ReportWire

Tag: Hybrid Work

  • How to Keep Work From Home Fridays From Getting Too Casual

    Hybrid work is now an established norm of the modern, despite many recent efforts to force workers back into the office five days a week. These arrangements, a legacy of the pandemic, remain popular with millions of people who prefer this kind of workday flexibility. But in some circles, remote and hybrid work models are very much out of favor, as experts and managers argue that they reduce productivity. New research adds fuel to this fire because it found that hybrid and remote workers typically work fewer hours on a Friday, perhaps trying to get a head start on that relaxing weekend feeling. 

    But before power-crazed micromanagers giggle in delight and ramp up calls for more RTO rules, the research also showed that these same workers put in extra time on a Wednesday.

    The workplace data, gathered by Christos Andreas Makridis a labor economist and research professor at Arizona State University, first reinforced that more people are working remotely. Just 15 percent of professionals who could do so tended to work remotely on Thursdays and Fridays in 2019, but in 2025 fully 35 percent to 40 percent worked remotely. The same pattern held for the first three days of the work week: in 2019 about 10 to 15 percent of professionals worked remotely, while in 2024 that figure rose to nearly 30 percent.

    But the key part of Makridis’ data is that from 2019 to 2024 the average number of minutes people worked on Fridays dropped by up to 90 minutes for workers on remote or hybrid schedules. For workers with jobs that are harder to achieve remotely, Makridis notes that this decline was “much smaller,” which indicates the change really does go hand in glove with remote work.

    Meanwhile, his research also found that those workers were redistributing some of these “missing” minutes to other parts of the week, working an average of 8 hours 24 minutes on Wednesdays in 2024, up from 7 hours 54 minutes typically logged on Wednesdays in 2019.

    In some ways, Makridis’ data runs counter to other investigations that have shown the benefits of remote work. And his data merely measures minutes worked, and doesn’t attempt to examine how shifting working hours affects business metrics like productivity or profitability. A slightly lower pressure Friday could easily boost worker happiness levels, for example, and that quality is closely linked to engagement — and profits.

    Makridis makes a nod toward these points in his report at Phys.org, acknowledging this earlier research and also pointing out other benefits of the hybrid and remote working models. This includes better work-life balance (which we know appeals to Gen-Z workers), and boosted recruitment opportunities (with companies able to appeal to a broader pool of non-geographically limited candidates). It also noted increased employee retention and how work flexibility addresses the needs of working mothers.

    But he concludes that the “erosion of Fridays” that began with informal traditions like casual dress Fridays and quitting work a little early before the weekend, may be going further with remote work. This is “part of a broader shift toward individualized schedules that expand autonomy but reduce shared time for coordination,” he says and this last part, he worries, may impact team cohesiveness.

    What’s the takeaway from this for your company? After all, you may feel that in your smaller, more family-like workplace the emotional and cultural benefits of letting work workers slack off a little on Fridays more than compensates for the slight dip in hours worked. 

    Essentially it comes down to managerial choice and corporate culture decisions. Makridis’ data appears to dent the notion that remote and hybrid workers achieve the same as in-office staff do, and this may make you frown on the idea of informally reduced Friday hours, or even rethink hybrid work options entirely. But remember: research shows that RTO rules may be hurting employee morale, that there’s little evidence that RTOs improve productivity, and that there’s broad support for hybrid and remote working models among actual workers. 

    The final deadline for the 2026 Inc. Regionals Awards is Friday, December 12, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.

    Kit Eaton

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  • Remote Work Boosts Employment for People With Disabilities, Survey Shows

    The language of DEI may be currently out of favor, but a new report from the country’s largest human resources trade association, SHRM, suggests that the American workforce is far more diverse since the Covid pandemic effectively ended in 2021. The surprising change happened almost by default, but SHRM’s data show that there’s been a huge surge in the numbers of people with disabilities participating in the workplace — partly thanks to the shift toward hybrid and remote working. 

    In fact, SHRM says the rates have hit a “historic high.” As of July this year “nearly 25 percent of people with disabilities participated in the labor force,” the organization notes, adding that the numbers represent a 30 percent surge since the beginning of the covid pandemic. The rising numbers are partly attributed to the shift to teleworking which has ”lowered traditional barriers to employment,” and SHRM also notes that research shows “workers with disabilities are more likely to work fully remote schedules compared to their counterparts without disabilities.”

    An interesting factor in the growth is that it may skew toward younger people with disabilities: labor force participation of people in this group aged 16 to 24 has grown by nearly 60 percent since February 2020, SHRM says, higher than the average growth. This may mesh smoothly with the technological skills of digital-first age cohorts.

    Of course the rising workforce participation of people with disabilities isn’t evenly spread, and the data show it’s lowest in jobs like “life, physical, social science and health care practitioners, and technical roles,” and high in work like building, maintenance and grounds cleaning. It’s possible this is linked, the report notes, to lower barriers to entry for these types of work. This may be a representation, SHRM says, of persistent societal challenges for people with disabilities, including “higher unemployment rates and lower educational attainment compared to those without disabilities.”

    Nevertheless, the positive note here is that the surge in participation numbers are a “a vital opportunity for employers to address ongoing labor shortages,” SHRM’s report suggests, and it also says the data should be a call for HR teams and companies to persist in recruiting and advancing workers with disabilities. The research shows that having inclusive hiring habits, along with flexible or remote working models can help “foster a more diverse and competitive economic environment.”

    The takeaways from this data for your company are very clear. SHRM’s report notes that workers with disabilities right now make up nearly 5 percent of the total employed workforce — that’s 1 in 20 people. If your company’s benefits and working models aren’t disability-friendly, then your recruitment process may be skipping potentially talented, valuable workers without addressing that pool of prospective job candidates.

    But there’s much more value in hiring people with disabilities, starting with presenting an image of a company that has a good reputation — a recent report says that this characteristic may be more important when hiring the right candidates than ever. 

    Meanwhile, a 2018 study of 140 American companies by consultancy giant Accenture found that companies that actively hire people with disabilities recorded 28 percent higher average revenues compared to companies without this policy, and their profit margins were 30 percent higher. Data also show that if an employee with disabilities is happy in their place of work they tend to remain with that employer for longer than people without disabilities. This can lead to cost savings over time, due to lower costs from reduced staff turnover.

    To support your workers with disabilities, it’s also important to remember that there’s more work to do. Reports show that one-third of people in this cohort experience workplace discrimination of one sort or another, including a quarter who say discrimination began with interviewers, and 12 percent who said they’ve had difficulty even accessing the interview.

    The other fact to remember is that there is much wider support for hybrid and remote working models than you may have thought. Offering this to your workers is known to be a good for business as well as a good incentive, and, as SHRM’s data show, it also has benefits for workers with disabilities.

    Kit Eaton

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  • What Business Leaders Got Wrong About Zoom Fatigue

    Back in the dark days of Covid lockdowns, millions of people around the globe brought a new app into their homes and lives to adapt to working at home: Zoom. Five years later, after the collective experience of endless video calls and other pandemic-era stressors led to Zoom fatigue or video call burnout, prompting the creation of guidelines about how to minimize those risks, those on-screen meetings are part of many people’s ordinary working lives. The enduring shift to hybrid and remote working conditions has changed how many of us go to the “office.” New research on current attitudes to Zoom today suggests video interactions no longer wear us down. In fact, a recent academic article says that under certain conditions, Zoom meetings may be less stressful than face to face gatherings.

    The scientists’ work, published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, described extensively interviewing over 100 people who take part in different types of work meetings. Researchers asked about their exhaustion levels, if they were able to take a mid-meeting break, and their more general attitudes about the platform’s role in their work lives. One team member, Hadar Nesher Shoshan, a junior professor at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany told news outlet Phys.org that their initial hypothesis was that “zoom fatigue still existed” simply because “all previous studies had come to this conclusion.” 

    But their investigation came to a startling conclusion that told a very different story. “We found no evidence of the phenomenon,” Shoshan said, and in fact, according to their findings, “online meetings are not more fatiguing than in-person meetings.”

    Even more fascinating, from the questions the subjects in the study answered, the researchers concluded that if a Zoom meeting lasts less than 44 minutes, the experience of attending the meeting may even be less exhausting to the attendees than traditional in-person business meetings.

    Intuitively, this makes sense. A shortish Zoom meeting from the comfort of your own home, a cafe or a coworking space may not seem as inconvenient as dressing in office-suitable clothing, suffering your commute, and then having to sit in a drab office environment to have the same discussion with the same people. For Zooms that last less than three-quarters of an hour, you probably wouldn’t even feel the need to get off the sofa or top up your coffee mug. That’s much less tiring than having to listen to Steve from Accounts in person, droning on across a conference table under poor lighting.

    So what’s going on here? Why did this research find such different answers about Zoom fatigue? And what can you learn from it for your own company?

    According to Shoshan, the most likely cause of Zoom fatigue at first was the pandemic itself, versus the complications of switching to mainly online meetings. When you add all the complex social issues lockdowns caused, Zoom meetings — closely linked to lockdowns in user’s minds — were thus subject to many of the same negative feelings. “People were missing their old way of life, their social contacts and were no longer enjoying their work,” Shoshan said. 

    Meanwhile, previous studies that suggested we were still suffering Zoom fatigue years after the lockdown ended mainly included data gathered actually during lockdown, Shoshan contends.

    So what’s the lesson here for your company?

    It might be surprising: hybrid and remote working may actually be better for your workforce, under certain conditions, at least regarding video call meetings.

    This is definitely something to consider if you’re thinking of pivoting back toward a more traditional in-office model (which data show will be deeply unpopular with your staff). As long as you keep your Zooms short, it may actually boost your workers’ efficiency, since they may not be so tired out. And while you’re at it, why not set a firm time limit for in-person meetings too?

    Kit Eaton

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  • Is RTO Hurting Your Employee Morale? Manager Burnout Could Be to Blame

    Return to office (RTO) mandates aren’t popular, as report after report shows. Whether they are announced in a my way or the highway style, like Amazon’s Andy Jassy or JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, or with less bluster. Some research shows RTOs are not effective tools for boosting productivity, and that plenty of workers are finding ways to skirt the policy.

    Now a new report suggests that the gap between RTO mandates and employee compliance remains because many managers may be so burnt out that they’re completely uninterested in forcing their staff to follow controversial and deeply unpopular company rules. It could be that over-stressed managers are driving this so-called “hushed hybrid” office culture, Fortune suggests.

