Back to the office after corona in 4 steps
The lockdown will be over as of June 5. This is what outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced in the press conference last Friday about further relaxation of the corona measures. This also means that we will be working in the office more and more again. Time to reboard!
Help your employees make the transition to (partially) working in the office again. Not an easy task, because the situation is different than before corona. Employees will alternately work from home, in the office or on location. As a result, colleagues and teams work together in a different way.
As an organization, you naturally want to facilitate this hybrid way of (collaborating) in a good way. How do you start this change process well prepared? In order for the return to the office to go as smoothly as possible, good preparation is essential. Follow the 4-step checklist:
1 — Gather input from your employees
For a smooth transition, you need to know the needs and wishes of your employees. What do they need for hybrid collaboration? What do they miss about the office now? Also, don't forget to ask what employees really like about working from home. This is how you find out what else your organization can improve. Ultimately, with the input of your employees, you will arrive at the right new situation for your organization. Surveymonkey has an 8-step guide for setting up a coronavirus survey program among employees. Or read the 7 tips from Effectory to set up an employee survey.
2 — Look at the design of your office
Now that many employees are working from home, this offers the space to redesign the office. You literally have space left over when a large number of your employees work from home. And with fewer people in the office, it's easier to carry out a renovation. To properly organize the office, you want to know how many workplaces you need. And what do you do with the rest of the space? Ask your employees how many days they come to the office and why. Is that for working together, meeting, meeting with a customer, or just because it's more fun? Based on this information, you can set up the office at Activity Based Working: you create spaces that are tailored to the activities of your employees, with each space ideally suited to one type of activity.
Think about Activity Based Working at the following areas:
- Basic workplaces
- Concentration rooms
- Meeting rooms
- Brainstorm facilities
- Spaces for informal meetings
By redesigning your office, you can take a big step in improving the well-being of your employees. The well-being of the employee is especially important in these corona times! What makes your employees happy? A gym, more daylight, a massage chair, good acoustics or more greenery in the building? Happy spaces make for happy faces!
3 — Facilitate the new way of working together
Whether you renovate your entire office building or not, there will be permanent changes for your employees. Because the days of everyone working in the office every day are behind us. A hybrid way of working together does raise questions, such as “Who can use the office facilities and when?” or “How do we prevent everyone from coming to the office on Tuesdays?” A good solution for this is a reservation system. Let teams and individuals reserve spaces and workplaces so that your employees are always assured of a spot in the office. Useful reservation tools include Okku and Flexwhere
4 — Involve your employees
Share the change plans with the employees in your organization. How you do this depends on your company culture. Do your employees like to read emails or watch a video on the intranet? No matter how you communicate, keep it short and sweet. No one is waiting for huge long texts or speeches.
Harness the power of repetition. If you repeat your message often and in multiple places, you increase the chance that the information will stick with your employees. Also, don't forget to communicate about progress. By being open and transparent, you build mutual trust. Check out the checklist for internal communication in change management.
A successful reboarding
The reboarding after corona causes a lot of changes: a new office layout, hybrid meetings and more attention to employee well-being. That is quite a challenge. Want to know more about it? Let us know.
Change the office layout? Ask us to the possibilities of lease! A fixed monthly amount that includes everything. So you know where you stand every month.
Do you want to know more about the new office environment and the multi-space approach? We'd love to have a coffee with you (online or offline). Then take contact with us.
Check out our sustainable acoustic solutions for sustainable office furnishings or read here more about the changing office environment after corona.