After a year like 2020, employees and leaders deserve a pat on their backs for coping with erratic changes. The year taught many business owners that it is possible to run a company remotely with a more extensive network. Now that vaccines are more accessible and things are getting better, employees will likely return to offices anytime soon. However, there are a few challenges that business leaders need to anticipate before making the final call. Firstly, nearly one year later, employees might refrain from returning to offices immediately. In fact, businesses worldwide aim for a hybrid work model in the post-covid-19 world.
A hybrid work model is all the rage!
Instead of calling all the teams at once, businesses are opting to take baby steps. Prominent industry leaders like Tata Steel, Infosys, and Philips have mandated complete work-from-home for their companies’ specific roles. As per the recent News, European banks are cutting their office spaces to embrace a flexible remote work culture and save infrastructure costs.
This leads to a host of questions –
(a) Will remote work remain standard for some roles?
(b) Will the employees perform with the same passion and productivity when they return to work?
(c) Is it possible to manage onsite and remote staff simultaneously?
While returning to the office once and for all might sound unsettling, but a few tips and the right strategies can help managers gain balance in the initial stage.
Follow these tips while returning to your workplace after Covid-19.
Set clear guidelines when you return to work after COVID-19
In the upcoming months, especially when switching to the new norm of office culture, expect confusion among the employees. You need to share as much information as possible with your employees and, for that, set a well-structured guideline. The purpose of this should be to support workplace wellness while keeping in mind the safety protocols.
Bridge the gap between onsite and remote workers
Some employees will return to the office in a hybrid work model, and others will continue working from home. This will, in turn, split your work culture. To maintain a balance, arrange meetings that are favorable for both the virtual and onsite teams. Even if the teams are in the office, a virtual meeting will help leaders get everyone on the same page. This activity will clear the ambiguity and make room for togetherness. Another wonderful technique is to invite staff for a post-office get-together, of course maintaining the social distancing norm, to break the monotony.
Find what’s suitable for your employees.
The world-shaking pandemic altered our lives dramatically. Many people who never expected to enjoy working remotely are now looking forward to continuing it. This shows that adjusting back to the office reality will be challenging for some employees. Therefore, respecting employees’ time and the need for flexibility in their schedule will be more crucial now more than ever.
Arrange wellness programs when teams return to the office
Employers will need to emphasize what makes their staff and team members happy. As a result, business leaders must implement light training programs to address their employees’ mental health issues. They must also keep a check on the anxiety and stress levels that some employees will continue to have when they return after a year.
Eliminate the concept of micro-management.
Micromanagement destroys your team and never gives you a clear picture of employee’s performance. After a year-long work from home routine, employees will appreciate the same freedom they have gotten used to. Therefore, avoid the constant unsolicited inputs, for it may have a negative impact on them.
Employee productivity should be the goal.
After working remotely for nearly a year, most employees will be staying in their comfort zones. As a result, transitioning back to the office may not be effective suddenly. Therefore, to ease things out, go one day at a time. Provide your employees a more flexible work schedule for the first few weeks by asking them to come to the office thrice a week, if possible.
Another strategy is to continue the norms that you were following while working from home. For example, if your company was using remote workforce management software, continue using it when you ask employees to return.
RemoteDesk lets the productivity of employees remain unchanged.
RemoteDesk is the most robust technology that is helping businesses thrive both in the remote and hybrid working culture. It is an industry-leading employee productivity monitoring software that accurately measures remote staff’s time and daily productivity.
Benefits for managers:
With a partial return to offices, it becomes difficult for employers to calculate each employee’s productivity. Hence, RemoteDesk makes employee monitoring much more comfortable with a productivity tracking feature. It distinguishes between employees’ idle and active time during a monitoring session to determine billable and non-billable hours. It helps you monitor real-time through automated technology, providing accurate activity reports of each remote worker.