    Support for this conclusion comes from a survey by Flex Index, which describes itself as a platform for analyzing flexible workplace habits. Among 14,000 companies it looked at, increasing numbers of RTO mandates drove required in-office time up by 12 percent since early 2024, meaning staff have gone from an average expected office attendance rate of 2.57 days a week to 2.87. That may sound modest, but remember this includes companies that remain fully remote. Regardless of what the RTO rules say, actual attendance has not risen at the same rate. Over the same period while in-office time expectations rose 12 percent, actual attendance only rose by 1 percentage point, to 3 percent.

    Brian Elliott, CEO of Work Forward, which publishes the Flex Index, told Fortune that some workers can get away with ignoring leadership demands that they spend more time in the office in person with practical arguments supporting more flexible arrangements. For example, managing online meetings with multiple staff members across multiple time zones remains challenging in any setting — so staying at home on a day like that wouldn’t make a difference to productivity.

    And, given high levels of management burnout and disengagement, employees may be more likely to get away with this sort of trick more often than you may expect. “If I’m the manager and I’ve got a solid performer and they’re coming in two or three days a week, but not five, I’m not going to fire them,” Elliott said. That’s because as long as someone is “delivering the goods and getting their work done,” managers who are under severe pressure themselves may simply decide that compliance with certain policies is lower on the list of priorities.

    Anecdotally, Elliott’s thinking makes sense: reports show that executive burnout remains a serious issue in U.S. workplaces, with a survey in March reporting some 72 percent of workplace leaders report feeling burned out. Given the trend toward flatter business structures with fewer middle managers, led by big tech firms like Meta and Microsoft, it’s entirely plausible that stressed-out middle managers, overburdened with work and worried about the threat technology like AI represents to their own jobs, would simply ignore the exact amount of time that key workers spend in the office, even if it violates RTO rules that have been sent down from upper management.

    Why should you care about this?

    It’s another signal that RTO rules sometimes just don’t make good business sense. If you expect your managers to enforce an unpopular new rule, you might be adding to their already high stress levels while also genereating resentment from the employees that report to them. That’s a recipe for increasing the chance your strict RTO policy might simply be ignored by the people who are supposed to enforce it.

    If your company is requiring people to spend more time in the office, then perhaps the way to make your policy work is with encouragement and perks: Flex Index’s data show that if you try stamping your foot, you might just end up being ignored, and, possibly, hurting your workforce’s perception of your leadership.

    Also, there’s an underlying data point here: managers may be burning out under your leadership, and it’s possible you may not have noticed. It might be time for a pep talk, and honest chats about work burdens and stresses. 

    The final deadline for the 2025 Inc. Best in Business Awards is Friday, September 12, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.

    Kit Eaton

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  • 1 in 5 workers are ignoring their companies’ RTO mandates

    1 in 5 workers are ignoring their companies’ RTO mandates

    Regardless of how many days per week workers—or their bosses—want to be in the office, nobody likes being told what to do. Case in point: nearly 1 in 5 workers are outright ignoring their employer’s mandates.

    That’s according to a new report from Resume Builder, which surveyed over 1,000 full-time U.S. workers at companies where a return-to-office (RTO) mandate has been implemented some time since 2020. 

    Just under 80% of workers said they follow the rules, while 18% occasionally ignore it, 2% “rarely” follow the policy, and 1% don’t adhere to mandates—at all.

    How do workers get away with snubbing their boss?

    To get away with RTO snubbing, workers told Resume Builder they’re getting crafty. 

    Many enlist a coworker for help—mainly asking them to swipe them in. 

    Others will sneak in for a moment on weekends and administer a swipe, just to make it look like their weekly tally is up to par. 

    But the most common tactic is the simplest: They flout the policy by simply leaving the office early.

    Broken down by schedule type, workers who are required to come in a handful of days per week—on a hybrid schedule, as Resume Builder puts it—have the highest rates of noncompliance with the mandate. 

    Just 3 in 5 hybrid workers follow their company’s RTO policy.

    Still, forcing defiant workers to show face five days a week in the hopes of increased compliance could backfire: Resume Builder’s respondents only want to be in-person for three days a week at most. 

    If their companies start taking a hard line on in-person attendance, more than half of workers said they’d sooner quit than comply. 

    Want your workers to comply with an RTO? Pay for their commute and some

    The reasons behind the noncompliance are exactly as one might expect; it’s simply inconvenient, and workers deem those in-office hours to be a poor use of their time. It’s also expensive; some estimates say between commuting or gas, lunch, parking, and pet care, each day of in-person work can cost $51. 

    Perhaps that explains why Resume Builder respondents had a straightforward answer as to what would actually push them to comply with the mandates: More money.

    In fact, 2 in 3 workers said a raise would move them to cooperate. They also wouldn’t mind their company’s help in paying for costs associated with a commute, like transportation benefits and a lunch stipend—or even better, catered lunch at the office. 

    In second place: More flexibility, including having their pick of start and end times to their workdays that best align with their needs. 

    Being a worker in 2024 means enjoying a level of flexibility that, prior to the pandemic, was unthinkable, Stacie Haller, Resume Builder’s chief career advisor, noted in the report. 

    While bosses once viewed remote work as a temporary stopgap as COVID receded, the toothpaste is out of the tube: Millions of workers, thrilled to avoid long commutes, sad desk lunches and early-morning routines, are demanding a better balance. 

    Remote work has become a “non-negotiable” for many professionals, Haller said. “Employers should know job seekers today still have options if they are looking to work remotely.”

    Companies need to balance their in-office desires with their workforce’s preferences, Haller concluded, “or they risk losing valuable employees to more flexible competitors.” 

    Just ask the Amazon employees who boss Andy Jassy is forcing back full-time in January, and are “rage-applying” to other, more flexible jobs as a result.

    Jane Thier

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  • Professionals Can Securely Organize Their Files With This Cloud Storage Solution | Entrepreneur

    Professionals Can Securely Organize Their Files With This Cloud Storage Solution | Entrepreneur

    Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you’ll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners.

    According to a recent article on work statistics, the structured hybrid model is the fastest-growing work approach, boasting a 12% increase from 2023. There’s a high chance that you’re one of thousands of employees working hybrid. While you may appreciate the flexibility and better work-life balance, you may struggle with staying organized between working at home or from the office.

    Something that may help your productivity and organization is a seamless cloud storage solution that allows you to keep all of your files in one place and access them from anywhere. Manage your files more easily when you get 1TB of Koofr cloud storage for $119.97 (reg. $159.99) when you use code KOOFR40 at checkout.

    Hybrid work management on one platform

    Unlike other cloud storage platforms like Google Drive that charge monthly fees, Koofr gives you lifetime access after a one-time payment—say goodbye to recurring cloud storage payments for good.

    There are no size limitations on the types of files, their size, or which devices you can access them from. Upload Microsoft Office files or PDFs from your computer and reference them later from your phone, from anywhere.

    Koofr keeps your files organized with features like advanced renaming options and a duplicate file finder and remover. Plus, if you already have some cloud storage through other platforms like Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive and you don’t want to juggle multiple apps, you can access them all within Koofr.

    Professionals who are privacy-minded will appreciate Koofr’s dedication to complete privacy. Unlike other cloud storage platforms, this one never tracks your activities, and all your files are encrypted at rest and when they’re in transfer for extra peace of mind.

    Plenty of storage for any professional

    If you’re wondering if 1TB of storage will be enough for you, here are some estimates of what you could store: 250,000 12MP photos, 500 hours of HD video, or 6.5 million document pages.

    Whether you want to keep your projects in the cloud for safekeeping or be able to seamlessly work across your personal or office devices, Koofr may be the storage solution for you.

    Enhance your hybrid work efforts with this cloud storage solution that makes cross-device work more effortless. Through September 29 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific, you can get lifetime access to 1TB of Koofr cloud storage for $119.97 when you enter code KOOFR40 at checkout.

    StackSocial prices subject to change.

    StackCommerce

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  • Google’s ex-CEO blames remote working on the company’s AI woes

    Google’s ex-CEO blames remote working on the company’s AI woes

    Google’s former CEO Eric Schmidt has a complaint about his old stomping ground—and it’s one that workers have heard on repeat for the past two years: They aren’t working in the office enough. 

    Schmidt, who left Google for good in 2020, blasted the company’s working-from-home policy during a recent talk at Stanford University, while claiming it’s the reason why the search engine giant is lagging behind in the AI race. 

    “Google decided that work-life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning,” Schmidt told Stanford students.

    “And the reason startups work is because the people work like hell.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxDM8io4lUA

    “I’m sorry to be so blunt,” Schmidt continued in the video posted on Stanford’s YouTube channel on Tuesday. “But the fact of the matter is, if you all leave the university and go found a company, you’re not gonna let people work from home and only come in one day a week if you want to compete against the other startups.”

    Schmidt made the remarks in response to a question from professor Erik Brynjolfsson about how Google have lost the lead in AI to startups like OpenAI and Anthropic.

    “I asked [Google CEO] Sundar [Pichai] this, he didn’t really give me a very sharp answer. Maybe you have a sharper or a more objective explanation for what’s going on there,” Brynjolfsson posed to the former Google boss.

    Fortune has contacted Schmidt and Google for comment.

    WFH became the norm at Google after Schmidt left

    Schmidt, who led Google from 2001 to 2011, before handing the reins back to the search giant’s co-founder Larry Page, stayed on as Google’s executive chairman and technical advisor until 2020. 

    Since then, the world of work has undergone a significant transformation. Despite the dangers of the pandemic being long behind us, companies are largely still operating remotely—at least for part of the week. 

    In fact, a study from KPMG recently revealed that CEOs who believe office workers will be back at their desks five days a week in the near future are now in the small minority. 

    It’s worth highlighting that Schmidt’s one-day-a-week remark is an exaggeration: Like most firms, Google has asked workers to come into offices around three days a week, per the company’s 2022 Diversity Annual Report.

    More recently, Google has even begun formally tracking office badge swipes and using it as a metric in performance reviews.

    However, Schmidt should note that employee backlash from rigid return-to-office mandates could actually wipe out any productivity gains in Google’s AI department.

    WFH, RTO and productivity

    Schmidt’s not the first leader to complain that working from home kills innovation.

    However, CEOs who order their staff to work from an office five days à la pre-pandemic risk having fewer staff around to innovate.

    Reams of research suggest that workers would quit their jobs if forced to return to their company’s vertical towers.

    Meanwhile, leaders who have already enforced an RTO mandate have admitted they experienced more attrition than they anticipated and are struggling with recruitment. 

    Elon Musk, for one, has been an outspoken advocate for in-office work—he quickly found out that employees will call their bosses ultimatum to commute to work or find another job.

    Twitter’s (now X) operations were put at risk soon after he took over when more workers than expected chose to quit rather than answer Musk’s call to go “hardcore”.

