Episode: 186

Episode Title: To Go Back Or Not To Go Back

To go back to the office, or not to go back to the office—that is the question facing employers today. So what are they going to do? Let’s talk about it, coming up next on the Syndicate.

Ep 186 show:

Hello and welcome to The Perna Syndicate! Back in February, the software company Salesforce announced that they’re making their pandemic-era remote work arrangements permanent. Now: will the rest of America follow suit?

It’s hard to say. Now that employers have seen that workers can operate efficiently from home, McKinsey predicts that as much as 20% of the workforce will stay remote permanently. As for the rest, many will probably go back full-time when feasible, while another group will follow a hybrid model with employees working part of the time onsite and the rest remotely. 

Obviously this decision will be made by each individual company, based on a wide variety of unique factors in their specific context. But the biggest question to take into account is this: what do employees want?

Employees have overcome huge obstacles in the past year—and many are still struggling with mental health challenges brought on by the multi-faceted stress of the pandemic. To ask them to uproot their routines once again and come back to work, like nothing ever happened, could be a tough transition. At the same time, it could be equally problematic to simply assume everyone loves working from home and wouldn’t have it any other way. 

There’s only one thing to do, and that is listen to what the team has to say. Companies that listen, that encourage authentic, two-way communication on this and other important workplace issues, are the ones who empower workers and stand the best chance of high employee satisfaction in a fast-changing world. 

Thanks for starting your week with The Perna Syndicate. For more episodes, visit MarkCPerna.com. We’ll see you back here tomorrow for more on education, careers, and workforce development.