Ever since vaccinations became widely available to adults, the conversation on HR departments and C-suites and Teams conversations across the country has centered on the same topic: how, and when, are we going to come back to the office? Some organizations rolled out plans in the summer, only to roll them back with the spread of the Delta variant; others have obsessively set dates only to push them forward at the last minute. Depending on your industry and the politics of your state, you might have been called back in months ago and are now grappling with the muddy in-between space of zooming with your colleagues while in the office.
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Whatever your situation is, all of this probably feels messy, and fraught, and unsatisfying. I’ve spent the last 20 months talking to various companies, experts and employees about the pitfalls and promising changes that can accompany the shift from fully remote or optional office time to at least some mandatory in-person time, and the best overarching advice I can give is that it’s going to keep feeling messy, and fraught, and unsatisfying for awhile — but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t ways for employees and employers to mitigate and address those feelings.
For Employers:
1) Recognize That the Future Is Flexibility
Companies determined to go back in time to pre-COVID-19 norms are in for a harsh reality. It probably won’t manifest immediately, but it will show up in the long term: in the form of attrition, in difficulty hiring, in stymied efforts to diversify. Depending on your organization and the type of person you’d like to work there, flexibility might involve any number of combinations of remote and in-person work. But people have become accustomed to a new way of working and many have no desire to simply return to the way things were. Either you’re going to fight that tide and watch people leave, or start grappling with the future now. It’s your decision.
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Source : time