    Plus, even if employees don’t quit in anger, they’ll likely have less zing for their jobs: A staggering 99% of companies with RTO mandates have seen a drop in engagement. 

    Either way, Google’s lack of innovation in the AI department can’t be down to staff working from home more than those at OpenAI—they have the same 3-day in-office policy.

    Recommended Newsletter: The Fortune Next to Lead newsletter is a must-read for the next generation of C-suite leaders. Every Monday, the newsletter provides the strategies, resources, and expert insight needed to claim the most coveted positions in business. Subscribe now.

    Orianna Rosa Royle

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  • Tech CEOs are backtracking on their RTO mandates—now, just 3% of firms asking workers to go into the office full-time

    Tech CEOs are backtracking on their RTO mandates—now, just 3% of firms asking workers to go into the office full-time

    Many tech firms have spent the last two years summoning workers back into the office—all the while threatening them with layoffs. Even Zoom reverted to in-person working last year.

    But now, it looks like tech bosses have given up their war on working from home. 

    Just 3% of tech firms are now asking their workers to go into the office full-time—a significant drop from 8% last year.

    Flex Index analyzed the flexible work policies for 2,670 tech companies that collectively employ over 11 million people—and it found that tech firms have conceded that flexible working is here to stay.

    In fact, 79% of the tech firms surveyed are fully flexible, up from 75% in 2023. 

    Meanwhile, more and more firms are giving employees the choice of when and where they work.

    While 38% of tech firms had an “employee’s choice” model in 2023, today that percentage has jumped to 56%. It’s now the most popular policy among tech firms.

    In comparison, just 18% of firms are dictating which days their workers need to work from the office with a “structure hybrid model”.

    Tech CEOs can’t make their minds up on RTO

    Tech companies are perhaps the most well-positioned to work from home—and, in some cases, have even created the tools to do so.

    It’s why in 2020, the likes of Meta, Twitter (now X), Shopify, and more declared that they were going to leverage the new decentralized way of working for good. 

    “We are going to be the most forward-leaning company on remote work at our scale, with a thoughtful and responsible plan for how to do this,” Mark Zuckerberg boasted, while claiming that half of Meta’s employees would be working remotely within the next five to 10 years. 

    That was until last year, when Zuckerberg declared that 2023 was going to be the “Year of Efficiency” and demanded workers return to work in the name of productivity, while simultaneously scaring staff into complying with mass layoffs.

    Meanwhile, just two years after declaring that 60% of its workforce would operate remotely, Dell has now told workers that they must go into the office three days a week if they want any hope of a promotion.

    Google, Salesforce and Amazon are also among major tech companies that are cracking down on return-to-office policies—and meeting resistance from workers.

    CEOs have given up on RTO

    It’s not just in the tech world that defeated CEOs have given up on forcing their workers to return to their vertical towers. Separate research echoes that CEOs across the board have softened their stance on working from home. 

    KPMG surveyed U.S. CEOs of companies turning over at least $500 million and found that just one-third expect a full return to the office in the next three years.

    It’s a complete 360 from their stance last year, when 62% of CEOs surveyed predicted that working from home would end by 2026.

    Why the change of heart? It’s no secret that rigid in-office policies haven’t landed well with workers.

    Leaders are perhaps experiencing more resistance than they had anticipated.

    Amazon is perhaps the most documented example of how ugly the RTO battle can get: Around 30,000 employees signed a petition protesting the company’s in-office mandate, and more than 1,800 pledged to walk out from their jobs to take a stand. 

    The tech giant is still complaining that workers are dodging the three-day in-office mandate, over a year after it was announced.

    Dropbox cofounder and CEO Drew Houston perfectly summed up the situation with bosses struggling over RTO: “They keep hitting the go-back-to-2019 button, and it’s clear it’s not working.”

    Orianna Rosa Royle

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  • Businesses are using ‘sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists’ to get staff back to the office

    Businesses are using ‘sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists’ to get staff back to the office

    Bosses have tried everything to convince staff they’ll be happier working in the office than at home, from free lunches to subsidized commutes. When that hasn’t worked, they’ve tried putting their foot down.

    Now, exasperated employers want to know what makes their workers tick.

    Neil Murray, CEO of Work Dynamics at real estate services group Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), indicated businesses were examining every angle of a worker’s brain to find the right formula to get them back to the office. 

    Most bosses want workers back under their noses, at least in a hybrid model, but are struggling with resistance from employees who have grown used to flexibility. 

    Murray’s unit consults significant corporations on their real estate footprint, covering everything from a space’s sustainability to workers’ interactions with that space. The latter is becoming increasingly crucial to businesses before they shell out a fortune on Grade A office space.

    Changing space

    He describes a new approach to designing these spaces as “a moment in time of reinvention of space” that emphasizes human behavior.

    “Sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists. You get an input, and everybody has slightly different opinions,” Murray told Fortune.

    Murray says this way of thinking has shifted drastically since the COVID-19 pandemic, and businesses now need to consider how their office spaces can benefit employees. 

    “You completely shift that paradigm and think, ‘Why do I need space in the first place if I can conduct my business virtually? What’s its purpose?’ And then you need those inputs from various people to try and think about the psychology of what’s going to make people comfortable.”

    The Future of Real Estate, a new report from JLL published Thursday, looks at the requirements of corporate office space following the AI revolution. Companies will likely focus more on the social impact of spaces, prioritizing “wellness, hospitality, and entertainment,” the authors say. 

    But that doesn’t mean an array of attractive workspace additions, like gyms and cinemas, is the answer to increasing office attendance.

    JLL’s Murray says his group has tested every possible amenity that might entice workers back to the office, including free lunches or coffee machines. However, there isn’t a silver bullet.

    “The most attractive amenity to bring people back is other people,” he says.

    Creating an office that brings them together, Murray says, is becoming a generational battle.

    The psychological differences between Gen Z workers and their older colleagues are emerging as one of the factors behind a reevaluation of office space. Murray says attending university in a remote setting before graduating into hybrid work has altered young workers’ needs compared with their predecessors. 

    “There’s bound to be some collective psychological differences in that generation in terms of expectations,” Murray said.

    Office space

    Beyond generational- and incentive-based considerations, Murray says businesses who are taking the stick approach to bringing staff into the office aren’t seeing much success.

    “The ones that try to be prescriptive and try to mandate three days, we’re seeing pretty much exactly the same attendance for the ones that aren’t pushing a mandate, and it’s settling at that just under three days a week.”

    Murray says that businesses are typically settling on a three-day hybrid model, adding that younger and later career workers spend more time in the office than mid-career workers. 

    Speaking to Fortune in February, Murray’s colleague, EMEA CEO Sue Aspey Price, said companies asking staff to come back to the office four days a week were doing so with the expectation they would only return for three days.

    Aspey Price says this because changes to office space requirements led to a downsizing through the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “If everybody followed the policies that are being put out there, a lot of companies don’t have anywhere near enough space,” she said.

    “If every working team came in on those days, the chances of them having enough space are almost non-existent.”

    Murray thinks offices will see a return of designated workspaces for employees, countering the widespread uptake of hot-desking, even if it means workers alternating days at their desks.

    “You think about the notion of everybody moving toward total unassigned, well where’s the ‘me’ space in there, and where’s your own personality?”

    Ryan Hogg

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  • Tata Consultancy Services cuts bonuses for employees who aren’t in the office 5 days a week

    Tata Consultancy Services cuts bonuses for employees who aren’t in the office 5 days a week

    Tata Consultancy Services, the main arm of Indian industrial giant Tata, is reportedly clamping down on office-shy workers by cutting their bonuses and hovering the threat of being passed up for promotions.

    The $168 billion Indian consultancy is using a carrot-and-stick approach to lure its consultants back into the office full-time after scrapping hybrid working for most employees last October.

    The consultancy plans to narrow its bonus payouts to exclude those shunning office work five days a week, and will also begin factoring in attendance to annual performance reviews, which are vital for promotion opportunities, Indian publications Mint and The Times of India reported.

    “The last quarter has seen most of you return to the workplace, creating shared experiences, nurturing greater learning, collaboration, and camaraderie,” TCS’s CEO K Krithivasan reportedly wrote to employees in March.

    Employees working less than three days in the office will not be paid any bonus, the publications reported. 

    From there, bonuses will be tiered, with staff working between 60% and 75% of their time in the office receiving half of their potential bonus, and those working between 75% and 85% of their time in the office receiving three-quarters of their “variable pay.”

    Only staffers working more than 85% of their time in the office can expect to receive full pay. 

    In effect, that means only those coming into the office five days a week are entitled to receive 100% of their prescribed bonus.

    A representative for TCS didn’t respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

    TCS clamps down on remote workers

    TCS is a major arm of the Tata group, hiring more than 600,000 people from 152 nationalities. The company hires 20,000 people in the U.K. across 30 locations, according to a 2022 press release. The company is the main sponsor of the London Marathon. 

    It has been hailed as a progressive employer and has the accolades to prove it.

    TCS was one of 16 companies recognized as a “Global Top Employer” for 2024 by the Top Employers Institute, a certification handed out based on employee surveys. The consultancy also made Fortune’s Most Admired Companies list for 2024.

    But TCS now risks flaring tensions among staffers as it goes beyond rules and rhetoric to actively punish workers who don’t make it into the office. 

    In October last year, TCS scrapped its hybrid work policy, ordering most employees back to the office five days a week. 

    The group’s CEO Krithivasan pointed out that in February nearly 40% of his workers joined the company during the COVID, and the company had no hope of assimilating them if they stayed at home.

    TCS’s chief operating officer NG Subramaniam said: “Around 40,000 employees joined us online and quit online without any offline interaction during the pandemic and that kind of situation cannot be helpful for any organization.

    “We are very clear that we have to get our original culture back.”

    The recent memo distributed to workers shows just how serious TCS’s C-suite is taking its own rhetoric.

    In addition to capping bonuses based on appearance, office attendance will also reportedly be factored into performance-related reviews.

    “Employees’ compliance to work from home will be reviewed every quarter. In the event an employee is found to be in violation of the laid down policies, there will be implications on the annual performance review, compensation, and career progression of the employee,” the policy reportedly reads.

    Tying company bonuses to attendance is a novel approach to getting staffers back to the office, but follows a familiar tactic from tech companies that involves using financial incentives to convince workers to come in.

    In 2021, several tech giants including Meta and Google said they would cut the pay of staff who had moved to remote areas with a cheaper cost of living than in their hubs in Silicon Valley.

    These companies have now introduced stricter hybrid policies that ask workers to come in at least four days a week. 

