Returning Workers to the Office

A Refocus on Employee Experience and “What is Compelling”?

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A?year and a half?into?a?global?pandemic,?and?many of us — CEOs, middle managers, and employees, alike are?having to?reevaluate?the way we work?once again.?Work from home brought?many?challenges?but also benefited many employees.?Now organizations?want?to?get?their?workers?back?to the office to recapture some?lost personal interactions and teamwork, but employees are resistant to?change.??

Almost?all?my customers have been reaching out to me?recently wanting to discuss the same thing:?

“How do we make?our facilities?“compelling” enough to entice employees to?want to?come back to work in?an?office??

This?question?is something that I have spent significant amounts of time thinking about?and?extensively?researching.?One?evident?trend that organizations will have to face is the increasing use of technology to help make the argument?that the?office can be a compelling alternative to working from home. To help me cover the technology angle, I have enlisted my brother Mike,?the official?OnWorks?Technology Wrangler. Mike has 30+ years building IT solutions for the biggest?corporations,?and his insights, fused with my design insights,?can help organizations bring some workers back to the office.?

Together we?decided to write up?our?observations and?recommendations, breaking them?into six blog?posts.?Each post will discuss a?different?aspect of the problems caused by the pandemic, explain the issues in detail,?and?share?potential solutions.?These blogs can be read in any order.?I hope?they?will facilitate positive discussions around?why and how employees can find returning to the office?to be?an?experience that surpasses?all?the?newfound?benefits of?working from home.??

Also,?in this rapidly changing environment,?organizations are looking for answers, not suggestions. These blogs will be delivering real?solutions based on the best research we can?find and our personal experiences.?Many?people are guessing, but at?OnWorks,?we know the time is now to start driving a change in how?offices must function post-pandemic if they wish to win back their employees.?

Compelling?

Since I have already used the word compelling multiple times in the opening paragraphs, it might make sense to explain why I think the word compelling is so compelling. (See what I did there????)?

Compelling ?

[k?m?peliNG] ?

adjective ?

Evoking interest, attention, or admiration in a powerfully irresistible way. ?

?????The space was strangely compelling ?

synonyms: enthralling, captivating, gripping, engrossing, riveting,?spellbinding, ?entrancing?

Mike and I know that people will not read blogs if they are too long, so we break?the posts up into segments.??Are you interested in what you have read so far???Do you want to see real solutions that will help you adapt to this new way of working??Then click on?this link ?to continue reading?more?of this blog?on our website.??