Office return: back to how it was for HR teams?

We’ve seen this week that the working from home guidance is lifting finally from 19 July, meaning an office return is on the cards for many.

But does that mean everything simply goes back to the way it was before?

Almost certainly not. Indeed, for many businesses, remote working in some form is likely to remain in place for the long term, with plenty looking to adopt a mixed or hybrid approach to office/home working time.

Many of the initiatives and approaches taken during the pandemic will continue to be relevant and important to consider, even with an office return, as organisations move towards a new hybrid way of working.

Hybrid-working and productivity

Lockdown has proven that both employee productivity and engagement is just as high outside of the workplace.

Will your business move towards hybrid-working model - a mixed approach of home and office?

If you have a proportion of staff remote working for a significant part of their week, productivity and engagement are key elements still needing to be monitored closely, and businesses cannot solely rely on individuals to stay on track.

Providing support

They need support from their HR teams, who can work closely with line managers to ensure that steps are taken to maintain engagement and ensure productivity levels remain high.

For HR teams to adapt and manage this to the best of their ability, they should look to harness specialised HR software that creates a single source of truth for all HR processes - progression, development and engagement to name a few - as this will simplify how line managers manage their teams – wherever they are based.

Meant health and wellbeing

By harnessing technology, HR teams have adapted and supported employees’ mental health and well-being to the best of their ability whilst everyone worked from home.  With some staff moving to a fully remote or partially remote model full-time now, these measures introduced in the last year are still important as we move forward.

That includes things like hosting regular Zoom meetings for catch-up and workload discussions, virtual wellbeing and fitness sessions, appointing mental health first aiders, and creating support groups.

Being efficient for the business

The knock on effect for businesses of the pandemic continue to be felt, with many finding a need to make cost savings where possible.

HR departments looking to help their organisations become more efficient should consider combining payroll with their HR functions. By harnessing technology to proactively eliminate a lot of the process-heavy tasks, and integrating HR and payroll, it can not only streamline processes (saving time to be better spent elsewhere), but also play a huge role in employee engagement.

For more information on how IRIS can help with these challenges, please visit this page.