A new side effect of the Delta variant: 'Fear of meeting up'
As companies move ahead with return-to-office plans, many employees are suffering from a fear of meeting up, says Hibob's Rhiannon Staples.
Despite the resurgence of COVID, many employers are pushing ahead with plans to bring employees back into the workplace this fall. Vaccine and mask mandates have become a hot topic, one for which there is no clear right or wrong answer. But that’s only one consideration for return-to-office planning.
A lot has changed over the past 18 months, including the way employees work and communicate, as well as how they budget their time. For many, returning to the structure format of the office comes with a long list of concerns, not the least of which is potential exposure to the still-rampant COVID virus.
Related: Delta variant leading to ‘back-to-office’ apprehensions
Recently, Hibob’s Rhiannon Staples shared some insights and advice for employers to help ease employees back into the idea of office life.
How can companies who continue their plan to reopen address employees’ FOMU, or fear of meeting up?
Employers must gauge how employees are feeling and make plans based upon these attitudes. If employees are happy, higher levels of engagement will follow. One way to find out where your employees stand on this topic is to survey employees to understand how they’re feeling about a physical return to work. A recent study from Hibob showed that for 62% of employees a remote and/or hybrid working model has allowed for a better work-life balance. Given this reality, employers should double down on pinpointing engagement tactics that cater to hybrid situations to create positive workplace cultures in the new world of work.
Additionally, if returning to the office is the plan, HR needs to be transparent with their employees as well as empathetic to their concerns. Providing COVID policies – including cleaning procedures, distancing protocols, and other measures – will help employees feel comfortable in the physical workspace if they know HR is making this a priority. Lastly, regional regulations and protocol should be acknowledged and addressed by the company.
What should companies keep in mind when planning their reopening or transition to a fully remote setup?
First and foremost, companies should aim to create equity amongst remote and in-office employees. Those at home should not feel alienated, disconnected, or less likely to achieve success or promotions because they are more frequently working at home, or entirely remote. Setting specific days for the team to meet opens opportunities for team building and an overall more positive work culture.
While in the office, companies should be prepared to provide all the necessary tools and equipment for employees to feel comfortable and succeed in-person. For those who may not be in the office, it’s essential to keep remote and hybrid workers connected across any distance. Encourage frequent communication and collaboration especially for those who are unable to make it into the office often if at all. This helps improve the overall work experience of remote employees.
Employers should also consider redesigning the office space to make more rooms available for video meetings, to ensure that everyone can be involved in collaboration despite their physical presence. In fact, to bridge the gap between remote and office workers, one of our customers introduced a rule of “everyone in the room or everyone on Zoom.” This makes it so that no one feels like the odd person out or misses any part of that conversation – whether it’s a joke, side conversation, or critical update.
Companies must evaluate and set standards for cleanliness and safety protocols, especially in light of the Delta variant. Not only should sanitization steps be mapped out, communicated to employees, and continually re-evaluated based on risk, but companies can also open the conversation for discussion with their people by surveying them and asking for feedback on ways to make people feel more safe, and protected while in the office.
All or nothing will be a challenge as we face the uncertainty in the fall. As COVID-19 rates continue to spike and health officials warn of potential peaks in the coming months, considering a flexible return to work policy is sensible and rational at this given time.
How is FOMU impacting team building, collaboration and the workplace?
Recent data from Hibob shows that only 10% of employees want to return to the office full-time and employees would quit if forced to return. With the Delta variant, many are concerned about working in groups again for health reasons, leading to FOMU, and in turn has an effect on team building and collaboration. Thus, those experiencing FOMU are causing companies to increasingly reevaluate a fully remote or hybrid work schedule.
The pandemic created a high reliance on technology. To help bridge the gap caused by FOMU, HR needs to ensure an efficient tech stack in order to maintain a proactive collaboration between employees in both the office and in a remote workplace. This can be achieved by creating a seamless employee experience using a combination of communication, collaboration and HR tech tools. And recent data shows that companies experience direct benefits when updating their tech stack with HR tech. When Hibob surveyed 2,000 full-time workers across the US and UK, their responses indicated that the companies which added HR tech to their remote tech stack during the pandemic saw higher job satisfaction and a more productive, and connected work-from-home experience.
What does the future of corporate culture look like in a post COVID world?
Instead of finding ways to get employees in the office as soon as possible, HR departments and company executives must recognize that employee expectations have evolved significantly over the past 18 months. Now, employees are increasingly looking for flexibility. After experiencing the harsh impact spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, employees have shifted their priorities when it comes to benefits from their corporate employers. For instance, employees are now interested in perks that help them navigate and balance the flexibility of their work life and home life. Examples include asynchronous work flexibility, childcare stipends or access to mental health services.
What are the benefits or cultural elements CHROs and leaders should be prioritizing now? Is flexibility enough?
One shift that CHROs and leaders need to take from these past few years is understanding the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion. It’s essential companies prioritize a consistent diverse and inclusive environment to connect employees. This can be done with a specific group of HR leaders collaborating on a code of conduct creation that focuses on actionable goals, a mission statement, active action plans, and more.
In today’s climate, companies must acknowledge that culture is about organizational values, how you communicate and interact, and how you engage, develop and retain employees. Now is a time to build a culture around tolerance, empathy, and wellbeing. Transparency shared in the workplace across all roles benefits the culture of the workplace by providing team members with a sense of understanding and trust. This can be done effectively with remote and hybrid workers, which innately instills a sense of trust in an employee’s ability to work autonomously, and also signals that as a company leader, you value your people’s work/life balance. Businesses simply need to focus on communication, support, and education. When employees feel understood and trusted they feel more comfortable bringing their whole selves to work, resulting in better performance and authenticity which ultimately impacts the bottom line.
Hibob in particular is dedicated to supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts through various features built into the platform. In 2020, the Hibob team launched a rare tool that allows employees to choose what gender pronoun they would like to be addressed as. Its non-binary gender features allow team members to specify how they want to be identified with various pronoun and gender options that organizations can open to their teams. It also includes a feature called “Your Voice,” where employees can anonymously share concerns about workplace treatment so HR teams can address them head-on. These tools were vital before the pandemic, during the height of remote work, and will remain critical as companies navigate a return to work plan.
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