The reality of accommodating remote and hybrid work, forced on many companies by the pandemic, now appears to be so firmly entrenched that many business leaders say it’s inevitable.

Some of them believe hybrid work models will overtake onsite work as the preferred mode by 2024. Others may be more skeptical, but no one can refute the fact there’s a sea-change underway that every company at least needs to acknowledge and plan against.

Some of the other statistics illustrating this change also show the divide between employers and companies about remote/hybrid versus onsite work:

  • Worldwide, 16% of companies are fully remote, according to an Owl Labs study.
  • The research also discovered that 62% of workers aged 22-65 said they worked remotely, at least occasionally.
  • Employees who work from home spend 10 minutes less time a day being unproductive, work one more day a week, and are 47% more productive.
  • 44% of companies do not allow remote work of any type.
  • Other recent research says almost 30% of remote workers say they’ll quit their job if they aren’t allowed to continue working remotely.

There’s obviously a pronounced attitude hardening in the minds of many workers about being able to work remotely. Meanwhile, many companies aren’t willing – or able – to countenance remote work.

So employers who are in a position where they need to have employees working onsite must offer new benefits or try out new ideas to keep employees satisfied with onsite work. Otherwise, those workers – including highly talented and difficult-to-replace ones – may be tempted to jump to other employers who are promising remote, hybrid, or other flexible work schemes.

Why not go remote?

There are some understandable reasons why companies would prefer employees – at least a large share of them – to stay onsite:

  • Some work can’t be done remotely: The most obvious jobs here are in manufacturing, retail, logistics, and healthcare, and anything involving fixed equipment, materials, facilities, high-security industries, and live events, among others.
  • The cost of facilities: Many companies have made huge investments in headquarters and operations facilities, and those bills will still need to get paid regardless.  
  • To maintain oversight: When an employee is working remotely, it means they’re uncomfortably out-of-site for managers.  Despite the research cited above about remote employees being more productive when working from home, some managers may feel it’s not truly the case, or that team productivity may suffer by not having team members working in physical proximity.
  • To guide development: Due to the lack of close-at-hand visibility, some employees may feel they’re not getting sufficient guidance to optimize performance, or the right training, or that managers may be disconnected from the work they’re doing and can’t judge it properly.
  • To avoid loss of tribal knowledge and expertise: Transference or retention of the experience and expertise of veteran employees can be more difficult when they’re not present and able to share it with others in an onsite, side-by-side setting.

How do you keep employees onsite, engaged, and happy to be there?

Employers actually have a number of very powerful inducements already at their command that can help them keep workers coming back to onsite. There are also additional tactics they can adopt to make onsite work a more attractive alternative to hybrid and remote work.

  • Encourage a positive and collaborative onsite culture: As we’ve noted in a recent post about what factors compel employees to return to the office, the joy of person-to-person connection is the one thing they can’t get from working remotely. That’s a quality of onsite work that matters most to many people, and why they enjoy being in the workforce. Therefore, doing everything you can to nurture an embracing and collegial onsite environment will pay off. And it might not hurt to remind employees of the fact they’d miss this in-person camaraderie if they worked remotely. Research from Gallup shows that employees who feel more engaged with company culture are far more likely to be engaged at work, 68% less likely to feel burned out, and 55% less likely to go looking for another job.
Team Collaboration at the Onsite Office
  • Show them they’re important: Clearly define the roles and expectations around onsite jobs, and why those jobs – and by extension, the employees working at them – are important and valued. This kind of recognition makes a big difference to any retention strategy, but it’s particularly useful here.
  • Upskill managers to become better coaches: As part of making onsite employees understand and feel their importance to the success of the organization, make sure managers have the skills they need to retain and develop workers. Collaborative goal setting, listening skills, and ongoing feedback and accountability skills are part of how they can create a virtuous communication loop with their teams that builds trust and esprit de corps.
  • Help parents or caregivers out: Many employees, especially those with children or family members in need of care or support, prefer remote or hybrid work they feel it allows them to devote more attention to them. Some employers have implemented onsite child care or even primary education or tutoring services to tempt these parents back, or tied in with local agencies and social welfare providers, or assisted with the costs of child or older adult care.
  • Make onsite work more efficient: By removing some of the routine and drudgery from everyday work, you’ll improve morale and engagement. Try to avoid excessive meetings, for instance, and use collaboration platforms like Slack and MS Teams to improve and quicken communication. Where possible, look at automating repetitive tasks and workflows, freeing employees to focus on more interesting and profitable work.
  • Provide relevant benefits: Reimburse employees for the expenses (if not the aggravations) of their daily commute, for instance. Take a look at the benefits you already provide, like break times and onsite facilities, to make them more alluring for workers; get them involved in the planning process around those and other measures, too. This leads to this recommendation…
  • Enlist employees in the effort: Get your staffers to contribute their ideas and energy to discovering meaningful ways to promote onsite work and build retention. They’re. the ultimate experts on what it will take, and the very fact you’re asking for their help builds unity and positivity within your organization around onsite work.

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