For many businesses, new flexible working policies have led to dramatic changes in the number of people coming into the office. Companies which previously had full, bustling workplaces now have only a handful of staff working onsite each day.
While there are plenty of positive aspects to flexible working, an empty office isn’t necessarily what companies want. If you’d like to entice staff back to the office this year, here are five ways to make people want to return to the workplace!
To solve a problem, you first need to understand it. Find out what barriers are preventing staff from returning to the office, and which changes or improvements they would appreciate the most. The easiest way to gather this data is through a staff survey:
There are certainly perks to working from home - no commute, being in your own space, and less rushing in the morning. However, your workplace has something that a home office doesn’t: the company of colleagues and friends. For many people, the office is an important social hub, and you can emphasise that benefit by providing opportunities for your team to grow closer, spend time together and support each other. For example…
Is your office an enjoyable and engaging place to work? Environmental factors like noise, colour, lighting, and layout can have a significant effect on the mood of your staff, and how they feel about spending their time in the office.
Here are a few suggestions to get you started:
Asking staff to return to the office can be a big HR challenge, especially once people have settled into a work-from-home routine. Rather than telling people that they need to be back in the office full-time, take baby steps and ask people to come in two or three days a week.
One of the most appealing aspects of working from home is avoiding the commute. That’s especially true for a driven commute that ends at an expensive commercial car park or far away street parking (especially when staff then see empty spots at the office car park).
You can alleviate the pain of commuting and create easier mornings by opening your staff car park to employees who are driving into the office each day.
To avoid an uptick in car park administration and maintain your facility security and access control, consider a flexible parking management system like Parkable.
Parkable’s software platform gives staff complete visibility over car park occupancy and allows people to book a park in advance, so they don’t show up to find the car park full. Plus, execs can keep their allocated car park and simply share it on the app with colleagues on the days that they’re working from home or on leave.
Parkable enables easy sharing and booking of Waverley College’s staff parks. Using the app, the staff can share their allocated car park with colleagues when they’re on leave, and other members of staff can easily book parking.
Parkable's parking management software allows TSG to easily share 150 parking spots among 250 staff.
If you have workplace parking spots and want to...
...feel free to get in touch!