    Ryan Hogg

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  • 1 in 3 employees—including in-office workers—regularly nap on the clock, survey says. Here’s who catches the most Z’s on the job and why

    1 in 3 employees—including in-office workers—regularly nap on the clock, survey says. Here’s who catches the most Z’s on the job and why

    If you work an office job, perhaps it’s happened to you. You didn’t get enough sleep last night. You’ve powered through the morning, yet your to-do list stretches on. You’re moving a bit slower, sated from lunch. Your computer screen becomes hazy. You glance out the window to see the sun starting its afternoon descent, and your eyelids droop with it. You decide to let yourself snooze just for a few minutes…

    Occasionally falling asleep at work is par for the course, according to a new survey by sleep wellness company Sleep Doctor, with 46% of respondents saying they nap during the workday at least a few times a year. What’s more, 33% reported doing so weekly—9% once per week, 18% several times per week, and 6% daily.

    Particularly if you didn’t get enough shut-eye the night before, taking a 20- to 25-minute nap may help you recharge and take on the remainder of your workday, says Sleep Doctor founder and clinical psychologist Michael Breus, Ph.D. But don’t make a habit of it.

    “While you might feel slightly sleepy between one and three in the afternoon—because everybody does, it’s due to a post-lunch dip in core body temperature—you should not require a nap,” Breus tells Fortune. “If you’re getting the sleep that you should be getting at night, you should not require a nap.”

    Midday snoozing is a big no-no for people with insomnia, Breus adds: “If you have difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep at night, napping, all that does is make it worse.”

    Nearly 1,300 full-time U.S. employees completed the survey in March via Pollfish. Sleep Doctor didn’t provide additional details about the respondents, such as their shift schedules, workplace environments, or socioeconomic statuses. Though the survey isn’t a scientific study, it offers insight into the post-pandemic habits of the nation’s workforce, Breus says.

    Half of in-person employees nap in their cars

    It’s not just remote and hybrid employees who are catching Z’s during work hours. About 27% of in-person workers reported napping at the office on a weekly basis, compared to 34% of remote and 45% of hybrid workers. In-person employees napped in these locations:

    • Car: 50%
    • Desk: 33%
    • Company-designated napping place: 20%
    • Return home: 14%
    • Bathroom: 9%

    Napping in the workplace is a luxury, says Dr. Rafael Pelayo, a clinical professor in the Division of Sleep Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

    “There are a lot of health care disparity issues related to sleep,” Pelayo tells Fortune. “You can only nap at your job if you have a place to nap and it’s accepted by your employer. So a lot of people don’t have a place to nap where they work.”

    Pelayo adds, “If you work in an assembly line and you take a train to work, you don’t have a chance to nap anywhere. Or, if you’re in a place where you don’t feel safe; somebody who is napping is vulnerable to being robbed or attacked.”

    Men, younger staffers more likely to nap during workday

    More than half of male employees, 52%, told Sleep Doctor they nap at least a few times a year during work hours, compared to 38% of females. It’s unclear whether the survey collected data on non-cisgender workers.

    A majority of younger adult employees admitted to workday napping, a higher percentage than more seasoned staffers:

    • 18–34: 54%
    • 35–54: 46%
    • 55+: 25%

    Younger adults tend to be more sleep-deprived because they have less control over their lives, Pelayo tells Fortune. They may have children interrupting their sleep, elderly parents to care for, longer commutes, and more demands on their free time.

    “When people get older and they have medical problems, medical problems interrupt our ability to sleep, like arthritis, chronic pain. But healthy elderly people sleep really, really well,” Pelayo says. “They get better sleep than healthy young people. Healthy older people, the reason they ended up being healthy old people is they had good lifestyles.”

    Middle age Asian businessman feeling sleepy during working on laptop and meeting at café office
    More than half of male employees, 52%, told Sleep Doctor they nap at least a few times a year during work hours, compared to 38% of females. It is unclear whether the March 2024 survey collected data on non-cisgender workers.

    Nattakorn Maneerat—Getty Images

    Remote workers take longest workday naps

    “Smart naps” lasting 20–30 minutes may temporarily make you feel more alert and awake, says Alaina Tiani, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic Sleep Disorders Center.

    “This increases the likelihood that your brain will stay in the lighter stages of sleep and that you will wake up refreshed,” Tiani tells Fortune via email. “When we nap much longer, we may cycle into deeper stages of sleep, which may be harder to wake from. We also recommend taking the nap as far in advance of your desired bedtime as possible to lessen the impact on your nighttime sleep quality.”

    More than half of workday dozers keep their naps under 30 minutes, according to Sleep Doctor: 

    • Fewer than 15 minutes: 26%
    • 15–29 minutes: 27%
    • 30–59 minutes: 24%
    • 1 hour: 12%
    • 2 hours: 9%
    • 3+ hours: 3%

    On average, 34% of remote and 31% of hybrid workers nap for longer than an hour, compared to 15% of in-person workers.

    That napping is less common in the Western world than other cultures made the survey data stand out to Michael Grandner, Ph.D., director of the Sleep and Health Research Program at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tuscson. 

    “The fact that many people who are working from home are more likely to take advantage of opportunities to nap was very surprising,” Grandner tells Fortune via email. “It suggests that many workers would prefer to integrate napping into their lifestyle if they could.”

    Why are employees napping at work?

    Staffers primarily cited some form of exhaustion as a reason for snoozing on the job, while others were simply bored:

    • Re-energize: 62%
    • Recover from poor sleep at night: 44%
    • Handle long working hours: 32%
    • Stress: 32%
    • Boredom: 11%
    • Avoid work: 6%

    But why are they so sleep-deprived to begin with? Ironically, the flipside of napping at work is 77% of survey respondents said job stressors cause them to lose sleep nightly. About 57% reported losing at least an hour of sleep on an average night. Most cited work-life balance as their top job stressor: 

    • Work-life balance: 56%
    • Demanding projects: 39%
    • Long hours: 39%
    • Upcoming deadlines: 37%
    • Struggling to get to work on time: 30%
    • Issues with boss: 22%
    • Interpersonal conflict in workplace: 20%
    • Fears of being fired or laid off: 19%

    Employees who lose sleep over job stress only to crave rest during the workday aren’t the norm, but their predicament isn’t rare either, Breus tells Fortune: “They kind of get their days and their nights mixed up.”

    Hybrid workers were most likely to report job stressors impacting their sleep, 88%, compared to 73% of in-person and 71% of remote workers. In addition, more higher-level employees, such as CEOs and senior managers, reported losing sleep over career stress, 84%, than lower-level employees, 71%.

    Napping on the job may have health, performance consequences

    Dozing at your desk may seem inconsequential on a slower workday or when you think your boss won’t notice. But some employees have paid the price, Sleep Doctor data show.

    Among nappers, 17% miss deadlines and 16% miss meetings at least once a month because they’re asleep on the job. About 27% of workers admit to falling asleep during a remote meeting in the past year, and 17% have done the same in person.

    While just 20% of workers faced consequences, some were serious:

    • Check in with supervisor more often: 62%
    • Workload changed: 56%
    • Sit down with manager: 49%
    • Suspended: 24%
    • Fired: 17%

    “Limiting sleep to one major nighttime window can help to ensure that you obtain an appropriate amount of sleep at night and thus do not require a daytime nap, which could interfere with work or other responsibilities,” Tiani says.

    Strategic daytime napping can be an effective tool to boost energy and productivity, Grandner says, but falling asleep at work when you don’t mean to may indicate an underlying health issue. 

    “For people who are unable to maintain consciousness, I would recommend evaluating your nighttime sleep to see if you have any untreated sleep disorders like sleep apnea, or if there are other steps you can take to achieve healthier sleep,” Gardner says.

    You should also consult your doctor if you’re typically not a napper but begin having unexplained fatigue, Pelayo says: “An abrupt change in your need for sleep would indicate a medical problem being present.”

    For more on napping during the workday: 

    Lindsey Leake

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  • One of America’s top banks has shed nearly 40 million square feet of office space over 15 years. BofA CEO unpacks commercial real estate’s ‘slow burn of change’

    One of America’s top banks has shed nearly 40 million square feet of office space over 15 years. BofA CEO unpacks commercial real estate’s ‘slow burn of change’

    It’s no secret that the pandemic instigated much of the great downsizing of commercial real estate, but one financial services giant has been offloading leases for years before COVID-19 was even on our radar.

    Bank of America was one of the first major corporations to start majorly shedding its office space even before the frenzy of remote and hybrid work. It has let go of nearly 40 million square feet in the past 15 years, CEO Brian Moynihan said in a CNBC interview on Tuesday. Today, the bank still holds about 60 million square feet of commercial space, he said, which works for its hybrid work structure. 

    If employees come into the office just three or four days per week instead of the traditional five, that’s either 20% or 25% savings in real-estate costs, he argues, in light of an office management method called “hotelling” in which workers schedule to use their work spaces like desks, cubicles, or offices. It’s unclear if Moynihan’s move to start shedding office space was related to a hybrid work structure, years before the pandemic ushered it in, but the vast majority of major banks had five days in-office at that point. 

    The reason probably lies with another major event that occurred 15 years ago: the collapse of legendary investment bank Merrill Lynch amid the crash that followed the implosion of Lehman Brothers, when the banking industry was dramatically reshaped. Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch and set about integrating the two very different banks’ footprints. Meanwhile, in a similar deal, JPMorgan acquired Bear Stearns, a painful integration that CEO Jamie Dimon later said he regretted.

    Moynihan’s recent comments come amid a flurry of moves out of commercial real estate in the financial services sector. Just this month, other major organizations including Fannie Mae and Wells Fargo announced major downsizing to their corporate spaces, and it’s expected that many more will follow suit. But this massive shedding of commercial space won’t happen overnight, Moynihan said. 

    “The revaluation is going through as we speak. You’re seeing that come through provisioning and reserves and charge-offs, but it’s relatively modest,” he said. “It takes a long time because this is a slow burn of change.” That’s because commercial leases typically last for much longer than residential leases. On average, they last three to five years, but some can last 10-plus. 

    Other companies letting go of commercial space

    The commercial real estate industry is so dire that even Fannie Mae, the national mortgage giant, has put its 713,500-square-foot space in Washington, D.C. on the market more than a decade before its lease was set to expire in June 2029, according to CoStar data. 

    The $770 million agreement was signed in 2015. Fannie Mae is the largest publicly traded company in the nation’s capital—and the breaking of the lease is just the latest in a string of organizations downsizing due to hybrid and remote work culture.

    “Like many other companies, we are continuing to embrace our flexible work environment by exploring office space options that support our workforce while being fiscally responsible,” a Fannie Mae spokesperson said in a statement to Washington Business Journal.

    Wells Fargo announced late last week that it would vacate its 29-story, 550,538-square-foot namesake tower in Raleigh, North Carolina. Employees who work there will be moved to other locations without losing their jobs.

