Employees are reluctant when either they do not have the experience or knowledge, or they fear the change. To overcome the obstacle of reluctant workers, HR professionals to up their game. That is possible when they indulge in smarter ways to bring them back to the office, as remote working makes many workers complacent. However, coming back to the office gives another challenge to doing the job on time. Not everyone is cut out to be working alone or in silos. That is why we also have smarter HRMS software tools like uKnowva. However, to investigate surefire ways to bring employees back to the office, consider the strategies discussed below.
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6 Surefire Ways To Bring Reluctant Workers Back To Office
Give employees projects to spearhead
HR leaders need to groom their reluctant workers to bring them back to the office. One way is to give them challenging, thrilling, and critical projects to work on. These projects can also have bigger teams to manage: available both online and offline.
To coordinate well with all, employees will have to visit the office often. They will see the advantage of bringing themselves back to the office and seeing how the offline culture is shaping their team members. By doing so, they get a chance to meet all those people they often have less time to network with.
Make the work from office life as easy to balance as work from home
You need to make work from the office memorable, valuable, and purposeful. When employees, or in this case, reluctant workers, do most of their admin work online, why should they be at the office?
There has to be a reason for them to go to the office on certain days of the month. This could be a mandatory meeting for all team leaders or team members to connect in their personal life. Otherwise, HR leaders and professionals need to give a choice to their workers to choose a hybrid working model.
They must not pressurise the team. That can lead to burnout or depressive episodes. The pressure can also bore them and make them feel unwanted. However, when employees have a reason to go to the office frequently, they can learn to manage their work and personal life once again.
Continue to invest in flexible working hours even from the office
One approach to draw your reluctant workers back to the office is to let them decide. Make working from the office exciting and a choice. They can use the WFO/WFH tracker on uKnowva HRMS software in India. It makes them choose whether they are working remotely or offline on a particular day. It will notify the reporting manager.
Everyone is in a loop within the team about who is working from where on a given day. Otherwise, they can communicate with one another on the social intranet by uKnowva. It improves visibility, authority, leadership, and communication for all. Then, employees will not feel that the management is forcing them to come back to the office. Let office days be as fun, exciting, purposeful, and self-driven as the remote working days for such people.
Plan office-based activities for all
To make coming back to the office memorable and worthwhile, you need to plan out activities for office visits. HR managers can create a poll on the network of their social intranet or HRMS software in India. It will help them to get an opinion on the activities to conduct from anyone on the team. So it shows that the organisation and management are serious about bringing reluctant workers and all other employees back to the office. It will increase the value of each such office working day or visit.
Make sure the office has all the updated and cleaned facilities
Often, employees do not like coming back to the office when they do not have many facilities there. Some of them still do not like to sit in the proximity of other employees after the pandemic. So you can offer them a virtual biometric system for seamless and touchless attendance management after they come back to the office. They can have separate sections in the office where physical distance is still the norm. It makes reluctant workers feel safe and secure whenever they visit the office to complete their tasks.
Plans work from office days for different teams
Make office days interesting to work with a changing and flexible roster. Let different team members join the office on different days. Let some of them join together. It will help teams to adjust and work with different members of the organisation while sitting across them. It reduces the friction between two or more employees, especially if one of them is new and the other one is not. You can roll out the roster for your teams using smart HRM software and share the document with them seamlessly. Otherwise, you can make an announcement on the intranet only for your teams to view, comment on, and agree to.
The Bottom Line
Bringing reluctant workers back to the office is not an easy task. Each such day should be special, well planned, purposeful, and give better benefits to employees. For example, if they are coming from different cities or states, there should be a facility for their lodging, food, and other minimum travel expenses. Rest, using smart human resource management software helps to roll out a roster or plan the office days properly for all. We know that clearly now from the above-listed 6 points.
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FAQs
Why do reluctant workers want to stay at home?
Every employee is different. They have different needs and working styles. Not everyone is now comfortable going back to the office. Some people are efficient while working in the silence of their study room and connecting with people virtually.
Is working from home the only way ahead for the new generation?
Not necessarily. There are multiple working styles, like hybrid, flexible, asynchronous, completely remote, and more. It depends on the resources available to the organisation to digitally transform the working style and generation without roadblocks.
Can HRMS make a hybrid work model possible for all, and that too seamlessly?
Yes, smart and complete HR software helps teams to work remotely and work from an office at any time they want. With modules like attendance, leave, project and timesheet, performance, holiday calendar, social intranet, and reimbursements, it is easy to get daily work on the track, irrespective of one’s working location.
See Also
- Balance Work Life For Remote Workers With 6 Tips
- Remote Employees: How HRMS Makes Them Productive?
- 7 Effective Team Building Events For Remote Employees And Teams
- Challenges Managers Face With Hybrid Work Model
- Top 4 Remote Working Challenges To Predict For 2023 Workplaces
- 8 Online Work From Home Tips To Attain Work Life Balance
