Return to Office: How to Remote Top Performers Back Into the Office and Boost Operational Efficiency

Return to office mandates have failed! While a lot of executives are still holding on to them, statistics show that they are largely a no-go and moreover, may even be causing business losses we will be seeing come up in forthcoming quarters. At the same time, it is true that remote working is also causing hiccups for businesses and even companies like Google need to reassess their remote work policy.

The answer to all these woes is simple and we know it already -hybrid work. However, getting remote workers to come back to the office after what is now nearly 3 years old remote work may be very hard. Fortunately, experts have come in to opine on the best ways to bring remote workers to work and boost operational efficiency at the same time.

Our team at LEAD bot aggregated the best insights from experts on this topic and synced them up with our own client insights. So, here’s the list of the best ways managers can get return-to-office to work while also boosting operational efficiency:

5 Ways Your Return to Office Mandates Could Work

Raise Cross-Team Collaboration in the Office

• Managers can bring more people back to work with project leading opportunities and professional network growth.

• Building back an organizational culture that people want to get back to work for demands using both digital and offline collaboration channels.

• Several studies conducted during COVID showed that companies with strong cross-team collaboration turned even crises into opportunities.

The biggest challenge that managers are facing right now is bringing remote teams together on projects. Most managers agree that there is a lot of pressure on them and little help is coming from the C-suite.  Obviously, this is bad for performance and overall employee health. However, this also presents the opportunity to create team development opportunities, particularly with career growth incentives.

Bringing people back to work with the opportunity to lead projects and grow their professional network via cross-team collaboration is the best way to promote RTO mandates. Rather than forcing people back into office managers must focus on creating growth opportunities that enable businesses and employees at the same time. Several studies conducted during COVID showed that companies with strong cross-team collaboration turned even crises into opportunities. So, in the now fast-rising market, companies stand to do even better with the right team collaboration and boost operational efficiency.

The key factor here, as in many other areas, is to bring the element of human connection back into the process. Building back an organizational culture that people want to get back to work for demands using both digital and offline collaboration channels. It also enables managers to pick up on workforce trends, especially if they use people science to generate their performance insights. The result is people learning to work together better and developing cross-team collaboration skills. This leads to changemakers and super connectors emerging with specialized skill sets that the company can invest in to grow its operational efficiency.

Create Mentorship Values and Opportunities

• Any RTO mandate that incentivizes career growth with networking and collaboration is instantly a better bid.

• Even many work-from-home employees recognize that they may get passed over for promotion if they only work remotely.

• The two-fold incentive and compulsion to grow career opportunities is a strong motivator for most remote working employees to at least consider switching to hybrid work modes.

Growing employee skills in the office space through mentorships is not new. However, the approach taken to do this is often lacking in hands-on applicability and nuancing for skill sets. This is one of the biggest assets managers are leveraging to bring people back to the office. Any RTO mandate that incentivizes career growth with networking and collaboration is instantly a better bid. Moreover, even many work-from-home employees recognize that they may get passed over for promotion if they only work remotely. The two-fold incentive and compulsion to grow career opportunities is a strong motivator for most remote working employees to at least consider switching to hybrid work modes.

Let’s take a cue for this in a recent Boston Consulting Group podcast which stated,

That is right. When I [Sagar Goel] speak to many of my clients in the industry, learning and development is a significant challenge for them. I often find a strong disconnect between the learning strategy and the business strategy. When the two are not in sync, then we are doing learning for the sake of learning.

We are rolling out hundreds and thousands of hours of videos for our employees, but guess what? Nobody’s really watching them. Even if they do, very New are really applying the learning to their actual work. If I had my way, Georgia [Frost], I would rename learning and development as learning and doing, which is where I see the second shift for organizations really the nothing about, how they are going to take the learning from the classroom or their online learning marketplace into the real work of the individual.

We see here that the core issue is that work learning does not translate into direct applicability and leads to potential loss. When people are working from the office, they can apply mentoring skills directly to the work they do daily. Meanwhile, they will also have their mentors on-site to refer to just in case they need it. This prompt performance and feedback loop is a direct line into rapid career and skill development and of course, adds significant operational efficiency growth potential to companies.

 

Conduct in Office Team Building Exercises

• Enabling remote teams to work together by boosting collaboration via virtual coffee chats and shared mentoring opportunities is a strong RTO incentivizer.

• Creating better networking opportunities is also beneficial for team development activities at an organizational level.

• Using cross-team mentoring opportunities using people science insights enables managers to handle projects better.

