In the post-pandemic world, companies are navigating the challenges of reintegrating employees into office life. Although these large corporations have faced some hurdles in their return-to-office plans, lessons can be learned about striking the right balance between remote and in-office work arrangements.
Gleb Tsipursky, a behavioral scientist and consultant, highlights the importance of understanding the needs and preferences of your team, rather than simply telling them they need to come back. By taking a more flexible and supportive approach, you can help your employees thrive in a rapidly changing work environment. As Mr. Tsipursky puts it, “If you tell people what to do, they’ll rebel. Give them reasons to act a certain way, and they’ll be more inclined to do so.”
If you’ve been wondering how to make your new “hybrid arrangement” or general “return to office” experience a positive one, make sure you add the following ingredients to your recipe (plan):
- Be Clear. Let them know how many days they need to come in and why it will benefit them. Give them a timeline and let them know what the exceptions are. Be fair and flexible whenever possible.
- Let your employees know why their presence in the office is beneficial to them. There are excellent reasons to come to the office and those are: Face to face collaboration, feedback, increased creativity, and team cohesion.
Use those in-office days to the fullest
We all want to know that our time at the office will be productive. Making sure that in-person meetings and creative sessions are held on those days (and not remotely) will help foster cohesion and great ideas. Plus, everyone will feel like their time has been spent wisely.
Help them commute
You can help your employees get to work and save money on taxes when you allow them to set aside up to $300 of their paycheck (pre-tax allotment) to take public transportation to and from work.
This pre-tax allotment not only makes it easier to get to work (which is what you want) it can save them up to $700 a year on taxes and up to $10,000 on purchasing a new vehicle, oil changes, and maintenance. It works well for you too – each employee who participates saves you about $40 per person, per month on taxes (for a 50-person company that’s around $24k in savings).
Help them eat lunch
Offering them a daily lunch stipend to be spent on local, healthy eateries will save your employees time and money. It’s also a great way to show your employees that you really want them there.
By taking a balanced and flexible approach, you can support your employees in their transition to a new work arrangement while promoting productivity and collaboration.
Edenred is your ally for Return to Office
We’d love to help support the transition to partial or full-time office work by making sure you are equipped with the right benefits. We can help you tailor the right benefits package for your company based on your budget and your employees’ needs.
For example, we can help you get a commuter benefits program up and running. We do everything from implementaiton, answering employee questions, to providing prepaid cards that can be used for weekly and monthly passes as well as individual trips.
We can do the same for meal stipends and much, much more.
It’s what we do, and we’re good at making it easy for you to do. Schedule a meeting with us today to learn more about commuter benefits and meal benefits.
