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Strategies for Business Leaders to Safely Return to the Office

Navigating the pandemic and adapting to the changing fabric of work has been challenging for both employers and employees. With the lockdown restrictions lifting slowly and life getting back to normal, it is time to think about getting back to the office too. But how convinced are the employees with the idea of getting back to the office, getting back to commute, and getting out of the comfort zones of working from
home?

Honestly, work from home has brought in redundancy, and the majority of the workforce is no longer motivated to work in silos. But health and hygiene concerns are making them sceptical about planning a safe return to work. So what must businesses do?

As a part of the process for Beating Pandemic Blues, we spoke to India’s leading startup brands understanding their concerns. Thus, here are some key strategies that business leaders must take into consideration to win against these unparalleled times.

Here are the 3 most important strategies that leaders can adopt irrespective of the nature of the business.

Let’s have a look

Understand the Mental Impact of Returning to Work on Employees

We are not returning to the normal that once existed, thus it is essential to take into consideration various aspects of the new normal. Employee mental health must be at the top of this list. The collective experience of different businesses can help leaders in the industry to understand what is it that needs to be altered in the way we work. It is indeed time to rethink policies and implement plans to ensure employee mental, physical, and financial health is taken care of in such difficult times.

Accommodating employee mental needs and well-being will pave way for the kind of flexibility and engagement that businesses need amidst the pandemic as well as post-pandemic.

Take Charge of the Situation and Keep Scope for Reasoning

Yes, our back-to-work plan will work well only when the workforce is on the same page. Take charge of the situation, resonate with employee needs and understand why some people are not comfortable returning to the office. Revamping your workplace design with health and safety standards can be the ultimate solution.

Employees will be compelled to return confidently only when their workspace is safe and convincing. Thus creating safe, healthy, and hospitable spaces is the key to the new normal.

HR’s can play a pivotal role here in understanding the concerns and special needs of those employees in crisis and thus implement provisions accordingly. Businesses can survive the new normal only when they help the workforce to survive in the new normal.

Foster An Accessible Culture

Promote easy accessibility to people and develop leadership positions that are easy to approach. Returning to the office after more than a year of working from home can be traumatizing. New joiners and teams formed during the pandemic can feel high levels of disengagement once they are back in the office. Top leaders can make a difference here by nurturing an easy-to-approach culture. Emphasize supporting teams and making communication across all the verticals easy and accessible.

Meeting leaders, having the chance to discuss with them, and see them being part of day-to-day business can boost engagement and motivation in the workforce that was limited to laptop screens due to the pandemic.

On An Overall

Just reopening offices can be a huge mistake that businesses can make. It makes immense sense to gauge the situation and reconfigure businesses and workplaces accordingly. Business leaders need to give a thought to what they already have, how to make adequate use of it, and what they need to implement to survive the new normal. Choosing the right design approach is the key!

Related Articles: Emerging Stronger Against Work-life Disruption Post COVID-19

As both an Architect and Architectural Journalist, he thrives on building unique content, with words and thoughts--as his brick and mortar. A natural-born explorer, he puts no limits on things he's passionate about diving into, be it cuisines, cultures or books. An avid fiction reader and a chronic over-thinker, he still finds enough time to be happy-go-lucky and easy to approach.



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