    “As part of our multiyear effort to build a stronger, more efficient Wells Fargo, we continually assess our real estate portfolio to ensure we are best meeting the needs of employees and customers, responding to consumer and economic trends, and managing our costs responsibly,” a Wells Fargo spokesperson told Fortune in a statement. “We are committed to our Raleigh-based employees and will continue to have a major presence here, but we have more real estate than we need to support these employees.”

    This move isn’t surprising “because we’re seeing a lot of consolidation in commercial real estate in general,” Duke University economics professor Connel Fullenkamp told Raleigh news station WRAL. He said companies like Wells Fargo are reevaluating their use of real estate, with cost-cutting as a top factor.

    “I think we’re going to see moves like that out of companies, frankly, because they’re just finding themselves with too much space because of the overbuilding that’s been taking place, plus remote work,” Fullenkamp said. 

    Indeed, there may be as much as 1 billion square feet of unused U.S. office space by the end of the decade, according to a report by real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield. Moody’s Analytics has also called the office vacancy rate of 19.2% in 2023 “perilously close” to the 19.3% record-high vacancy rate in 1986 and 1991.

    “The overall outlook for commercial real estate in 2024 is muted,” Ermengarde Jabir, senior economist with Moody’s Analytics, previously told Fortune. “Office will continue to face the most strain in 2024.”

    Subscribe to the CFO Daily newsletter to keep up with the trends, issues, and executives shaping corporate finance. Sign up for free.

    Sydney Lake

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  • Yes, We're Still Messing Up Hybrid Work. Here's Where Exactly We're Going Wrong. | Entrepreneur

    Yes, We're Still Messing Up Hybrid Work. Here's Where Exactly We're Going Wrong. | Entrepreneur

    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Is your team truly prepared for the hybrid work revolution? This question might unsettle many business leaders, but it’s one we must confront. The recent shift to hybrid work models has been seismic, yet a staggering number of managers find themselves navigating uncharted waters without a compass. Surveys paint a concerning picture: A vast majority of managers acknowledge the need for new skills in this flexible work era, but astonishingly, nearly half feel ill-equipped and untrained for the task.

    Related: 68% of Companies Are Making This Critical Mistake in Their Approach to Hybrid Work — Are You?

    The cost of untrained leadership

    The cost of this oversight is more than just operational hiccups. Gallup’s research is a wake-up call, revealing that 80% of hybrid workers and 73% of their leaders are sailing in the same rudderless boat. The impact of this unpreparedness on team engagement and well-being is not just significant; it’s exponential. An effective manager’s influence on a team’s engagement is four times more potent than the physical work environment, according to Gallup. This statistic serves as a clarion call for immediate action.

    Delving deeper into the skills gap issue, the findings by From Another’s research shed light on a critical disconnect in the current corporate landscape. While 81% of managers recognize the necessity to adapt, 44% confess to lacking the right training and tools. This gap represents a systemic failure to adapt to the evolving work environment.

    The impact of this lack of preparedness extends beyond operational inefficiencies. It seeps into the very core of team dynamics, affecting engagement, morale, and ultimately, productivity. Consider the role of an effective manager – they are not just task supervisors; they are motivators, problem-solvers, and the bridge between the organization’s goals and the team’s aspirations. When such a pivotal role is undermined by inadequate training, the consequences are profound. Employee disengagement can skyrocket, leading to higher turnover rates, reduced productivity, and a dampened team spirit.

    Investing in managers for organizational resilience

    The investment in managerial training should be seen as a critical pillar for building organizational resilience in the evolving landscape of work. In the hybrid work model, the role of a manager transcends traditional boundaries, becoming more complex and multifaceted. A well-trained, well-equipped manager becomes the key driver in steering this model towards success.

    Firstly, it is important to recognize that the effectiveness of managers in a hybrid environment has a direct and significant impact on the overall health of the organization. Managers who are adept at navigating the nuances of hybrid work can effectively align their teams with the organization’s goals, regardless of physical location. This alignment is crucial for maintaining operational efficiency, fostering innovation, and ensuring a competitive edge in the market.

    Furthermore, investing in managerial training is an investment in employee engagement and retention. Managers play a pivotal role in shaping the work experience of their team members. When they are equipped with the right skills to manage, motivate, and support their team members, it leads to higher levels of job satisfaction, loyalty, and productivity. This, in turn, translates to lower turnover rates and a stronger employer brand, attracting top talent to the organization.

    This investment also signals a commitment to continuous improvement and adaptation. By prioritizing managerial training, organizations demonstrate a forward-thinking mindset, acknowledging that the skills needed yesterday may not be sufficient for tomorrow. This approach fosters a culture of learning and adaptability, which is essential in today’s fast-paced business environment.

    Moreover, well-trained managers are better equipped to identify and mitigate risks associated with hybrid work, such as communication breakdowns, team fragmentation, and burnout. By foreseeing and addressing these challenges proactively, they contribute to the overall resilience and sustainability of the organization.

    Redefining managerial training for a hybrid world

    As I tell my clients when developing management training programs for hybrid work, effective training for hybrid work transcends traditional boundaries, requiring a comprehensive and nuanced approach. It’s not just about the technical know-how of handling virtual meetings or scheduling tools. Instead, it calls for a more holistic development of skills that are often overlooked but crucial in a hybrid setting.

    Firstly, emotional intelligence takes center stage. In a hybrid environment, understanding and managing emotions – both one’s own and those of team members – is vital. This skill becomes even more crucial when direct, in-person interactions are limited. Managers need to be trained to pick up on subtle cues in virtual settings, cues that are often more nuanced and less apparent than in face-to-face interactions. This training should include recognizing signs of stress or disengagement in team members, effectively communicating empathy, and fostering an inclusive environment where every team member feels valued and heard.

    Digital proficiency is another critical area. While most managers are familiar with basic digital tools, the hybrid environment demands a deeper understanding and more strategic use of these tools. Training should focus on leveraging technology not just for task management but for fostering collaboration, creativity, and connection among team members. This includes using project management software more effectively, understanding the best practices for virtual meetings, and being aware of and utilizing digital tools that can enhance team interaction and productivity.

    Additionally, an adaptive leadership style is crucial. Hybrid work environments are dynamic, and what works one day may not be effective the next. Managers must be trained to be flexible in their leadership approach, adapting to the varying needs of their team members. This adaptability also means being open to feedback and willing to continuously learn and evolve their management style. It involves understanding the unique challenges and opportunities of managing remote and in-office team members and being adept at creating a cohesive team culture that bridges the physical divide.

    Honing communication skills is another key focus. In a hybrid setup, clear and inclusive communication is paramount. Managers need to be adept at conveying their messages effectively across various digital platforms, ensuring that every team member, whether remote or in-office, feels equally involved and informed. This involves not just verbal and written communication skills but also an understanding of non-verbal cues in virtual settings. Training should cover aspects like active listening, clear and concise messaging, and the use of visual aids to enhance understanding.

    Developing strategies for remote team building is equally important. Hybrid work models can lead to a sense of disconnection among team members. Managers should be equipped with strategies to foster team cohesion and a sense of community, regardless of physical location. This could include virtual team-building activities, regular check-ins, and creating opportunities for informal interactions among team members. The training should also emphasize the importance of celebrating team achievements and milestones, which can significantly boost morale and team spirit.

    These training programs should not be static; they need to be dynamic and evolve with the changing landscape of hybrid work. They should include regular updates and refresher courses to keep managers abreast of the latest tools and strategies. Additionally, offering a platform for managers to share their experiences and learn from each other can be invaluable.

    Related: Employers: Hybrid Work is Not The Problem — Your Guidelines Are. Here’s Why and How to Fix Them.

    Understanding cognitive biases in hybrid work management training

    In the context of hybrid work and managerial training, understanding the impact of cognitive biases is crucial. These biases can significantly influence how managers perceive and address the challenges and opportunities of hybrid work environments. Let’s delve into two specific biases: status quo bias and empathy gap, and explore their implications in this setting.

    Status quo bias is the tendency to prefer things to remain the same or to resist changes, especially when the benefits of change are uncertain. In the realm of hybrid work management, this bias can manifest in several ways. Managers might be inclined to stick with traditional management practices, hesitant to adopt new strategies or tools that are better suited for hybrid work environments. This resistance can stem from a discomfort with change or an underestimation of the new skills required in a hybrid setting.

    For instance, a manager might continue to evaluate employee performance based on time spent working, disregarding the productivity and efficiency of outcomes-focused metrics. This bias can hinder the adoption of more effective performance metrics that are tailored to hybrid work models. The status quo bias can also lead to a reluctance to invest in necessary training for managing hybrid teams, as it deviates from traditional training models.

    The empathy gap refers to the difficulty in understanding or predicting others’ emotions, especially when they are in a different situation or context. In hybrid work environments, this can lead to managers underestimating or misjudging the challenges faced by remote team members. For example, a manager who primarily works on-site might struggle to fully grasp the communication barriers, feelings of isolation, or work-life balance issues experienced by remote employees.

    This gap can result in ineffective communication strategies or insufficient support for remote team members, leading to disengagement and decreased productivity. Managers might overlook the need for regular check-ins or fail to create inclusive meeting formats that ensure remote employees feel as involved as their in-office counterparts.

    Incorporating an understanding of these biases into managerial training programs is essential. Training should not only focus on imparting new skills but also on raising awareness of these cognitive biases and their impact on managing hybrid teams. Managers should be encouraged to challenge their preconceptions, critically evaluate their management approaches, and adopt more flexible, inclusive strategies that cater to the diverse needs of hybrid teams.

    For instance, training programs can include exercises that simulate remote work scenarios, helping managers to experience and understand the challenges faced by remote employees, thereby bridging the empathy gap. Similarly, discussions and case studies can be used to illustrate the pitfalls of the status quo bias, encouraging managers to embrace and adapt to the changing dynamics of the workplace.

    Conclusion

    The move to hybrid work isn’t a temporary shift; it’s the future of work. As we navigate this new landscape, the need for adequately trained managers cannot be overstated. It’s time for organizations to step up and equip their leaders with the skills and tools needed to thrive in this new era. Let’s not just adapt to hybrid work; let’s master it with well-trained managers leading the charge.

    Gleb Tsipursky

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  • The Most Important Shift Hybrid Workforces Need to Thrive Is the One Most Are Ignoring | Entrepreneur

    The Most Important Shift Hybrid Workforces Need to Thrive Is the One Most Are Ignoring | Entrepreneur

    By the end of this year, 39% of all global knowledge workers will be hybrid workers.

    That’s a forecast from Gartner, and it’s more than just a statistic; it’s a harbinger of a seismic shift in our work culture.

