What to do if your employees don’t want to come back to the office

Let’s face it — we’ve all gotten really comfy working in our pajamas, saving commuting hours, and being able to be more involved with our families. With the vaccine rollout under way, employers are going to have to make decisions on the future of their companies. Though some businesses have moved to partial or full-time remote work, some employers will prefer their employees to come back to the office. But what if they don’t want to?

There is lots of ambiguity around the future of the workplace. Let’s say COVID completely disappears tomorrow and no one has health worries and is 100% comfortable going back, the fact still remains — people have gotten used to and enjoy working from home. A Forbes study done in October of 2020 found that “most remote employees (over 80%), regardless of industry, never want to return to the office full-time. Even though nearly one-third said being isolated from their team was the biggest hindrance to remote productivity, the advantages of working remotely seem to outweigh those drawbacks.” A good point to realize is that employees aren’t asking for 100% remote work, but rather just some flexibility with their time.

In order to help facilitate this decision, the Future Forum study done by Slack released a study to give data and statistics to employers who are considering a company-wide shift. The study found 27% desired to never return to their office, 39% said they’d always want to and 34% are in the middle. In addition, nearly half of the workers expect that their employer will make permanent policy changes to expand remote working post-pandemic.

There are obviously many pros and cons to working from home, but the fact of the matter is, we have been thrown into this and soon it will be time to make decisions. Many small companies who have the option for remote work might discuss options with their employees. Some will become fully remote, others will have a centralized office and allow occasional WFH and others will go back to the office full-time. After so much headway made in a remote and internet connected world, it makes sense why companies are considering other options.

Some pros to working from home have to do with productivity. A study from BBC found that even one day a week from home could increase productivity by 13%. Mercer also surveyed 800 employers and 94% said that productivity remained stable, if not improved. In addition to productivity, workplaces save lots of money on office supplies and employees save on gas and travel time when using a remote work model.

The flip side to this coin is some companies admit to more employee conflicts and less connectedness. It’s hard to foster workplace culture and make remote employees feel as important as office workers (ie. birthday lunches or morning coffee and donuts). Some people might have a home office with a whole set-up and others are living in a duplex with their kids running around all day. It’s also much harder to have a work/life balance when work and family activities all happen in the same room. Some people prefer to see and interact with coworkers, while others enjoy the constant solitude.

Pros

• Extra time for work/hobbies/family time
• Smaller carbon footprint
• Workplaces save money on utilities and office supplies
• Increased productivity
• Majority of workers are happier with their work arrangement

Cons

• Communication can be more difficult
• Need for quiet office space at home
• Employee conflicts
• Work/life balance
• Zoom fatigue
• More lonely or unmotivated

Before this worldwide WFH experiment, those who didn’t like the 9–5 were left stuck in the rigid schedule based on traditions. Now we are all trying out the opposite and some are finding similar opposition. There are no two people who are the exact same, so creating a solution that is flexible and inclusive to anyone we employ is more important now than ever before. We still have a long way to go to create the perfect blend of flexibility and structure, but every day we are gaining more knowledge into what makes a successful worker.