Office comeback: Why leaders need to rethink the office space

This article was originally written for and published in CEOWorld Magazine.

From 2020 to 2022, employers and employees embraced remote work, and many have argued that they’ve worked just as, if not more productively than at the office. However, fast forward to 2023, during the post-pandemic era; recent studies show that while employees feel they’re just as, or more productive at home, this may not always be the case. For instance, a study by Stanford’s Institute for Economic Policy and Research shows that productivity dropped by 10–20 percent in the case of fully remote workers, citing the lack of in-office collaboration and less effective communication as the causes. 

While this may be the case for some remote workers, and depends on the industry, employees continue to fight back after recent calls to the office – including from big companies such as Google, Meta and even, ironically, Zoom – has been fully ignited. Although leaders may want their employees back in the office full-time, employees are still adamant to retain the freedom of working from home. So, this begs the question: how can employers call back their employees and create a pleasant in-office experience in a post-pandemic workplace? Here are three key tips that leaders should keep top-of-mind. 

Create a successful hybrid work model

With newer tensions in the workplace and companies experiencing a talent shortage, it’s more important than ever to keep employee morale high. Instead of approaching the office as to why you, the employer, want your employees back in the office, it’s important to keep the employee in mind and ask, “what can we do to make employees want to come back to work in the office?”.  

First, highlight the benefits offered to employees working in the office. There is no value to being in the office if they are simply coming in to hunker down at their desks, so there should be a tangible benefit for employees to be there. For example, being at the office gives employees the ability to participate in valuable in-office training and coaching sessions, which focuses on effective career development. Another benefit that in-person office experiences offer is improved professional relationships with colleagues, which means less video meetings and, in fact, a hard stop on when their workday ends. Many remote employees find their workday stretches beyond normal office hours, so working in the office provides a clearer start and end point to the day.  

Once the benefits are established, it’s important to communicate to your employees about these benefits and how you’ll approach these moving forward. Always give employees the opportunity to provide feedback and ideas so they become part of the solution.

Revamp the workplace culture 

After years of virtual connections, effort needs to be made to enhance personal connections between employees. To do this, involve employees in the decision-making and let them propose and organize events that can bring their teams together. Make sure to include some light-hearted, fun activities such as setting up sports teams, monthly book clubs, fundraising drives and volunteer days or happy hour, which can start before the actual workday ends. Create engagement opportunities, such as group projects or internal committees to keep employees connected and work on things that don’t pertain to their day-to-day tasks.

The enhancement of leadership training

Leaders have had a difficult time of late – remotely supervising, motivating, and coaching their teams. Often they are running meetings with some people on-site and some participating remotely. Leading remote or hybrid teams requires better and more intentional communication.  Set clear expectations regarding frequency and behaviour during virtual meetings. Keep employees engaged by conducting one on one meetings and provide different ways for them to connect with you and each other, such as virtual coffee chats. Show understanding and gratitude.  

This past year we’ve already seen many workplace trends go viral on social media, such as “bare minimum Mondays”, “resenteeism”, and most prominently “quiet quitting”. These trends may not be going anywhere anytime soon, and as younger generations enter the workplace post-pandemic, it’s important to remember that they haven’t had the benefits of working in the office and therefore don’t know what they are missing. This is the time for leaders to focus on and re-examine the current workplace culture and structure to ensure a positive environment for current and future employees.

Employers should walk, not run back to onsite working: experts - Janet Candido Interviewed in Benefits Canada

Read the full interview in Benefits Canada.

More than two years after the coronavirus pandemic shifted many white-collar employees to remote working, some employers are planning their return to the office — even if it means bringing staff back kicking and screaming.

“Employers need to understand their employees more than they have in the past when they just offered a salary and a standard benefits program,” says Janet Candido, founder and principal of Candido Consulting Group.

During the last two years, employees have only interacted with colleagues through virtual calls, so a transitional, hybrid period will give them time to adjust to in-person interactions again, she points out. And there are positive aspects of telecommuting that have made the working environment more pleasant for some staff, including fewer microaggressions and unconscious bias for minorities, more accessibility for employees with disabilities and more work-life balance for caregivers. A hybrid working arrangement would also help reduce employees’ stress about the impending return, she adds.

Candido cautions that reverting back to old processes and policies after a disruption such as the current public health crisis isn’t always wise. She believes it’s an opportunity to evaluate whether past decisions and practices still make sense, noting employers can leverage data and performance metrics to build new policies.

In addition, it’s important for employers to consider whether remote working has impacted their businesses negatively, says Candido, referring to considerations like revenue streams, employee productivity, quality of work and employee engagement.

As monkeypox spreads, should employers be concerned? - Janet Candido interviewed by OHS Canada

Read the the full article in OHS Canada.

Monkeypox is now active and spreading in Canada, with 26 confirmed cases according to the most recent data from the Public Health Agency of Canada. With more than 250 reported cases in 23 countries – and on-going studies and discoveries about the disease – it may leave employers wondering about risks to their business, particularly as we’re just returning to normal following two plus years of COVID protocols.

More sick time likely

According to Janet Candido, founder and principal of Candido Consulting Group, the impact to business will circle back to the likelihood that more sick time will be taken – whether paid or unpaid – and that the anxiety about a new virus lurking can develop disruptive behavior in employees, in turn “impacting everybody’s ability to get the work done.”

The workplace landscape shows that employers and employees have gradually adjusted to the new ways business is done – hybrid work, and mask requirements included. However, Candido noted there are still “a significant number of employees who are less enthusiastic about returning to work.”

