Balancing autonomy and in-office mandates for a post-pandemic workforce

Image generated by DALL-E, OpenAI

Kamales is a thought leader in Digital Journal’s Insight Forum (become a member). She will explore this subject and more at the mesh conference, taking place October 24, 2024 in Toronto.

At the end of September, Amazon joined a myriad of other corporate giants in aggressively pushing for employees to return to the physical workplace full-time.

More than 90% of companies surveyed at the end of 2023 had plans to implement return-to-office policies. However, these plans have proven futile, as many companies are still struggling to entice employees back to full-time in-person presence.

As a result, companies are now resorting to harsher measures, including reversing remote work policies, factoring employees’ in-office attendance into their performance reviews, tracking in-person attendance, as well as issuing ultimatums for non-compliance. 

The traditional working model – 40-hour weeks with five on-site working days — dates back to the 1920s, initially established by Ford Motor Company.

The model has miraculously sustained into modern times, although developments in skill sets, physical locations of work and enhancements of technology have rapidly shifted (for those who are interested, I talk about this in my book, The Human Side of Digital Business Transformation).

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns triggered a revolutionary global shift in working models, forcing companies to embrace remote working models to enable business continuity.

Unexpectedly, the pandemic also played a role in disproving long-standing beliefs of how companies should operate and what constitutes effective working models. 

This was a major revelation as the global workforce collectively embraced remote work, along with other trends that triggered the Great Resignation in the post-pandemic era.

In a bid to attract and retain talent, companies accepted remote and hybrid models, even incorporating these options into working policies and hiring agreements. As companies embraced the realities of the post-pandemic business landscape, employees believed that hybrid and remote work policies were here to stay, often even moving further away from the physical workplaces. 

However, companies are now backtracking, and taking a hard stance on return-to-office mandates by calling employees back to the office full time.

Employees are now grappling with longer commutes or moving at short notice to meet on-site requirements.

Leadership teams are also standing behind these policies, arguing that in-person interactions are more effective in fostering creativity, enhancing collaboration, and strengthening corporate culture in ways remote interactions are not able to replicate. 

The recent artificial intelligence (AI) boom has added another layer of complexity to the global workforce trends.

According to a report by Goldman Sachs, AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs by 2030, affecting about a quarter of work tasks in the U.S. and Europe.

This report highlights the transformative potential of AI and the need for organizations to proactively address the implications for their workforce. Redundant and task-intensive roles will be particularly vulnerable to AI-based automation, potentially displacing workers in these roles.

For example, in August, Dell Technologies announced a second round of layoffs in the past 15 months and fired 10% of its workforce, approximately 12,500 employees. The layoffs align with the company’s strategy to streamline operations and prioritize focus on AI and modern IT solutions to drive future growth.

The very real prospect that companies may consider replacing employees with AI and automation looms over considerations of whether to comply with back to office policies. 

While many large corporations, including JP Morgan Chase, Google, Dell, Boeing, and Goldman Sachs, are taking a hard stance with the “stick” approach, some companies have opted to explore the “carrot”’” approach to entice employees back to the physical workplace.

For example, some companies are exploring a variety of in-office perks and amenities, such free meals, subsidized transportation, team bonding funds, and dedicated teams to find fun ways to connect the dispersed workforce. 

As an expert in digital business transformation, I often work with forward-thinking companies in redesigning and implementing brain-healthy workplaces where people, technology, and the physical environment converge to motivate and delight employees.

Brain-healthy designs understand that human cognitive capabilities respond to their environment, and focus on creating a range of spaces based on the task type or working modality to enhance conditions for sustained well-being at work.

Brain-healthy working environments are designed to align with various needs and purposes, including deep focus, exploration and ideation, collaboration and co-creation, rest and reflection, and social connection.

Being able to create working spaces that afford employees a balance of these purposes and tasks throughout the day has proven most effective in increasing wellness, sense of belonging, engagement and productive output.

In order to implement brain-healthy workspaces, companies must understand the work that employees need to accomplish, and design spaces in the physical environment that align and enable these tasks, along with working schedules that allow for a balanced transition throughout the day — from focus, to rest and reflection, to collaboration and co-creation.

In a study by the Center for BrainHealth, a non-profit research institute dedicated to advancing the science of brain health, creating a range of spaces based on task type or working modality unlocks innovation, as well as increases collaborative behaviors and perceived connections to one’s team. 

Companies are now looking to new technology solutions to deepen their understanding of employees’ needs and desires.

For example, non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG) technologies, such as the MyndBand EEG Brainwave headset developed by UK-based company Myndplay, are increasingly being applied to explore and understand the true impact of redesigning the workplace for collaboration and engagement.

To ensure buy-in and shared ownership of the workspaces, companies must engage with employees in a transparent and collaborative way at the very beginning of these initiatives. 

The key to success in enticing employees back to the physical workplace will depend on creating a sense of belonging and shared purpose. Without these, companies will only be addressing the symptoms, not the root cause of the problems.

By understanding what really motivates employees, beyond paychecks and perks, companies will be able to implement workable solutions that easily entice people back to the physical office.

However, it is worth recognizing that the era of full-time on-site working model may have come to an end, and a hybrid solution that offers a balance would be the path to success for many industries.

This also means equipping employees with the autonomy to choose where and how they work, as well as the authority to have control over their working environments.