Reunited and It Feels (Not) So Good: Tips for Managing a Rocky Return

Offices may look just as they did in March 2020, but many companies attempting to welcome workers back are finding that the rules of engagement have changed.

For many employees, the sweet freedom of remote work has turned into bitterness at the thought of commuting and conference rooms. Fear of new COVID-19 variants snuffed out the brief period of vaccination-injected optimism earlier this year, as childcare and school disruptions lingered. Despite such resistance and health concerns, some employees have joyfully returned to their desks, excited to reconnect with colleagues, even behind masks.

We recently asked Harvard Business School professors whose research and expertise traverse topics related to remote work what advice they would offer managers and executives actively seeking to navigate these points of friction. Here’s what they said:

Tsedal Neeley : Use the office as a tool

In this period of renaissance, and the fiercest labor market in recent memory, companies should take steps to redefine the purpose of the?office as a tool?rather than a destination. For example, the office can become a tool to enhance specific collaborative efforts, connections or creativity. Employees will be able to retain the work-life flexibility that they now crave. Employers will retain and attract productive people who will love their work life.

Employers should seize the opportunity to modernize their relationship with employees. There is no doubt that the global pandemic accelerated the virtualization of work. While some employers have embraced remote work as part of future professional arrangements, others have been holding their breath. Companies will have to consider how best to serve all of their stakeholders with in-person and remote options, if possible.

Tsedal Neeley?(@tsedal ), is the author of?Remote Work Revolution , and the Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Joe Fuller : Stay flexible in the uncertain ‘next normal’

There is no need for a partial return to historical workplace norms to result in friction. Companies will cause such friction by implementing rigid policies based on the presumption that they have correctly anticipated how the pandemic will evolve. Designing and implementing any durable policy requires having a firm grasp of what the world—the “new normal”—will look like. But the impact of COVID has been so widespread and the timing and nature of the end of the virus as we know it so uncertain that it is impossible to know what the parameters of such an end state.

Business leaders should, instead, think in terms of a “next normal.” Their back-to-work policies should reflect their inability to forecast the intermediate future. Terms and conditions related to work should be temporary, and companies should actively experiment to learn how to balance the concerns of employees with the need to maintain productivity. Emphasis should be placed on designing policies around specific roles and work processes, not universal rules. Nor should they assume that workers’ preferences will remain static. As we move from one next normal to a subsequent one, their needs will change just as those of the company do.

Joseph B. Fuller?(@JosephBFuller ) is a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School and a leader of the Managing the Future of Work Project and the Project on Workforce.

Lakshmi Ramarajan : Don’t leave struggling workers behind

Employers should remember the pandemic is not over. Many employees still need flexibility, autonomy, and control over their work and non-work hours. Workers who used to be fine with regular office hours pre-pandemic are still struggling, as the pandemic continues to affect their availability and the predictability of their work hours.

Parents with vaccinated kids could still find their children have to be at home due to positive cases in classrooms; parents with unvaccinated kids under 12 and people engaged in elder care may be rightfully concerned that being indoors at work with colleagues can increase the risks for the vulnerable people they care for. Thus, employers should understand that many employees who are caregivers will still have disrupted days. In addition, they must protect employees who face greater disruptions on the home front from being penalized at work.

Research shows that demands for work flexibility can be stigmatized and, while the pandemic showed us that remote and flexible work is possible at a large scale, as more people return to prior patterns of in-office hours, we have to make sure those who are still constrained by the pandemic don’t face additional penalties. Employers and managers who take their employees’ perspectives and take employees’ whole lives into account will be more likely to receive loyalty, commitment, and trust in the long term.

What do employers need to get right with their return-to-work policies?

1.?Make sure your policy has legitimacy. Take a close look at what employees were able to do during the pandemic. Many companies found employees continued to do their work without being in the office. Keep strict in-office policies to a minimum and only for those tasks for which face time is needed.

For example, in one workplace, assistants were asked to come into work on certain days (M-W), but senior staff were still working from home on those days, so assistants still did all their work over Zoom. This type of policy places an unneeded burden on lower-level employees and has little impact on the work itself.

