How to Transition From a Remote Work Model to In-Office

Mandating a return to the office is likely to be a hard sell in 2023. In fact, 56% of remote workers would look for a new job if their company asked them to return to the office.

So, it’s crucial to think carefully about how you’re going to approach bringing your teammates back into the office. Get it wrong and it could have serious repercussions for your engagement and turnover.

Stick to these tips and your transition from a remote work model to in-office is sure to go as smoothly as possible. 

Why do companies want employees back in the office?

While Elon Musk is leading the charge back to the office – recently telling Twitter employees that “the office is not optional” – he’s far from alone. In fact, 50% of businesses are following Musk’s lead and demanding their employees work in-office full time.

An email Apple CEO Tim Cook sent to all employees in June 2021 sums up why so many organizations are pushing to get their staff into the office: “Video conference calling has narrowed the distance between us, to be sure, but there are things it simply cannot replicate.”

The fact is: making sure your employees are feeling engaged and recognized is a lot harder when they’re not in the office. 

And working from home can be isolating, with 24% of people saying their biggest problem with remote work is loneliness. This can seriously affect your more extroverted teammates. 

Plus, not all work can be done to the same standard from home, with 45% of people thinking meetings with ten or more attendees are worse when done on video call rather than in-person.

How do I transition from remote to onsite work?

Planning on forcing a teammate who loves working from home back to the office without making any concessions? Then don’t be surprised if they don’t stay part of the team for long.

The transition back to office life will go a lot smoother if you follow these steps: 

Offer hybrid work

The Covid pandemic well and truly opened Pandora's box when it proved that very few people with a desk job need to work from an office. As a result, flexible working options are a must-have for a lot of employees – especially millennials and gen Z.

The fact is: hybrid working is a huge hit with most workers. In fact:

• 59% of workers prefer a hybrid work model – compared to 32% who’d prefer to work exclusively remotely and just 9% who’d choose to work fully on-site.
• The majority of workers would prefer to be in the office between one and three days a week.

• 78% of employees say a hybrid work plan leads to a better work/life balance.

And a hybrid work model can have a big impact on your business’s bottom line, too. Did you know:

• 81% of hybrid employees are highly engaged? 
• Hybrid workplaces have seen an average 12% reduction in employee turnover?
• Companies can save up to $11,000 per employee when they work at least partly remotely?

Mandating that your employees all need to return to the office is one of the worst things you can do for your retention and engagement rates. And most organizations are well aware of that, with 91% of businesses planning on permanently allowing some kind of remote work.

If you don’t give your employees any choice at all in where they work from, you’re risking an exodus of your top talent – and a real struggle to become an employer of choice in your industry. So, unless you have no other choice, you should think carefully before mandating your staff come back to the office to spend nine-to-five behind a desk.

Make the office a place people want to come

Today, only 12% of people would choose to work from the office full time.

So, if you are going to mandate your staff back to the office, you need to make sure you’re making it worth their while. Otherwise you’ll seriously struggle to hold onto your top talent.

How willing your teammates will be to return to the office hinges on how strong your company culture is. If you haven’t laid the groundwork there it’s going to take some serious work to create a company culture mix that has your teammates excited to come back into the office full-time.

It’s crucial to remember here that company culture isn’t free fruit, a ping pong table in the breakout room, or beers on a Friday. While these are all thoughtful touches your teammates are sure to appreciate if you’ve got the groundwork in place, they’re not going to make much of a difference unless you’ve established a culture of employee engagement and appreciation.

Subsidize your teammates’ travel

You can’t buy your way toward a loved office culture.

But if you ask your remote employees to come back into the office, you’re essentially giving them a real-world pay cut by adding potentially thousands of dollars of travel costs onto their annual expenses.

Anything you can do to subsidize your employees’ travel costs can therefore go a long way to making the transition to in-office work a lot smoother. So, you might want to look into:

• Providing them with a company car.
• Contributing to their fuel costs.
• Setting up a cycle to work scheme.
• Covering some (or all) of their public transport costs.

Bake remote perks into office life

Even remote work’s biggest cheerleader would admit there are plenty of benefits to working in an office. Your employees can walk over to someone’s desk to catch up with them rather than having to schedule a Zoom call with them. They can bounce ideas off their teammates face-to-face. And they’ve always got someone to talk to about their plans for the weekend, making sure they don’t feel isolated.

You can help make the transition back to life in the office go as well as possible by complementing these perks with some of the benefits your employees have come to expect from remote working.

For example, a massive 77% of workers say they’re more productive when working remotely. If you can provide your people with a distraction-free environment when they’re working in-office then they’ll thank you for being able to get through their workweek faster. So, empower them to close their email, turn off Slack notifications for a few hours, and put earphones in to get their heads down and through some work.

One of the remote work perks most people will be saddest to let go of is the flexibility to work around their other commitments, appointments, and errands. In fact, a recent survey by McKinsey & Company revealed workplace flexibility is a top motivator for 40% of workers – just behind salary (41%) – with 26% citing a lack of flexibility as a major factor in why they quit their last role.

The transition from remote to onsite work will go a lot smoother if you still give your people the flexibility to plan their work week around their lives. The best approach here is to judge people’s performance by what they get done, not how long they spend in the office. Then you can leave it up to each employee’s discretion how they plan their work week to get everything on their to-do list done.

The final word

Demand that your staff commute to a physical office and sit glued to a desk from nine to five isn’t likely to go down well with them if they could just as easily be working from home.

So, if you’re going to mandate a return to the office, consider a hybrid work model, make sure you’ve got a strong company culture, consider subsidizing your teammates’ travel expenses, and don’t leave the perks of remote work completely behind.

Stick to those rules of thumb and your transition from remote working to working from the office is bound to go as smoothly as possible.