Written by- Liz Dsouza, Founder Liz Lyn Careers
Are we at the end of the pandemic? who knows..however one thing we have noticed is that a lot of organizations are now coming "back to work" in full capacity and after a 2 year period of remote working there are going to be some hurdles for sure, so let's see what employers can do to manage this smoothly.
Know your team: the first thing all employers would consider is that, one size doesn't fit all! every employee is different and what works for one employee may not work for all, hence it's important to first understand your workforce and consider that employees at different levels of hierarchy need to be managed differently.
People have different reasons for WFH: not everyone who prefers working from home is looking for a reason or way to slack off! yes, some people need to be micro-managed and some people do not. While considering WFH or back to work make sure you have one-on-one conversations with your team in order to figure out what works best for them, as it's been proven that some people are more productive working from home than from the office.
Consider the type of tasks the employee is performing: for example someone who has more creative tasks to perform may prefer working in isolation and actually be more productive working from home, however someone who needs to manage a team may be required to have more interaction with people, once the employees understand this, they will themselves pick the right option for them.
Start off slow: a lot of people have settled into the idea of WFH and have set up their life and daily routine accordingly, yanking them into a new way of working suddenly may not be the best idea, my advice would be to start slow maybe a few days a week to get them accustomed to the new daily routine.
Remember as an employer you must do things that work for your organization and it's not necessary to follow others, every business is different and it is time we realize that there are different ways and formats that work can be done.
Saying that I know that a lot of tasks like training, orientation, and employee engagement are difficult with the work from home model, difficult, but not impossible.