Return to Office: The New Work Order
Facilitating the balance between office and remote working in a post-COVID world
By Angus Yu
As we step further into 2021, (hopefully) putting the pandemic-ridden 2020 behind us, many organisations are facing a new question: how and when do we return to the office? Has Covid shifted expectations around how we work? Gone are the days of squeezing onto crowded public transport where one would be lucky to have 1.5 CENTIMETRES of space from fellow commuters much less the 1.5 METERS of social distancing. Instead, working from home is in for NON-ESSENTIAL workers (what a demoralising term!) ordered to stay at home, while normally buzzing CBD office towers sat vacant at record rates.
From our COVID-19 Staff Check-In Survey up to September 2020, Voice Project found that across 138 organisations and over 34,000 employees, 56% of staff reported some degree of working from home. Similarly, an Australian Bureau of Statistics study found that by September 2020, the proportion of employees working from home at least one day a week has increased by 18% since COVID-19 restrictions were first introduced, while the proportion of businesses with staff teleworking increased by 15% in the same period. With more businesses and staff having experienced working from home, this practice looked likely to stay in some form moving forward. This shift is backed by feedback with 30% of Australians listing working from home as an aspect of life they would like to see continue beyond the pandemic, as well as 77% of Australian managers believing that their staff will continue to work from home more.
With this in mind, as Australians begin to return to work in 2021 while keeping a safe distance in our self-imposed bubble as the 8th best performing country in managing the pandemic, employers have a number of issues to consider in terms of developing a return to office strategy:
The purpose of office time (e.g., time for face-to-face catch ups and meetings with colleagues, deep work time away from distractions at home, coordinated team days in the office for a vibrant office)
The ability to maintain and promote the organisational culture with staff working remotely (e.g., organising company or team catch ups, hiring and inducting staff remotely without having a meeting face-to-face)
The desires of individual staff to return to the office and their expectations of the parameters will differ depending on their personal situations (e.g., parental/carer responsibilities, home office set-up, commuting patterns)
The capacity for managers to treat staff equally while offering flexibility (e.g. catering for individual desires, having regular check-ins with individual staff and team, supporting onsite and offsite staff)
The need to modify office spaces and practices to be COVID-Safe environments (e.g. increasing spacing between individual work spaces, installing shields and dividers, staggering start times)
The inherent threat of potential lockdowns and restrictions caused by community transmission (e.g. snap pre-Easter lock down in Queensland, pause for easing of ‘return to work’ cap in Victoria)
When considering our own return to office policy, Voice Project involved staff by surveying everyone on their preferences and beliefs around the need for coming into the office to complete their work as well as their desire for the number of days they wished to come into the office. By balancing business needs and personal preferences, we settled on a hybrid model of a staggered increase to 2-3 days in the office depending on role type. We also implemented social distancing policies on office activities as well as a week planner for staff to indicate their intended days in the office so other teams can coordinate and collaborate.
If you are also considering surveying your staff with regards to their return to office intentions, feel free to call or email us (1800 8 VOICE, enquiries@voiceproject.com).