to office.
The answer is neither and both (Have I ever answer with a definite yes or no, well as an HR, if not defined by a company policy, every situation is dealt with on a case to case basis). Some jobs require you to be on sight, if Starbucks Corporate Employees push back for completely remote work, then why should their in store employees work.
Yes, their profile, role, and considerations differ but the idea that some of your people work remote jobs and some don’t leads to disharmony within the company when those working on-site are not given benefits to be onsite.
Even let’s assume this is not problem, companies still want people to come in to office few days a week and there would be people wanting to come to office then what is that organisations do to make coming to office lucrative and beneficial.
- Take feedback (No mandates please)
Ask your people if they want to come to office, who wants to be in office and lastly when they want to in office. There is little or no point if people push back on mandates and the entire culture collapses.
- Giving a choice
Remote, hybrid is here to stay, the question is how to leverage it. The best way to give a choice in the matter for whom you are doing this to.
- Flexibility
Every employee is in a different path of life, so the question is how do you balance individual good vs collective good, the answer is to merge the two and be flexible, let people create their little clusters to stabilise themselves.