Employees won’t believe employers who say it is important to be in the office now unless there are clear reasons. Insisting on face time and fixed hours now, without a legitimate reason, will undermine employees’ contribution and commitment.

2.?Take a flexible, iterative approach.?Don’t set policies in stone. We have seen employers have to backtrack on policies and respond to employee concerns. Understand there will be variability based on people’s circumstances and on the external situation (e.g., a rise in cases), and communicate this to your employees.

3.?If a solution works, share it.?If a manager finds a remote/flex arrangement that works for one person on the team, share it with others. Resist tendencies to keep quiet about “accommodating” people’s requests out of concern for having to meet everyone’s demands. Sharing information allows employees who didn’t know they could have flexibility, gain it. Transparency can help increase fairness and reduce the burden on many employees who may not have known they could work differently.

Lakshmi Ramarajan?(@lramarajan98 ) is the Anna Spangler Nelson and Thomas C. Nelson Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School.

Prithwiraj Choudhury : Do you?really?need to be in the office?

Remote work policies such as work-from-anywhere (WFA), which grants workers the flexibility to choose where to work and live, could be a?win-win?for companies and employees. The pre-pandemic study that we conducted at the United States Patent Office documents 4.4 percent productivity gains in 2012 and 2013, when experienced patent examiners transitioned from a work-from-home regime to WFA. Beyond improved productivity (under some conditions), WFA might enable companies to hire beyond their local labor markets and reduce real estate and utilities costs.

As companies grapple with workers returning to office, it is important to think through?why?workers should come back to office. My ongoing research with the all-remote firm Zapier suggests that while workers can work-from-anywhere, temporarily colocating with peers a few times a year (in the case of Zapier at a retreat), strengthens workplace friendships and facilitates knowledge flows within the firm.

In fact, hybrid models can embrace WFA, with teams collectively determining when to come to the office. Instead of mandating workers to work from the office a few days every week, teams can decide to co-locate in the office a week a month, or a few weeks every quarter, and work-from-anywhere for the rest of the time.

Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury?(@prithwic ) is the Lumry Family Associate Professor at the Harvard Business School.

Jeffrey Polzer : Diagnose before prescribing

Employers should each diagnose their particular situation by directly asking employees about their preferences. We know people vary widely in their desire to return to the office based on their home environment, family situation, commute, type of work, need for collaboration, and preferences for socializing with colleagues, among other things. How often, and when, does each employee want to be in the office? Employers should also diagnose the work itself; among which people are the expected benefits of in-person interaction and collaboration the greatest, and what are these benefits, specifically?

By putting these diagnoses together, employers can craft a tailored plan that balances the needs of the organization with employee preferences. This plan may not be one-size-fits-all across departments or regions, and it should build in some flexibility, given the changing conditions. Clear communication and transparency about the plan, the rationale and data that support it, and the opportunity to learn and adapt going forward should help employees buy in.

There are several potential benefits of in-person interaction, to be sure. The basics of teamwork, like sharing information, making joint decisions, and coordinating activities, can typically be accomplished remotely. The psychological and interpersonal elements of collaboration, however, may be where the real returns to in-person interaction occur, helping team members build relationships, foster trust, and cultivate healthy norms. Working in close proximity in a shared office can also be energizing, where signals of shared goals and a shared fate can increase employees' identification with the organization.

Benefits of returning to the office do not require everyone to be there every day, by any means. By thoughtfully and fairly customizing the right mix of remote and office work, leaders can aim to meet the needs of the organization and its employees, while maintaining the safety and flexibility to weather an uncertain path ahead.

Jeffrey Polzer?(@jeffpolzer ) is the UPS Foundation Professor of Human Resource Management in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School.

Article by Kristen Senz @ https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/tips-for-managing-a-rocky-return-to-offices-covid?cid=spmailing-33795048-WK%20Newsletter%20-%20One-Off%20Mailing%2010-14-21%20(1)-October%2014,%202021