Motivate employees to come back to the office

Back to the Office: As an employer, you can turn your office into a place where people like to work with healthy food. Not because they have to. But because they want to.

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73% of employees no longer want to go back to the office every day.¹

It was already over a year ago and can still be a challenge: Since the end of the corona pandemic related home office regulation, many companies have wanted their employees to return to the office and work from there. But not every employee sees it the same way. According to an opinion research study by Kantar (carried out in 2022 on behalf of Slack)¹ 73% of employees no longer want to work in the office every day. 40% even say that they would rather quit their job in the event of a daily attendance requirement. For companies, executives, HR and office management, this now means tact when their team members return:

How can you motivate employees to come back to the office?

The following is a guide, ways and approaches for finding the best individual solution for returning to your company without a presence requirement.

Understand your employees' reasons

Your employees don't want to go back to the office? To be able to understand what prevents employees from coming back to the office and working from there, you need to know the plus points of working from home. According to a study by health insurance company DAK, the desire to work from home is due to the following reasons:

• 26 percent say that they are better able to combine family and work while working from home
• 56 percent say they are more productive working from home than in the office
• 27 percent say that working from home is less stressful for them

If you notice that your employees also cite one of these points as reasons, it is recommended that you react as an employer: more flexible working hours or hybrid working for a better reconciliation of family and career, retreat options at the workplace for more productivity, the reduction of stress factors in the office and the increase of “employee wellbeing” factors. Instead of a duty, you also create an optimal working environment that has many other benefits.

Create flexibility

Back to the office through more flexibility: If your employees want more flexibility at work, you should definitely address them. Ideas for creating a more flexible environment in the office include:

• Guarantee flexible working hours: Offer flexible work models such as flexitime or core working hours. This allows your employees to decide for themselves whether they want to start their working day earlier, for example.
• Find a compromise: Agreement with them on a fixed number of home office days a week — how about a hybrid of working back in the office three days a week and working from home two days a week.
• Allow them to bring their pet into the office.
• Adjust the room layout And the design of the rooms and furnish the office in an appealing way. A pleasantly designed workplace makes it easier for the entire workforce to come back and promotes concentrated work and creative collaboration.
• Organize Meals at the Office — e.g. with a shared refrigerator, healthy catering open 24/7 for employees (such as Foodji) or a canteen. This relieves your employees in their everyday lives (because they have no longer to cook at home) and creates the benefit of working in the office. In addition, as an employer, you can do this for your employees tax-free subsidies.

Strengthen the sense of unity:

Employee wellbeing focuses on the well-being of employees. This depends heavily on the sense of unity in the team, which influences how many colleagues enjoy meeting in person, exchanging ideas and working together. In addition to a positive corporate culture, there is another benefit of this: In an experiment by Google, it was proven that teams with a strong sense of unity perform better at work than teams with individual, highly qualified team members.³

You can strengthen the sense of unity in your team with the following measures:

• Team games: Board games, Mario Card or trust exercises are possible. By the way, Games can also be played remotely from home.
• Führe Team evenings or joint ventures. ‍
• Organize joint meals: Breakfast at the Office? Spend lunch together or even cook together? All of this promotes exchange and makes your employees enjoy coming to the office again.
• An internal Staff catering offer. This gives employees the opportunity to integrate a meal together into their daily work routine and get to know each other without obligation. Many corporations already offer this option with a canteen - with Foodji, this is now also possible for medium-sized or smaller companies. By the way, attractive food at work can also be very positive Impact your employee satisfaction.

Important: Team building must be built up in the long term and can also be strengthened while working from home. It is also particularly important in uncertain times, such as the corona pandemic. Start early here. In a friendly atmosphere, employees return to the office more frequently, even without obligation.

Good communication: Clarify questions and concerns:

But not all employees can explain the desire for more home office as “demotivation” or “lack of benefits.” When returning to the office, some may be afraid of an infection at work, have difficulty arranging their childcare, or are uncertain what the employer's expectations are. This can also depend on individual tasks, working methods, the working world or the size of the company (such as SMEs, corporations or start-ups).

Solve this by...

... Communicate clearly: Clearly communicate your company's expectations and offers to your employees.

... Addresses Concerns and Concerns And try to find solutions for it. This creates trust and strengthens ties with the company.

To find out what is the right solution for your employees, it is best to conduct an (anonymous) survey. This helps you to find out the individual reasons and promotes their active participation. You are welcome to ask our Foodji experts for non-binding assistance here.

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sources:

¹ Slack Team (2022): How ready is Germany for digital work? , online at https://slack.com/intl/de-de/blog/news/wiebereit-ist-deutschland-fur-das-digitale-arbeiten
‍² Bodanowitz, Jörg (2021): DAK study: Home office potential is almost exhausted, online at https://www.dak.de/dak/bundesthemen/dak-studie-homeoffice-potenzial-ist-fast-ausgeschoepft-2447812.html#/
‍³ Burnison, Gary (2019): 7 years ago, Google set out to find what makes the 'perfect' team — and what they found shocked other researchers, online at https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/what-google-learned-in-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html