Despite the world going virtually (no pun intended) all in on the remote working mode thing, team building is best done when everyone is physically present. Even though we have digital tools available like MS Teams and Slack for great collaboration, team building demands more than that.

In fact, apps like LEAD bot enable remote teams to work together by boosting collaboration via virtual coffee chats and shared mentoring opportunities. And while our app is built for remote teams, it also works for in-office teams and is especially beneficial for cross-team collaboration. Usually, this is not possible since teams are located at different places even if they may be on the same premises. LEAD bot connects different people from various teams together for casual coffee conversations and helps create better networking opportunities. This is also beneficial for team development activities at an organizational level. Simply put, when your team members network organically, team collaboration becomes organization development and cultural saturation.

Further, using cross-team mentoring opportunities using people science insights (also available on LEAD bot) enables managers to handle projects better. Further, they also discover talented members and develop their skills better for better succession planning at all levels. Check out this HBR Ideacast podcast on how to manage your team’s emotions the right way and foster better team development.

Increase Maternity and Parenting Leaves & Benefits

• With the right remote team collaboration, companies can compensate for remote work distances but they will still need to account for parenting leaves and maternity leave.

• Developing maternity leave and parenting support channels both in team communication platforms like Teams or Slack also helps create a friendly and supportive work environment.

• When managers adopt friendly work policies and then endorse a return to work, most professionals are likely to want to return citing the career growth options available.

Remote work is easily a poorer option to collaborate for many businesses. Even if some jobs like remote customer support may be possible, almost all other jobs take a setback. Of course, with the right remote team collaboration, companies can compensate for this offset but they will still need to account for parenting leaves and maternity leave. In fact, a lot of workers prefer remote work because they get to spend more time with their families. In particular, women stand to gain a lot from working remotely. However, this comes at the cost of creating a career development gap in their year-on-year growth.

So, bringing female professionals back to work demands that companies address these liabilities. They must offer maternity and parenting leaves that enable a good work-life balance. Developing maternity leave and parenting support channels both in team communication platforms like Teams or Slack also helps create a friendly and supportive work environment.

Daycare has been part of parenting support for a long time now. However, it is often a poor substitute, and what works best is enabling mothers and fathers to spend time with their children directly through flexible and hybrid work. When managers adopt friendly work policies and then endorse a return to work, most professionals are likely to want to return citing the career growth options available.

Create Business Transformation Imperatives

• Competitive ongoing business development is the essence of good business practices and all of this begins from a well-connected workforce.

• Managers also get significant support in executing and overcoming transformation hurdles when they have such networks to rely on.

• Pushing for a return-to-work mandate to fulfill business transformation requirements may easily bring most remote workers back into the office.

Business transformations are notoriously hard to get through and moreover, they must lead to continuous transformations. Competitive ongoing business development is the essence of good business practices and all of this begins from a well-connected workforce. Now, it is true that even in the best of cases most of your employees will not be returning to the regular 9 to 5 we have done for years. Those days are over for good. The best alternative is hybrid work with a strong work culture and team connectivity setup. This is the ideal environment for building on business transformation processes as well.

Studies have shown that a strong work culture with close-knit groups of workers who also have the option to expand their network with cross-team collaboration and project development offers the best means of business transformation plan execution. Managers also get significant support in executing and overcoming transformation hurdles when they have such networks to rely on. Further, since this is a significant step up for most professionals, pushing for a return-to-work mandate to fulfill business transformation requirements may easily bring most remote workers back into the office.

How Can LEAD bot Help Your Return to Office Mandates?

Return-to-office mandates work companies incentivize close collaboration and offer work-life balance options. Plus, the pull of a strong workplace network that helps them do a better job and also offers mentoring options for career growth is a strong reason for why they should consider more active roles in-office. This is where LEAD bot helps in bringin your team together better than ever!

LEAD bot is a team engagement platform for big businesses and MNCs on Slack and Teams. It is an all-in-one team development software with features like virtual coffee chats, buddy programs, birthday celebrations & work anniversary celebrations, new hire onboarding programs, and Pulse Surveys.

LEAD bot also offers cutting-edge Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) for large-scale organizations. C-suite execs and mid-level managers benefit greatly in their decision-making from ONA and use its highly actionable insights for building strong connections across their workforce. This enables far more forward-leaning talent development and generates greater organizational interconnectedness! Foster better organizational health, talent development, employee retention, and overall performance with this simple app!

LEAD.bot is a product of LEAD.app and we also LEAD.bot’s sister app Sunrize which showcases workplace attendance by graphs right on Slack! Book a demo now!