Ready to Put an End to Remote Work? Here Are 3 Ways to Help Employees With the Transition

Many small businesses allowed employees to work remotely during the height of COVID-19. Back in 2020, that seemed like the only safe option.

But now that we're nearing the end of 2023, a lot of companies are changing their tune. In fact, 90% of companies expect a return to the office by the end of 2024, according to a recent survey by Resume Builder.

As a small business owner, you may be eager to bring your staff back to the office. While not having to pay for office space can be a source of savings for businesses, the reality is that there can be challenges with remote work. 

It can be harder to communicate effectively with employees when you're not there in the room with them. And let's face it -- collaborative work is probably done better in person than over Zoom or other video conferencing software.

As such, you may be gearing up to call your staff back into the office. But do recognize that that's apt to be a hard thing for a lot of people. And so here are a few ways you can help with that transition.

1. Ease back in with a hybrid schedule initially

If your employees have maintained a remote work schedule for the past three and a half years, then chances are, a little extra remote work won't be so detrimental to your business. This doesn't mean you should delay your return to the office. Rather, it means you should help employees adjust to office life with a hybrid schedule initially.

Say you're targeting mid-October as your office return date. You may want to ask employees to come in two or three days a week through mid-November, four days a week through late December, and then five days a week come January. This is a reasonable approach, because it gives workers time to settle into a new routine and address different challenges their office return brings about.

2. Be flexible with hours

Having to work from an office could negatively impact a lot of people's schedules. Parents might have to scramble to find child care. Pet owners might have to line up care for their animals if they'll be gone for 10-hour stretches at a time.

It pays to be flexible with your employees' hours, at least initially. That could mean letting workers come in very early and then leave mid-afternoon to grab their kids from school. Or, it could mean letting employees do the bulk of their work from the office, but finish up their last hour or two at home so they can get back in time to walk their dogs before there's an accident.

3. Offer a pay bump to cover commuting costs if you can afford to

Before the pandemic, commuting costs were a known expense employees had to absorb. So you may be of the mindset that over the past three and a half years, your staff got a break from those expenses, and that was a lucky break.

The reality, though, is that if it's been a long time since your workers have commuted, they may not have immediate room in their finances to spend extra on things like parking and gas. So while you're certainly not obligated to offer a pay raise to compensate for commuting costs, if you can swing it, it's definitely a nice thing to do. 

It's understandable that you may be ready to abandon remote work and embrace in-person work once again. But do try to be as kind as possible as you implement that change. For many workers, it will constitute a world of upheaval. And you don't want to lose those workers to another job that's remote. So it pays to employ these tips to make that transition one that doesn't cause your employees to jump ship.