What’s changing as we bring people back to the office?

You and your team may have different ideas about what coming “back to the office” should mean, but I think we can all agree that our offices will be different going forward!

The new office rules

If we’re bringing folks back into the office, there are some ground rules that I’d propose for making the most out of the situation.

If one is remote, all are remote.

We’ve all been the one person on the phone when our colleagues are all around a conference table in the office. It’s a terrible experience for everyone!

Now that we’ve learned to work remotely, I propose that if one person in a meeting is remote, then we’re having a remote meeting! The folks in the office should Zoom in to use the technology we’ve gotten good at to get the most out of the meeting.

Presence does not equal productivity.

When we were all working remotely, we needed to find ways to measure productivity decoupled from the hours folks spent working. That is a good thing!

If you’ve embraced value pricing for your agency, you know that it can be good for both parties to agree on an outcome and let go of how it is achieved. Let’s do the same for employees!

There’s a new talent market.

Whether or not you are deciding to accept remote workers, lots of companies are! That means that there are new considerations that you and your prospective employees are going to be making.

I’m seeing companies hiring for in-office jobs having to pay $5,000 – $15,000 premiums to convince candidates to work in the office when they have a work-from-home alternative.

On the flip side, employing workers in different states can expose you to additional payroll and benefit costs and force you to comply with more restrictive employment laws than you face in your home state.

What other changes are you considering as we emerge from our forced work-from-home trial? Hit reply; I’d love to hear about them!