As some economies around the world begin to re-open amidst the success of vaccination programs and lifting of restrictions, many leaders and HR managers are now faced with questions about whether returning to “business as usual” is right for them and how this will look. The choice of how to move forward with remote working is up to individual companies but should consider the preferences of employees, depending on where they feel the most productive. But if a business wants to recapture or augment the in-office culture they had prior to global lockdowns, any type of return must be conducted in the right way.

Whilst the response to remote working has been positive for many, I personally believe that there are many benefits to a return to the office, including the long-term productivity and creativity of your team. When working in an office together, teams get a better understanding how the company works, how different teams interrelate, and can benefit from quick communication with their colleague and managers. Often, as separate teams communicate across boundaries, opportunities for unplanned interactions arise. These interactions have positive impact on teams’ creativity and productivity. This form of spontaneous interaction has been hard to stimulate during remote working.

So how to get the best out of the office, while getting your best people back to the office?

Be Smart About Hybrid Working
Some businesses will be aiming to opt for a “best of both worlds” approach; in other words, a hybrid route where people are able to work flexibly, coming in on selected days in a week. Or, in some cases, a percentage of the workforce will work from home exclusively while others choose to return to the office. This means that there will be a constant mix of people at home and work.

For HR managers this can create new challenges when it comes to performance evaluations, role assignments and future promotions in comparing employees whether they work in the office or at home. How can managers ensure that their attention does not focus too heavily on those employees who just happen to be working in the same room as them? How can HR leaders avoid the out-of-sight out-of-mind tendency?

Hybrid working allows organisations to offer their employees a mode of working that aligns more closely with their own preferences and could be a game-changer when it comes to enhancing job satisfaction. But managers should be careful to avoid rendering these advantages worthless through exacerbating hierarchies and unfairness. If you’re adopting a hybrid approach in your return to the office, make sure there are strategies in place for monitoring performance in a way that circumvents biases around the merits of “turning up” rather than “logging on”.

Create opportunities for new connections
When employees do return to the office, managers need to take advantage of having their team, or at least a portion of it, in one space. Innovation often occurs between formalized work tasks and between individuals interacting outside of their formal teams. Team-leaders should make sure to plan different strategies that enable their teams to work and socialize with other teams to help build connections across the organisation. This interaction helps  build complex networks of communication between employees that can smooth the flow of business, spur ideas for new products and also build your organisations culture. There is a chance, employees have felt disconnected to the culture of your company during the lockdowns and in the remote working environment. Putting a plan for the new work dynamic offers HR Leaders a chance to redefine aspects of the broader organisational culture. How can you build on your existing culture to stress systems and values where teams can collaborate and innovate together?

If you’re exploring a hybrid model, find ways to involve team members who are virtual, whether that is brainstorming events or virtual social events. HR managers should think long and hard about the networks they are helping employees to build both in person and virtually. It is a difficult balance that will be a challenge for HR teams in the new normal.

Plan for multiple ‘new normals’
Perhaps the most important lesson that HR managers should be taking into their reopened offices is that we cannot assume that the ‘new normal’ is here to stay. There may well be new, more difficult circumstances on the horizon that we need to adapt to. It is pragmatism, not pessimism, to suggest that a return to the office may well be followed by another retreat.

In my teaching on the UCL MBA, I like to reinforce the importance of scenario planning, creating strategies that prepare businesses for unexpected and unpredictable crises. The practice has never been more important than now. All business leaders planning some kind of a return to the office should consider the possibility of events such as employee illnesses, public transport shutdowns, and subsequent lockdowns of unknown duration.  Businesses need to have plans for multiple ‘new normals’, and perhaps scenarios where further disruption or even great opportunities change your strategic approach. With new variants of the virus continuing to arise and supply chains reshaping, every business should plan for multiple operating modes.

Hopefully, I’ve convinced you that a return to the office is infinitely more complex than simply flipping a switch; the flexibility of the strategies we create as we dust off our desks again should match the complexity of the world we now live in. But hopefully you also think it’s worth it. Remote working has highlighted many areas of working life that are ripe for improvement and kept us safe in unforeseen, adverse circumstances. But when, once more, it is safe to return the office we should accept the opportunities for networking, innovation, and teamwork that it offers us. Many projects have been put on hold during the pandemic; when offices reopen, there is no better time to start them again.