Remote work has proven to be beneficial in numerous ways. The statistic shows that around 56% of employees felt that they were more productive while working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many stated that they could finish twice as much work at home as they ever could in the office. While experiencing work flexibility that enabled them to spend more time with their family and friends enhancing work/life balance.
Businesses that use an employee tracking app to record and measure their remote employees’ productivity and performance have seen that the remote model works for business growth and employee well-being alike.
So why do so many employers worldwide want to see their employees back in the office? The answer is complex, and one of the reasons may be that they want to see whether the in-person collaboration will boost employee productivity additionally.
And here are some other reasons why more and more companies are insisting on returning to the office.
Increased Exposure to the Management
Tesla owner Elon Musk is one of the business owners determined to get employees working from the office full time. He states that visibility is essential for maintaining employees driven and productive, justifying his decision to fire all employees unwilling to work from the office.
According to Musk, the more senior your position may be in the company, the more you need to be present in the office, setting an example to other employees and showing them that you all work towards achieving critical goals.
One of the advantages that office-based work has over the remote model is that employees working from the office can interact more frequently with the management in person, creating meaningful relationships. For this reason, numerous managers believe that their office-based team members work harder than their remote counterparts, even though the employee monitoring data clearly shows that this isn’t the case.
Contrasting Company Cultures
The way you co-relate in-person interaction and collaboration with high productivity and performance identifies the culture you promote in your company. This said you may be fostering a tight or loose culture.
Advocates of the tight culture who believe in continuous supervision and old-fashioned leadership hierarchy believe that new employees best learn the ropes by working side by side with their mentors. And that no video conferencing platform like Zoom can recreate this in-person collaboration.
On the other hand, companies that embrace a fully remote model offer work flexibility that employees crave. At the same time, these companies may rely on screenshot monitoring or monitoring Internet activities to keep track of employees’ daily performance and measure their productivity.
By allowing employees access to their monitoring dashboards, these leaders encourage work autonomy, letting employees redistribute their workload and focus on creative tasks when they’re most productive. But to make sure your employees make the most of this increased work flexibility and autonomy, you need to set clear goals determining expectations and responsibilities.
Making the Most of a Rented Office Space
The fact is that businesses have invested millions of dollars and a lot of effort to rent and create productive workspaces before the pandemic. And now they want to make the most of their investment.
But if you want to attract employees to work from home more often you need to adjust the workspace and office perks to cater to employees’ changing needs.
And bear in mind that happy hours and free lunches may not be motivating enough for your employees. Listen carefully to their feedback and create office experiences that your employees wouldn’t want to miss.
What the Future Holds?
Coercing employees to return to the office may be a bad idea that will most likely backfire resulting in higher turnover rates. Most employees say that they would leave their current positions if working from the office becomes mandatory.
This and the fact that employees tend to work from home 1.5 days a week on average indicate that adapting to a hybrid work model may be a compromising solution that takes the best of both worlds. By creating a welcoming and productive hybrid workplace, you will encourage in-person team collaboration, while providing much-needed flexibility