    Some business leaders may mistake this trend as a partial return to “the way it was.” But that is shortsighted. The hybrid model isn’t just “old office life” for half the week, and it also isn’t a free-form, work-from-home life for half the week. To embrace the hybrid work model means reimagining the very fabric of our work environment. The pandemic taught us that work is not a place you go; it’s something you do — so the office must now serve as a hub for collaboration and innovation, not a factory for rote tasks.

    Dr. Gleb Tsipursky

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  • Bosses Said Workers Will Be Back In The Office After Labor Day (Or Else) — But Did They Succeed? Not Exactly. | Entrepreneur

    Bosses Said Workers Will Be Back In The Office After Labor Day (Or Else) — But Did They Succeed? Not Exactly. | Entrepreneur

    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Numerous companies, ranging from Meta to Amazon and Blackrock, announced Labor Day as the key date in their return-to-office push this year — as they did in previous years. Numerous headlines spoke of “a post-Labor Day reset” and described how “Enough, Bosses Say: This Fall, It Really Is Time to Get Back to the Office.”

    Experts predicted that office attendance, which hovered around 50% in major U.S. cities this year, according to the “Back to Work Barometer” from the security company Kastle Systems, would grow significantly. For example, JLL, the real estate and investment management firm, said it would reach “between 55 and 65 percent.”

    Well, now that we’re approaching that time of resolution of predictions, it’s time to reassess the Labor Day push. Did it succeed, or did it flop?

    The data speaks: An initial surge, then a drop

    Executives and pro-office analysts envisaged a high tide of employees coming in, with an initial wave cresting shortly after Labor Day and continued growth after this initial wave. After a period filled with preparation, significant corporate announcements and employees gearing up for the anticipated office return, the data painted a much more complex picture.

    As summer vacations came to an end, there was a noticeable surge in the number of employees returning to their office spaces, increasing from 47% to over 50%. This was, perhaps, a combination of pent-up optimism, organizational pressures and the general hope that things were “returning to normal.” For a brief moment, it appeared as though the post-Labor Day return-to-office (RTO) strategy was working.

    However, a deeper dive into the data indicates this initial rise might have been deceptive. Was it merely the result of the confluence of summer vacations ending and the RTO push rather than a genuine, sustainable interest in returning to physical workplaces?

    Following this initial spike, pro-office CEOs and experts anticipated continued growth in attendance. To their chagrin, instead, they witnessed a decline. There’s a noticeable dip, so much so that current numbers are at the average of 50% or lower at most points earlier this year.

    If it lasted for a week or two, we could call this downturn just a mere statistical blip. By now, that perspective has become untenable. This development poses challenging questions and undeniably casts doubts over the effectiveness of the RTO strategy. It beckons experts and leaders alike to introspect: Was the strategy rooted deeply enough in understanding the evolved psyche of the modern worker, or was it a superficial attempt to recapture a past that perhaps no longer aligns with the present aspirations and constraints of the global workforce?

    Related: You Should Let Your Team Decide Their Approach to Hybrid Work. A Behavioral Economist Explains Why and How You Should Do It.

    The realities of a changed workplace

    The evolving dynamics of the workplace landscape in the aftermath of the pandemic cannot be overstated. The transition was not solely about physical relocation; it encapsulated a holistic shift in how we perceive and engage with our work environments.

    In my consulting projects aiding clients with RTO strategies, including this Fall after Labor Day, I conducted focus groups with employees, delving deep into their experiences and perspectives on the post-pandemic work environment. Their insights have been invaluable in painting a holistic picture of the evolving workplace landscape.

    Throughout the pandemic, these employees had significantly restructured their work habits. Adapting to the demands of remote work, many curated dedicated home office spaces that rivaled professional setups, emphasizing comfort and efficiency. They became proficient in virtual collaboration tools, substituting face-to-face meetings with digital alternatives and swapping casual office chats for virtual catch-ups. The elimination of daily commutes was a standout benefit, with many individuals redirecting that time toward professional development or personal wellbeing.

    Upon re-entry to traditional office environments, initial reactions were steeped in nostalgia. Employees appreciated the opportunity to reconnect with colleagues and immerse themselves in a familiar setting. However, this initial enthusiasm was relatively short-lived. The focus group discussions highlighted a growing awareness of the downsides previously taken for granted in office work. From grappling with rush-hour traffic to the hurdles of coordinating hybrid meetings and the diminished flexibility they had grown fond of during remote work, the challenges began to overshadow the benefits.

    Furthermore, health-related apprehensions were a consistent theme in these discussions. While the world has seen significant strides in combating the pandemic, its echoes remained in the form of lingering concerns about congregating in shared spaces, interacting in communal areas or navigating public transportation. Periodic news about emerging virus variants only exacerbated these feelings of unease.

    The focus on wellbeing in the focus groups resonated with a recent report from Gympass. Its findings show that employees positioned in an environment that doesn’t align with their preference are twice as likely to report feelings of struggle compared to those in their desired setting. Moreover, the capacity for employees to care for their wellbeing is intricately linked to their work environment. A robust 77% of individuals in their preferred workplace, whether that be entirely in-office, a hybrid model, or fully remote, express confidence in managing their wellbeing effectively. In contrast, this sentiment dips to 65% for those yearning for a different setup.

    Perhaps one of the most telling statistics from Gympass’s report is that over a third of all employees wish for a shift in their work setting to better align with their preferences. This substantial proportion underscores the pressing need for organizations to prioritize employee-centric strategies in defining their post-pandemic work paradigms. Recognizing and accommodating these preferences isn’t just about employee satisfaction; it directly influences productivity, wellbeing and overall company culture.

    In sum, the insights gathered from these focus groups underscored a critical realization: the post-pandemic work landscape isn’t about reverting to familiar norms. Instead, it’s a dynamic interplay of old routines, new preferences, and the continuous quest for a balanced, sustainable work model.

    The role of cognitive biases in the Labor Day RTO

    The widely anticipated post-Labor Day RTO push did not materialize as expected. While logistical and health concerns certainly played their roles, underlying cognitive biases significantly shaped the strategies and expectations of both employers and employees. Specifically, the status quo bias and the optimism bias played pivotal roles in the misconceived projections and subsequent responses.

    Many corporate leaders, influenced by the status quo bias, harbored a strong inclination to revert to pre-pandemic office dynamics. The office-centric work model was seen as the conventional and established approach, and thus, there was a strong push to return to it post-haste. This bias likely led many decision-makers to underestimate the shift in employee preferences and the genuine value many found in remote work. They assumed that since the office work model was the “standard” before the pandemic, it should naturally be the desired state after. This underestimation was glaringly evident when a significant number of employees resisted the post-Labor Day RTO, favoring the new status quo of remote work.

    The optimism bias caused a miscalculation on both sides of the RTO debate. On one hand, organizational leaders might have been overly optimistic about employees’ eagerness to return to the office. This overconfidence led to projections that did not match reality, resulting in vacant office spaces and misallocated resources.

    Conversely, some employees might have been overly optimistic about the continued feasibility and desirability of full-time remote work. While remote work offers several benefits, the optimism bias might have made some overlook the value of in-person interactions, networking opportunities, and team cohesion that an office environment fosters.

    The failed post-Labor Day RTO push serves as a case study on the importance of recognizing and accounting for cognitive biases in decision-making. By understanding these inherent tendencies, businesses can develop more accurate strategies and projections, ensuring that future transitions are smoother and more in tune with actual needs and preferences.

    Related: Why Hybrid Work Will Win Out Over Remote and In-Person — Whether You Like It or Not.

    Action steps for leaders: Navigating the RTO landscape

    Here’s what my focus groups revealed as the key action steps for leaders going forward if they want to navigate RTO effectively in a way that facilitates collaboration and innovation, reduces attrition and disengagement, and minimizes noncompliance and resistance.

    • Conduct regular employee surveys and focus groups: It’s imperative for leaders to maintain a pulse on employee sentiment. Regular feedback loops can offer invaluable insights into changing workplace preferences, concerns and aspirations. By creating open channels of communication, you signal to your employees that their perspectives are valued and integral to decision-making.
    • Re-evaluate the return-to-office strategy: Given the evolving landscape, it may be time to reassess your organization’s RTO strategy. Leaders should be open to iterating on plans, embracing flexibility, and making adjustments based on data, feedback, and current realities.
    • Prioritize employee wellbeing: As the Gympass report suggests, wellbeing is closely tied to work environment preferences. Consider implementing programs or resources dedicated to mental health, stress relief and overall wellbeing. This not only supports individual employees but also contributes to a more productive and harmonious workplace.
    • Invest in hybrid infrastructure: Recognizing that one size doesn’t fit all, consider investments in technology and infrastructure that support both in-office and remote work seamlessly. This includes robust video conferencing tools, collaborative software, and flexible office spaces designed for hybrid teams.
    • Offer flexibility and autonomy: Allow employees the autonomy to choose their work settings based on their roles, responsibilities and personal preferences. A more personalized approach to work arrangements can lead to greater job satisfaction and enhanced productivity.
    • Engage in transparent communication: Openly discuss the company’s stance, decisions, and the reasons behind them. By being transparent, you build trust and foster a culture of understanding and collaboration.
    • Stay updated on global and local health guidelines: While it may seem obvious, it’s crucial to ensure that your workplace adheres to the latest health and safety guidelines. This not only minimizes health risks but also reassures employees that their safety is a top priority.
    • Consider external consultation: Given the complexity and novelty of the current work landscape, consider engaging external experts, consultants or think tanks that specialize in future-of-work strategies. Their insights could provide fresh perspectives and innovative solutions.
    • Prepare for continuous evolution: The post-pandemic work world is still in flux. Leaders should adopt a mindset of continuous evolution, regularly revisiting strategies, seeking feedback, and being willing to pivot as circumstances and preferences evolve.

    In the end, successful navigation of the RTO landscape hinges on a leader’s ability to blend data-driven decisions with empathy, flexibility and foresight. It’s a challenging journey, but with the right approach, organizations can forge a path that aligns with the needs of both the business and its employees.

    Conclusion

    Let’s be clear: pro-office CEOs and experts failed in their predictions and policies around the post-Labor Day RTO. The failed push serves as a poignant reminder of the challenges that lie ahead in defining our post-pandemic work landscape. The very premise of it, anchored in hope and expectation, reveals the distance between aspiration and the practical realities faced by the global workforce. Data, anecdotal evidence and deep dives into employees’ experiences converge on a singular truth: the future of work isn’t about rehashing the past, but about sculpting a new future that resonates with current needs, aspirations, and realities.

