With the battle against COVID-19 progressing successfully in many regions of the world, employers’ next step is to begin bringing workers back to offices while recognizing that it must be done the right way. Plans for full-office or hybrid working models are in discussion throughout all organizations, prioritizing collaboration. But much has changed in how workers see the world, so the transition back needs careful handling. This means maintaining the same priority on employee well-being that was so critical during the pandemic. Meanwhile, management must be willing to continue listening to employees to assess their post-pandemic sentiment and overall readiness to return.
Lessons Learned from the All-Remote Workforce Experience
For companies fortunate enough to be able to provide it, a 100% remote working model was the safest option during an unprecedented health crisis, and likely saved many lives. But 15 months later, organizations need to consider the lessons learned from all-remote work as return-to-office plans ramp up, subject to local public health guidance.
For some employees, working from home helped strengthen independence and job focus, making them more confident. Engagement soared as employees felt indebted to their employers for continued work and focused caretaking. Upon the return to office, firms must think about how to preserve that mindset and commitment while also integrating back into a more physically connected work environment across the broader organization.
During the last year, managers were tested in new ways and forced to broaden their skill sets. For instance, at AllianceBernstein (AB), we saw many managers giving much more attention to team members’ day-to-day emotional needs, beyond work activities. It would be great to see that leadership habit continue in some form post-pandemic. But employers must also recognize that this outlay of support left managers stretched and depleted after fulfilling this critical and new responsibility.
An all-remote workforce had clear downsides too, with mental health concerns top-of-list. Many workers juggled remote work with other stress triggers, like kids’ virtual classroom schedules, an aging parent’s care or their own health issues. That stress could be compounded by a lack of connection, inclusion and consistent workplace information. Firms had to stay on top of this by expanding confidential support services, educational tools and other resources to help employees and their families cope.
At AB, for example, we created a Coronavirus Information Portal that housed the key information and guidance employees needed to stay operational and find support. We also sponsored Ask the Expert and Ask the Doctor podcasts, increased management communication on virus developments and led frequent town hall meetings around the globe to keep everyone connected, informed and included.
Workplace culture was tested during the pandemic. Culture isn’t a line item on a balance sheet, but it’s the most important asset in a company’s long-term success. Strong cultures allow organizations to stay connected even when they’re not together. Throughout the pandemic, it became quite clear that stronger corporate cultures were better positioned to rally their teams in response to the unprecedented needs of clients, coworkers and communities. At AB, we found that our culture was strengthened during the pandemic as we developed a newfound focus on its importance and appreciation for its value.
We also leaned on our culture, which emphasizes collaboration and inclusiveness. It was our lifeforce to help us step up and forge through—keeping employees engaged, informed, supported and equipped to do their best work across great distances while never wavering in our belief that we were one team. As with all organizations, we needed to adapt the ways in which we reinforced the culture in an all-remote world—and we simply had to work harder to maintain what made our firm so special.
As organizations head back to the office from all-remote to something along the hybrid continuum, a robust, enticing culture will be even more critical and will serve as a top motivator to drive enthusiasm in the return to office.
Many new hires that joined organizations in the last year have never set foot in an office nor met face-to-face with any of their colleagues. As we formally welcome them into the fold in physical spaces, in one sense we need to onboard them again. Many may have felt disconnected from the rhythm of the virtual workplace and somewhat isolated, despite all of our best efforts to welcome them to their new professional community via Zoom.
Employee Priorities and Expectations Have Evolved During the Crisis
To put it bluntly, the workforce heading back to the office is not the same one that left in March of 2020. Employees are re-evaluating all elements of their lives, from work-life balance to the importance of their health. And they’re viewing long commutes, personal space and the work itself in a new light. We know that when they reach the office, their new priorities will come with them.
As organizational leaders, how will we respond?
In our view, when people change, their priorities change too. Will professional achievement and pay be alone at the top of their lists as indicators of success and drivers of happiness? Employers again will need to listen and adjust policies and practices, refining firm culture based on the new profile of this forever-altered workforce. Employees will return to the office with an array of new requirements, after a global near-death experience. Their list is long, with safety, flexibility, meaningful work, a feeling of alignment with organizational purpose and their health highest on the list. Employees want to lead lives rich with wellness, and they are now able to express this need with a new level of clarity and conviction.
We won’t know for some time how the stress of the last 15 months has truly impacted our employees. A new and welcomed openness to discussing mental health challenges in the workplace will forever reduce a stigma widely prevalent throughout generations of workers. These challenges, which peaked during the crisis, won’t disappear overnight, and employers should recognize this fact. At AB, our confidential support services and tools—many of them introduced as pandemic support—will be offered indefinitely. Our team still needs them.
Flexibility is also top-of-mind for many workers—prospective employees too. Recruiting for top talent has always been fierce and competitive. And with so many choices open to them, high-value employees and niche roles have been steadily reshaping the policies of the workplace as they become more and more vocal about their personal and changing requirements. The pandemic only accelerated these shifts in thinking about flexibility and equally accelerated the expectations for employers to deliver on their asks.
