4 Ways Employers Are Trying To Incentivize A Return to Work

During the shutdown, companies that did not fold had to operate remotely. With the exception of essential businesses that remained open, most companies had to figure out how to keep their employees working while offices were shut down.

What was learned during this period was that many people who were working in person and went to an office everyday did not need to. People actually were more productive while working from home.

This was especially true for people whose jobs relied on emailing, computer work, and phone or Zoom calls.

Many firms have continued to operate with their staff working remotely. This is a huge savings for most companies due to avoiding rental space.

However, many firms are looking to bring people back into the office. Places like Goldman are keen on forcing all people back to the office, but that has to do with Goldman’s interests in real estate investments.

Still, there are some businesses that want workers to come back to the office either because they have long term leases that they cannot break, the work itself requires some in person component, or for other reasons.

The problem is that it can be difficult to try and force people to return back to the office. The best way to get employees back to the office is to offer incentives. Instead of threatening people, the best companies are offering incentives.

Creative incentives can be a great way to make people want to come to work. Below are some of the coolest and most inventive ways employers are taking the steps to incentives people to come back to the office.

Create a Hybrid Schedule: Easy Transition

Once people have found that they can work from home, they are going to be very reluctant to going back to a full time in person schedule. Most people will want to stay at home as much as possible.

This is why a hybrid schedule is the most popular method to bring people back in. It’s difficult to make the transition from 5 days a week working from home to 5 days a week working in person. So, for that reason, most professionals who operate businesses understand that a slower transition is more desirable.

A hybrid schedule is something that might be as straight forward as Mondays and Fridays remote, and Tuesdays-Thursdays are in person.

Other companies like to stagger the days depending on the persons particular situation.

The main incentive here is that the employee won’t feel like they are being forced to return full time to the office. It is an easier transition.

Don’t Threaten

The worst way to incentive people is to threaten them. There are countless studies which discuss the benefits of positive incentives.

There are stories of companies threatening people to either come back to the office full time or else they will be let go.

With the exception of government work where people need to be supervised and other roles that cannot be done remotely (medical work, retail work, and labor work) there is very little reason to argue that employees need to be in the office.

Employees who have been successfully working remotely all of this time know this and are therefore rightfully angered when told that they must return to work immediately or else.

The better move is for an employer to offer an incentive to come to work, not to threaten.

The carrot works better than the stick. Employees who are threated will not forget that and they will actively look for another job and likely not even give notice when they quit.

Healthy Incentives

One of the more popular incentives that employers can offer returning employees are healthy incentives. These might be things such as a spa day or gym memberships.

Many people might recall the outrageous offices that WeWork were known for. Those offices boasted open bars, expensive office layouts, lots of toys and games for adults, and often junk food.

As everyone knows, WeWork collapsed and was a colossal failure. They mistook the appetite that office workers had for frivolous things.

While it might be a fun idea to have beer on tap, ping pong tables, or other items that look like they were taken out of a college dorm, it won’t really make people want to come back to work. Even recent grads who come into the workplace are now looking for a more healthy enviroment.

The problem with these items is that they are really designed to make people stay at work as long as possible. They are not designed to make people enjoy work, it’s to make people prefer to be in the workplace than at home. Most people want to do their work and go home, not stay at work indefinitely.

The other thing about these items is that they don’t improve your health. I get it, some people who are just out of college might enjoy playing beer pong for several hours after they have worked the entire day.

But that’s unusual. Most people want to head home and relax. The idea of drinking and playing games like you did back in college might be attractive to kids just out of college, but most people want to work and then get back to their own life and business.

There are some healthy alternatives that people can be attracted to. These things are more of an incentive for the average office worker. They want things that can improve their life.

An open bar and a table hockey game might be fun once in a while, but you can’t work hungover all of the time.

Some healthy alternatives that employers can use to draw people back to the office include :

A Gym or a Gym membership

One of the most valuable things a company can offer employees is a gym or a gym membership. If the company is large enough they might have their own gym space in the building.

Large fortune 500 companies and tech firms often will have a space in their building with treadmills, ellipticals and yoga areas. But even smaller companies are jumping on board with small spaces.

If the company is not large enough to have a gym on site, then what they can do is join up with a gym membership program. Many of the large gyms have sales reps that specialize in making deals with companies on a discounted basis.

This can allow a company to offer free gym memberships to their employees at a bargain rate. It also helps to keep the employees healthy. It’s a win win situation.

The employees save money because they do not have to go and spend their own money on a gym membership and the company has employees who are less likely to go and get sick and use sick time and not be productive.

A Healthy Food Station- Juices and Smoothies for Lunch

Some companies have pizza days. It’s even a bit of a joke in nursing circles where hospital staff send in pizza and soda for their staff nurses! You’ll see nurses making TikTok videos about it along with their dances.

But most people don’t want to have junk food all the time. And healthy food is expensive. So, what some smart employers are doing is taking a more health conscious approach and setting up healthy food stations.

Instead of having beer or soda stations, smart businesses are setting up juicers or blenders. There are fast single serve smoothie blenders that can make a healthy choice for a employees and be easily washable. That eliminates the need to have a giant blender that takes time to wash. A few small blenders set up in the kitchen could even be setup for the lunch crown who wants to save money.

The employers could also stock the company fridge with frozen fruits, protein powders and  non-dairy milks for their staff. And since smoothies can cost as much as $15 bucks, it’s a great way to save employees money and also keep them in the office!

Free Transit or Transportation Reimbursement: No One Likes Paying to Go to Work!

No one likes to have to commute to work, but there are differences between paying for travel and having travel paid for.

The only profession where the boss pays for travel is in nursing. Travel nurses are paid to go to work and are put up in expensive hotels and have their meals comped.

That’s why nurses will fly around the country and work anywhere, because they are highly paid and there living expenses are paid for.

If you take the same approach with regular office workers, you can entice them back to work as well.

One smart way to do this is to offer travel reimbursement. If the job is located in a major city, then subway or bus fare reimbursement is an idea. This is something that you can even setup as a pre-tax deduction on their paycheck.

If the location is not in a metropolitan area, then it’s going to be a mileage reimbursement for people who drive to work.