    While nostalgic sentiments may pull us toward traditional office environments, the events unfolding post-Labor Day underscore the necessity for a more nuanced approach. The ebbs and flows in office attendance numbers are not merely statistical anomalies; they’re a testament to the profound transformation in work culture and worker psyche. To truly evolve, organizational leaders must embrace a proactive and empathetic leadership style that prioritizes listening, flexibility, and genuine consideration of employee preferences. The pathway forward isn’t about mandates or date-driven pushes but about creating an environment where both the organization and its members can thrive. Only by recognizing and addressing the multifaceted dimensions of this complex issue can we craft a workplace model that stands resilient, adaptive and sustainable in a world forever changed by the pandemic.

    Gleb Tsipursky

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  • Companies are demanding employees spend more days in the office, yet they’re also reducing their office space. Here’s why that isn’t paradoxical 

    Companies are demanding employees spend more days in the office, yet they’re also reducing their office space. Here’s why that isn’t paradoxical 

    Return-to-office mandates are increasingly common, but companies are rapidly downsizing their offices and worried about whether they’ll be able to keep their current one.

    That’s the seemingly paradoxical upshot of a new survey by the Boston-based workplace strategy firm Robin, which questioned over 500 business owners and facilities managers about their office-space plans and remote-work and return-to-office policies. 

    The results show that 88% of companies now mandate that employees work a certain number of days in the office, up from 69% a year ago. Yet 75% plan to reduce office square footage next year, compared to 46% in 2022.

    “It looks like an opposing trend but it’s really not,” Robin CEO Micah Remley told the Boston Globe. “Over the past year, we’re finally seeing companies have a vision of what they want to accomplish in their office space, and they’re putting those plans into action.”

    What they want, he said, is “a flexible office space deeply focused on collaboration.”

    The survey also found that 80% of companies have already downsized their office since the pandemic, and 82% are worried about being able to keep their current one, whether that’s due to a recession or an underutilization of space.

    The results showed more companies making fuller use of their existing offices. In the survey, 56% of respondents said the majority of their employees work in the office full time, up 19% from last year. And 40% said the majority of their teams work hybrid, down 21% from 2022. Only 4% said their company was fully remote.

    Of the respondents mandating part-time in the office, the breakdown was 52% requiring four days, 26% three days, 16% two days, and 3% one day.

    Of those rejecting hybrid altogether, reasons varied, with 42% saying they’ve already invested in a new office space, 30% saying they’re unwilling to compromise their in-office culture, and 27% saying their employees are unable to work outside of the office.

    For remote workers who oppose return-to-office mandates, the survey is more bad news. In a viral TikTok video, a Gen Zer expressed her horror at the 10-hour day required to commute to an office for her first job. In Australia, an Indian investor recently told remote workers their jobs were ripe for outsourcing to his country. And ChatGPT maker OpenAI, whose CEO Sam Altman called the remote work “experiment” one of tech industry’s worst mistakes, recently sealed a deal for 486,600 square feet in new office space in San Francisco. 

    But as the Wall Street Journal recently reported, office attendance in large cities is still only about half the level seen in 2019. That’s despite a slight uptick and tough talk from high-profile CEOs about enforcing return-to-office policies.

    Lenny Beaudoin, executive managing director at real estate firm CBRE, gave Robin one reason companies are cutting office space even as they increasingly call workers back to the office: 

    “Organizations held more space in the past for contingency, and what they’re realizing is, through hybrid work and the way their employees are actually utilizing the space, they can actually reduce some of the space they hadn’t used in the past, because they don’t need it as a contingency like they once did, when everybody was coming to the office every day.”  

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    Steve Mollman

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  • Prepare For This Seismic Shift in Employee Expectations — Or Say Goodbye to Your Top Talent. | Entrepreneur

    Prepare For This Seismic Shift in Employee Expectations — Or Say Goodbye to Your Top Talent. | Entrepreneur

    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Let’s be brutally honest: Would you stick with your company if it failed to prioritize your wellbeing? You’re not alone if the answer is a resounding “no.” Workers are sending a clear message to the corporate world — wellbeing is non-negotiable. Forget the antiquated notion that a hefty paycheck is the ultimate carrot on the stick. The data is in, and it’s irrefutable: workers really care about their wellbeing and flexibility, and corporations better listen if they want to win the talent wars.

    Workers are working less voluntarily

    The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis recently released a paper that delves into why the U.S. labor market has tightened post-pandemic. It focuses on two prongs of this phenomenon: The declining number of workers and the receding number of hours those workers are willing to commit to their jobs.

    In the realm of academic endeavors, one line from this paper feels like a bombshell: “Circumstantial and direct evidence indicates that the hours reduction among workers [from 2019 to 2022] is voluntary. In addition, although the reduction may have been caused by the pandemic situation, it is expected to persist.” This is not a fleeting, reactionary change. Rather, it’s an enduring shift in worker behavior and priorities, revealing a collective reassessment of what’s truly valuable in life.

    This shift is most pronounced among men, particularly those with college degrees and those in their main working years. It signals that the individuals who traditionally occupied power seats in the corporate world are stepping back, reassessing their options, and consciously opting for a reality that allows them to live fuller lives outside their cubicles. And here’s where it gets interesting: It’s those men who were already logging in more hours and earning more who have chosen to pull back the most. What does that tell us? These are not decisions of necessity but are based on the realization of an unspoken need for balance, wellness and, dare we say it, happiness.

    What was merely a hunch or a buzzword in corporate seminars is now backed by empirical evidence: Workers are not just saying they desire more from life than work — they are manifesting these desires through tangible actions. This act of self-determination is altering the landscape of labor availability, making this a two-edged sword. On one hand, we are moving toward a more balanced and humane concept of work; on the other, it brings about challenges of labor shortages that cannot be ignored.

    In the corporate arena, this leads to a potentially seismic shift. If you are a business leader failing to account for this fundamental transformation in worker attitudes, prepare for a rude awakening. Worker wellbeing is no longer a “nice-to-have,” it’s a “must-have” if you hope to attract and retain the top-tier talent needed to fuel innovation and growth in an increasingly competitive market.

    This paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis doesn’t merely add an interesting viewpoint to the dialogue about the future of work. It serves as a clarion call for the immediate reevaluation of long-held assumptions about what motivates people to commit their time and energy to an organization. The time to act is now because, as the Fed suggests, this is not a temporary phenomenon; it’s a deeply rooted, long-lasting transformation that is expected to endure. Ignore it at your own peril.

    Related: Workers Are Disengaged. Here’s How Employers Can Win Them Back.

    The numbers don’t lie

    Gympass’ annual State of Work-Life Wellness Report this October has gifted us some startling figures from a survey of over 5,000 global employees that reinforce the Fed’s findings. A whopping 87% said they would consider jumping ship from a company that disregards employee wellbeing, a notable increase from 77% just a year ago. Moreover, 93% equate wellbeing with salary in terms of importance, up 10 points from last year’s 83%. The clincher? An overwhelming 96% will consider only those companies that give prime importance to employee wellbeing for their next job hunt.

    When it comes to wellbeing and the workplace, there’s a myth that has long been shattered: One size fits all. In reality, our surroundings wield considerable influence on our emotional and psychological states.

    Employees operating in work environments that don’t resonate with their preferences for flexibility — such as remote-capable workers forced to do in-office work due to a top-down mandate against their will — are not just mildly inconvenienced: many are categorically struggling. According to Gympass, workers who find themselves in such discordant settings are twice as likely to describe their condition as “struggling” or “really struggling” than those fortunate enough to be in their ideal work environments. Let’s pause to consider the weight of that statement. It means that a vast swath of employees are grappling with a work setup that not only affects their daily satisfaction but potentially curtails their longer-term mental wellbeing.

    But the report doesn’t stop there; it draws a stark picture of how drastically our sense of wellbeing can be impacted. While 77% of employees working in their preferred flexible environments feel equipped to take care of their wellbeing, this percentage nosedives to a startling 65% for those who don’t have the luxury of such alignment. That 12% differential isn’t merely statistical noise; it’s the loud cry of an unsatisfied and disengaged workforce. And more than a third of employees wish they worked in a different work environment that aligns with their preference.

    Let’s call it what it is: this is a seismic shift in employee expectations. Flexible work arrangements are no longer just attractive benefits to be dangled in front of potential hires. They have transitioned into non-negotiable components of an employment package. Why is this so vital? Because of the nexus between flexibility and wellbeing underpinning workplace satisfaction, engagement, and productivity.

    And herein lies the vulnerability to cognitive biases that can hamstring effective decision-making. One major obstacle is the status quo bias, an innate preference for keeping things the way they are. Business leaders clinging to conventional work arrangements risk not just falling out of step with current trends but also substantially diminishing their appeal to top talent. Another cognitive trap is the empathy gap, wherein decision-makers underestimate the emotional needs and responses of others—particularly their employees. This bias could lead to underestimating just how essential flexibility is to staff wellbeing.

    Related: Back In The Office? Why Your Company’s One-Size-Fits-All Approach Is Destined to Fail.

    Strategies for a wellbeing-centric, flexible work ecosystem

    Many corporate leaders are acutely aware of the shifting sands but often stumble when it comes to implementing concrete measures. In my consultancy, Disaster Avoidance Experts, I’ve honed in on specific strategies that businesses can adopt to make a tangible difference. The confluence of wellbeing and work flexibility is more than a passing trend; it’s the new cornerstone of sustainable, profitable operations. Here are some action steps that I strongly advocate for when serving clients.

    First, it’s time to let go of your traditional “nine-to-five, in-the-office” mindset, a relic that is increasingly at odds with today’s dynamic workforce. For those still clinging to a rigid structure, this might feel like a leap into the abyss. However, the alternative is a debilitating anchoring bias — relying too heavily on the first piece of information encountered (in this case, traditional work models) when making decisions. Shake off this outdated mooring and embrace hybrid and even fully remote work options. Use this as an opportunity to gather data on productivity, engagement and wellbeing, adjusting your course as needed.

    Second, pivot to a team-led model for flexibility, where collective decision-making takes precedence over a one-size-fits-all approach. Allow teams to collaboratively determine their work environment — be it remote, in-office or hybrid. This not only fosters a sense of ownership and engagement but also optimizes the unique strengths and requirements of each team. Teams can decide when face-to-face interactions are most beneficial for creative brainstorming or complex problem-solving and when remote work can maximize individual focus and productivity. This approach transcends mere optimization of individual roles; it creates an ecosystem where the team, as a cohesive unit, is empowered to make decisions that maximize its collective effectiveness.