“There are a few reasons to that, and the main factors remain as the fear of getting sick and the unwillingness to adjust what has been comfortable for them in the past two years. It’s both specific to fear and comfort level,” said Candido.

With the spread of the monkeypox virus, Candido said it is vital for employers to keep communication to keeping safety procedures in place and recognize that not everybody in their workforce is ready to come back to work “like it was 2019 again.”

The future of work: The workplace trends that are here to stay

This article was originally written for and published in CEOWorld Magazine.

As we’re approaching better times ahead, employers are planning for the future of work. There are a lot of questions and conversations surrounding workplace trends and how organizations plan to move forward.

Prior to the pandemic, there may have been employers who were reluctant to initiate a work-from-home culture/policy for several reasons. One of them being that it was difficult to fully trust that employees were capable of being productive with all the distractions at home – i.e. kids, pets, electronics, etc. At the office, managers are able to physically see their staff in the office, at their desks, doing their job, reassuring them that they were getting the job done. There was also the notion that in-person meetings and collaboration were invaluable and could not be done remotely.

However, once the initial stay-at-home order hit back in March 2020, employers were forced to quickly adapt to a whole new way of working while equipping their teams with a home office setup. The result – employees continued to be just as, if not more, productive from the comfort of their own home. The pandemic completely changed the notion of the office and changed the mindsets of both employers and employees.

Workplace trends:

Work-life balance

The pandemic has created a shift where a flexible work-life balance has now become the norm, making it imperative for a company to prioritize and integrate it into the company’s culture as we transition through the return-to-workplace period.

During the pandemic, employees started to observe the things they value most, in not just a workplace, but also in the quality of life that was available to them at their current company. Over the past two years, we’ve seen a mass number of employees switching careers/jobs and this is a big indicator of this. With more employees re-evaluating their current job and looking for alternative opportunities that suit their work-life balance needs, HR professionals are finding it a particularly difficult time recruiting and retaining top quality talent.

Now more than ever, employees are more focused on working for an organization that matches their values so employers will have to work harder to engage their employees and attract new talent. With this in mind, one of the workplace trends we can expect to see is companies being more creative in their offerings to employees, such as the opportunity to work somewhere abroad for a period of time where the employer could potentially subsidize the cost. In addition, 4-day workweeks look to be another offering that may become available to employees in the future. Companies like Bolt, Buffer and G2i are trialing or already started offering a four-day workweek to their employees, which has shown positive results in employee productivity and retention, as finding work-life balance becomes increasingly important over time.

Workplace flexibility 

In order to retain employees during a return-to-workplace transition, employers will need to create a plan that takes into account both the needs of the business and those of the employees, allowing for accommodation – within reason. A 2021 report from Accenture revealed that 61 per cent of Canadians prefer a hybrid or remote work model, so if the business is able to work within these structures, this would be a reasonable accommodation to ensure talent retention.

For the future of work, one of the trends that employers should take note of is “flexibility”, in all its forms. For instance, the one-size-fits-all approach will no longer work as employees have proven their capabilities without being at the office from 9 to 5 and under constant surveillance. However, while there are a number of employees who prefer working from home, there are also those who look forward to returning to the office where they can have a separate space from their personal life. That’s why, as organizations begin to navigate the office return, employers should remain flexible in various approaches to ensure their employees are satisfied with the decision and company policy. Employers should have the ability to offer employees a choice of onsite, hybrid or fully remote while maintaining the work of the business. If employees choose a hybrid work style, employers will need to determine how to schedule the hybrid option and if they need to reconfigure the office layout. Providing these options to employees will allow them to choose a work style that will allow them to do their job to the best of their ability and keep them engaged.

Personalized benefits/perks

Fairness and flexibility in the workplace will create a positive corporate culture, while also preventing employee burnout – just another reason why many Canadians are uprooting their careers in favor of jobs where these “perks” are present. As a result, another key workplace trend will include an increase of personalized benefits/perks – meaning not simply the flex plans of the past 20 years, but more likely something that will allow employees to design their own plan. During the stay-at-home orders, mental health conversations have grown and become more normalized. Now, mental health has become top of mind after employees, managers, CEOs, etc. experienced a traumatic, isolated and unpredictable event together. According to combined data from Statistics Canada’s labor force survey and Canadian income survey, for the Canadians who were employed during the first four months of 2021, more than one in five (21.5 per cent) had a physical, mental health, cognitive or other disability – when compared to 2019, there was an increase of 2.7 percentage points (18.8 per cent), continuing a long-term upward trend associated with population aging and other factors. Creating awareness surrounding wellness and mental health will be a significant workplace trend that we’ll see more of across various organizations.

Individualized leadership models 

The pandemic took a toll on people’s mental health, causing increased stress and anxiety. As a result of the past two years, employees are looking for a different style of leader than prior to the pandemic. For instance, the World Economic Forum states that employees want to be seen as a whole individual, acknowledging their lives outside of work. This means having a leader who is more compassionate, empathetic and authentic, and willing to listen, learn and adapt. During the countless Zoom and Team calls, we’ve seen into people’s homes more intimately than ever before – we’ve seen their in-home office setup, children trying to learn remotely, pets in the background, etc. – and have seen the everyday stresses both employees and employers endured because of this traumatic event. Going forward, a trend we can expect to see evolving in the workplace is having leaders navigate through a newer leadership technique where they’ll be more mindful and understanding of the impact on their employees. This means providing a more individualized model of leadership, adapting to offer employees what they need.