Following our recent animation discussing the Future of the Workplace where we discussed Hybrid Working and it’s benefits, this week we’re digging into the problems that can occur when your team has been working from home for over a year and disengagement is looming. The difference between having your colleagues work remotely by choice and as a result of a global pandemic, is obviously huge. As a whole, businesses were simply not ready.
As much as we complained about commutes and board-meetings, much to our delight as workplace consultants, the value in face-to-face working and the value of the workplace has become glaringly obvious. The days of glamourising sitting around in your pyjamas all day, occasionally checking emails whilst cooking up a storm, have gone – in fact, they never really existed. The reality of sharing your work and home life isn’t such a peaceful one but also, it can make the work harder too.
Engagement is crucial for any business. Team members need to spark ideas, talk through plans, offer support or connections and having access to this becomes self-motivating and cyclic. The engagement crisis comes when employees have had little to no engagement with their team or employees, the spontaneity of the workplace has gone and staff don’t know how or who to ask for help. This is due to an overuse of online-meetings or ‘Zoom Fatigue’ and actually, there are ways of working that have been developed to avoid this.
So if Working From Home has caused issues with engagement for some companies, why have remote-workers always been known for being more productive? The key here is your work-style – having clear objectives, strong leadership, and professional development opportunities support performance. This is why the engagement crisis won’t disappear for everyone with a return to the office, but it’s about ingraining a work strategy that bring out the best qualities in each individual in your team.
It’s never been more important to be flexible and adaptive. Some employees will thrive working remotely and their productivity will increase due to increased trust and responsibility, others will grab the opportunity to take work back to the office and engagement with their workforce around them will motivate and re-energise them. Whatever it takes, businesses will have to come to an arrangement that offers solutions to their whole team – this is where we come in. We can help you take the best of remote working and the best of the traditional office and create a workplace that facilitates productivity, creativity and motivation. Get in touch.