Competing for Talent in the “New Normal”
We’ll need to evaluate new expectations carefully to compete for workers in the ever-evolving “new normal.” For example, recruits now are more likely to prioritize personal time over professional recognition. Also high on their list are giving back to communities, pursuing social or charitable causes, and having platforms to express individuality or share stories with peers of similar interests and backgrounds.
Employees have been operating successfully with independence and want to see that continue. They want to be trusted that their work and assignments will get done. After surviving a global pandemic, they no longer wish to make trade-offs in their lives, weighing work obligations against missing personal moments and milestones. This workforce is forever changed, and we need to change with them or accept the risks.
Employees will be more open to return-to-office plans when they know their employer has their backs and truly hears them when they voice concerns or challenge decisions. Workers have new ideas and suggestions, and we should listen. Management shouldn’t simply say “we’re above those trends” or cling to old ways, as employees and candidates won’t be impressed by that mindset.
We realized across AB that simple things like dress codes can be eased up by allowing colleagues to “dress for their days,” and flextime arrangements could be considered to help employees feel more aligned with their lives outside of work. We know that we should continue to think about changing in a more focused way. This isn’t perfectly easy and comes with some discomfort and disagreement, but our employees expect us to put the work in.
Making Wellness Work—Applying Lessons, Staying Nimble
Returning to the office will take just as much adjustment as it took getting settled into a home office in March 2020. But if done right, employees will see the benefits of being back together in the office. In our view, this return will help revive the all-important foundation of the workplace—face-to-face interpersonal collaboration. There are many aspects of professional life that simply can’t be replicated when everyone is working remotely. Work is a team sport: camaraderie and cohesion are fed by personal interactions.
All organizations have suffered from the COVID-19 remote-work hangover and lack of work-life boundaries, and we believe return-to-office can help restore that healthy buffer between these two distinct parts of our lives. As work-from-home requirements dragged on, many firms saw issues magnify time and time again: miscommunication, employee complaints about colleagues, difficulty prioritizing new projects across teams and even errors. Disruption of the traditional work-life structure created side effects such as slowed responsiveness, shortness with peers in email interactions and well-documented Zoom fatigue.
Reestablishing traditional beginnings and ends to the workday will be another important benefit to return-to-office. In our view, as employees start to intensify their work focus when they’re at the office, they’ll be better able to keep it at arm’s length when they’re not. There’s no playbook for perfect return-to-office execution, but leading with employee well-being will always be at the forefront. We confidently believe that the health of our employees is enhanced with shorter workdays, more definition between work and home, the face-to-face support of one’s manager and the informal camaraderie of coworkers.
The biggest challenge for organizational leaders is to balance bringing a collaborative workforce back together while responding to what employees might think they want right now. It is much easier to inventory the pleasures of remote work as the time lengthens and memories of the office fade. At AB, we are betting that the office will be revalued as employees return and are reminded of the many pluses of a shared work environment.
With this in mind, we’re using our Work that Works initiative to overlay the pandemic’s lessons with the new employee priorities and create a new energy and excitement about being together in the office. The goal is a better workplace experience in areas like safety, work-life balance, office innovation, culture, personal development and technology enhancements. In a few words… an enhanced workplace wellness.
From Strategy to Results: Wellness Drives Everything
Post-pandemic wellness has become more critical as a key component in a high-functioning organization and a key culture pillar. Strong cultures prioritize wellness. The importance of leading a healthy life has never been stronger nor more correlated to one’s feelings about their employer.
The post-pandemic workplace culture must remain nimble, accepting of unexpected change and sudden redirection as this “new” workforce heads to the office. However, we can be assured that the priority of a person’s wellness will never revert lower on the list of must-haves for today’s workforce. Listening to employees, through formal and informal channels blended with Work that Works, will foster a robust feedback mechanism, channeling timely information to leadership to better identify workplace and employee issues and concerns in real time. The voice and perspective of managers will play an equally important role.
The focus on safety should go beyond masks and vaccine policies to broadly embrace psychological safety and mental health. AB, for example, has divided employees into teams to address the initial hesitation of returning to the office and to give employees ample time to relearn the skills of commuting. Office days will start at two per week at first to give everyone time to readjust, increasing over several months. We feel confident that being back will deliver an incredible lift for all, through warm in-person interactions, even if they’re gradual at first.
New—or newly prioritized—work-life balance ideas being considered throughout the industry include flex hours, location choices and workload variety. Office innovation includes technology improvements, like better video conferencing capabilities—even in the post-pandemic workplace. Zoom isn’t going away, and it was integral to the success of the last year. But, with the return to office, we could provide more guidance as to when it is most appropriate or needed and use it a bit less!
At AB, our guiding light during the pandemic was employee well-being. For 15 months, we talked about our employees every day. We checked in and worried about them every day too. Our community tightened and our culture grew richer as a result. This priority guided all our decision making. Beyond AB, the business community moved mountains during the pandemic to protect and care for its workforce. Now it’s time to keep that focus on caretaking in place as we return to the office, ensuring we show employees that we heard every one of them, learned from this experience, remain committed to their well-being, and can’t wait to see them again.