    Third, invest substantively in employee wellbeing through targeted financial support. In an era where 93% of employees view their wellbeing as equally important to salary, your investment in wellness programming is more than just an employee perk — it’s a strategic imperative. Consider offering stipends for mental health support, from licensed therapy to mindfulness apps. Subsidize fitness memberships or offer in-house wellness programs ranging from nutrition seminars to stress management workshops. Financially support ongoing education, not just in terms of professional development but also in areas that contribute to general wellbeing, such as financial literacy courses or parenting classes. By dedicating actual dollars to these initiatives, you’re not only enhancing the quality of life for your employees but also setting a cultural tone that prioritizes wellbeing as much as quarterly earnings. After all, when employees feel their wellbeing is taken seriously, they’re more engaged, productive and less likely to seek opportunities elsewhere.

    Finally, for those concerned about the economic implications of reduced hours, as highlighted by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, it’s important to recognize that wellbeing and productivity often exist in a symbiotic relationship. My advice? Focus on outcomes rather than hours. Assess performance through deliverables and milestones instead of the antiquated metric of “time spent at the desk.”

    These steps are not mere suggestions; consider them a call to action. Given the skyrocketing significance workers are placing on wellbeing and flexibility, executives and decision-makers can no longer afford to be passive bystanders. Your company’s relevance, appeal, and, ultimately its success are bound up in how adeptly you navigate this paradigm shift. It’s a jigsaw puzzle with many pieces, but the picture it forms is unmistakable: a more humane, flexible and productive future of work.

    Conclusion

    It’s not just about beanbags, free lunches or casual Fridays anymore. The Fed and Gympass data illustrate that wellbeing and flexibility are directly proportional to how engaged, happy and productive employees are. After all, who wants to give their best to a company that treats them as expendable? Your workforce is your most invaluable asset; treat them as such. It is simply illogical to expect top-tier performance from employees who feel neglected and undervalued.

    Gleb Tsipursky

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  • How to Make Your Office More Accommodating for Hybrid Workers | Entrepreneur

    How to Make Your Office More Accommodating for Hybrid Workers | Entrepreneur

    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Nowadays, to run a successful corporate business, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll have to offer a hybrid work style to attract new employees and retain existing ones. But offering hybrid work options is about more than letting your employees work from home several days a week. It’s about providing amenities that make the balance between work and home more level — and make them want to come into the office to work.

    Since exiting the height of the pandemic, many companies have observed work outputs for their employees. While remote work is undoubtedly a lucrative business strategy, some companies have noticed slower productivity when offering 100% remote work. Instead, many companies have noted higher outputs when working from an office setting. But with so many workers citing remote work as a non-negotiable, how do you placate employees’ wants with your business’s needs?

    Related: 5 Steps to Implement the Ideal Hybrid Work Model

    Hybrid work is the future

    Giving employees the choice to work partially from home and partially from an office is paramount to employee productivity and retention. The last thing you want when encouraging workers to work from your office is to spark resignations. But how can you negotiate the needs of your business with employee satisfaction?

    The answer is hybrid work!

    Granting your employees the option to work both in and out of the office gives them freedom and flexibility while steering them to higher productivity levels. But when weighing the pros of working from home and the cons of working from an office, many workers may feel compelled to always opt to work from home. So, what’s the easiest way to entice workers to work from your office?

    Make your office space inviting with these amenities for hybrid workers.

    Hot desking

    Hot desking is a type of flexible workspace where desks aren’t assigned to a specific employee. Instead, a selection or desk area is open for employees to share and move around. This is incredibly impactful if your hybrid employees work on a staggered schedule. Instead of leaving half of your office unused for several days a week, hot desking desks will be occupied every day.

    Hot desking encourages employees to be more collaborative, encouraging them to work in the office, especially when working on projects with other team members. So, productivity will be positively impacted, and employees will get a chance to form stronger professional relationships through collaboration and discussions in shared workspaces.

    Casual dress code

    One of the biggest reasons workers hesitate to return to the office is comfort! Swapping comfortable clothing for business casual can feel detrimental. So, make the transition more manageable with a casual dress code.

    Allowing workers to wear jeans and t-shirts daily means they’ll feel more at home in your workplace. Further, if there’s ever a day when you’ve got investors visiting, and your team needs to be more dressed up than usual, they may be excited for the opportunity to dress up.

    Further, the last thing you want is an employee’s performance to be impacted by uncomfortable clothing. So, eliminate this possibility with a relaxed, casual dress code.

    Related: 4 Ways to Encourage Employees to Return to the Office

    Rooftop spaces or greenery

    The prospect of spending eight hours per day under fluorescent lights without spending time outside is one of the most significant drawbacks of returning to the office. Eliminate this prospect by bringing the outdoors to your office.

    If your office has an outside area, such as a balcony or a rooftop, encourage workers to spend time there by extending WiFi coverage to these spaces and outfitting them with comfortable chairs and tables.

    If not, incorporate the outdoors by decorating your office with greenery. Several large plants, a vine wall or even alternative lighting to overhead lights can make your office space more inviting and convince workers to spend more time in the office than at their home office.

    Touchless options

    Empowering your employees to remain safe and sanitary while working in the office is one of the easiest ways to entice them to return. In addition to stocking hand sanitizer and hiring a cleaning crew to disinfect your office regularly, consider investing in touchless entry options.

    A mobile-based intercom allows employees to swipe on their phones to gain access to your office — no need to type on a public keypad or fumble with keys!

    Further, the best intercom systems will allow you to send virtual keys to visitors or delivery couriers. So, touchless entry is sanitary and convenient!

    Private spaces

    While an open-concept office draws in many employees who prefer remote work, it’s not always practical. Instead of a completely open office space, offer several private spaces where employees can take calls, have private meetings and work in silence when they need to focus.

    Think of it as offering a “closed” open office. As a business owner or manager, you don’t have to choose between a row of cubicles or a completely open-concept office. Instead, a happy medium between the two with some areas of hot desking and some private rooms is your best option to accommodate hybrid workers.

    If you’re struggling to entice your employees to return to the office a few days a week, consider offering these attractive amenities. By doing so, you’ll make their time in the office much more inviting, convenient and comfortable — and you’ll likely also see higher levels of productivity as well.

    Related: How To Invite Your Employees Back To The Office

    Cyrus Claffey

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  • Hanna Interpreting Services Awarded Comparably’s Best Company for Work-Life Balance

    Hanna Interpreting Services Awarded Comparably’s Best Company for Work-Life Balance


    SAN DIEGO, September 22, 2023 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Hanna Interpreting Services, a premier language services provider, is proud to announce its recognition by Comparably as one of the best companies for work-life balance. This honor is a testament to the company’s unwavering commitment to employee well-being and its innovative approach to fostering a harmonious work environment.

    Comparably’s accolade assesses factors such as employee satisfaction with work-life balance, average hours worked per day, lunch break lengths, and overall feelings of burnout. Hanna Interpreting Services’ dedication to creating an environment that melds productivity with personal time has made it stand out in this evaluation.

    A significant contributor to this balance is the company’s hybrid working model, where employees merge the best of both worlds by working remotely for three weeks and in the office for one week every month. This flexibility allows team members to maintain their personal lives while still fostering in-person collaboration. Hanna also ranked among the top 35% of companies for diversity and in the top 40% for gender balance.

    “It’s a balance we’ve been striving to achieve, especially in these dynamic times,” says President Tom Elias Hanna. “We understand the challenges presented by both remote work and the need to be in-office.”

    September is a monumental month for Hanna Interpreting Services. In addition to the Comparably award, the company celebrated its 13th anniversary on September 9, marking over a decade of industry leadership and commitment to bridging linguistic barriers. The month also saw the inauguration of a brand-new office space, showcasing the company’s dedication to growth and serving as a hub for innovation and team collaboration.

    As Hanna Interpreting Services continues to evolve and set benchmarks in the industry, the core values remain consistent: a commitment to bridging language barriers, a dedication to employee well-being, and a vision to be the most trusted name in language services.

    Founded in 2010 by mother and son duo Jennifer Hanna and Tom Elias Hanna in their garage, Hanna has grown to more than 70 employees, served 1.1 million clients to date in 250+ languages, and has sponsored countless outreach events to serve the local community.

    For more information about Hanna Interpreting Services or to schedule an interview, please contact Sean Spicer, Revenue Operations Manager, at Sean.Spicer@HannaIS.com
     

    Source: Hanna Interpreting Services

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  • Citi workers flouting return-to-office mandate to face consequences: ‘We hold colleagues accountable’

    Citi workers flouting return-to-office mandate to face consequences: ‘We hold colleagues accountable’

    Citigroup Inc. has begun telling managers to let staffers know they’ll face consequences if they don’t comply with policies for office attendance. 

    While the vast majority of staffers are following the firm’s rules for hybrid work, the moves are focused on those employees with persistent, unexplained absences, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Managers will consider compliance with the rules when rating performance and crafting pay packages, the person said, asking not to be identified discussing information that isn’t public.

    “We are committed to our hybrid work model and proud of the flexibility it provides our colleagues to work at least three days per week in the office and up to two days remotely,” Citigroup said in a statement. “We have firm expectations for office attendance and know that the majority of our employees are compliant with their requirements. As necessary, we hold colleagues accountable for adhering to their in-office days.

    Citigroup is widely seen to be among the most amenable financial firms when it comes to flexible work arrangements following the Covid-19 pandemic. The vast majority of its roughly 240,000 employees are considered hybrid, meaning they are expected to come into the office at least three days a week, and the bank has used the policy to retain and attract employees across its businesses during Chief Executive Officer Jane Fraser’s time atop the firm. 

    The recent push comes as Citigroup has readied managers for midyear performance conversations. The New York-based company has asked managers to discuss return-to-office policies with staffers who haven’t been coming to the office regularly, and ensure they understand the consequences of continued noncompliance, according to the person with knowledge of the matter. 

    As part of an effort to better understand office-attendance trends, Citigroup is considering tracking staffers’ building-entry data in the UK. It has already been collecting such data at major offices across the US.

    The company is discussing a proposal with its employee-engagement forum in the UK that would allow it to track individual staffers’ office attendance on a monthly basis, according to a memo to staffers seen by Bloomberg News. The proposal would also allow Citigroup to collect aggregated office data every two weeks for the firm’s offices in London, Edinburgh and Belfast. 

    “One swipe per person, per day, per location will be captured,” according to the memo. “The number of hours spent in the office will not be captured in these reports. The focus of the reporting will be on employees with consistent office absence. Reports may then be shared with managers as appropriate to prompt further discussion.” 

    For now, the US data has been shared with only the most senior executives at Citigroup, though the firm is weighing creating a dashboard that would allow line managers to have easier access to the data, according to the person with knowledge of the matter. 

    — With assistance by Donal Griffin

    Jennifer Surane, Ambereen Choudhury, Bloomberg

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