A lot of companies have had their employees working remotely this past year or so. Transitioning to working remotely might have been easy depending on the job. However, transitioning back to work might be a little more difficult.
Thankfully, there are resources available to help employees understand what needs to be addressed when creating a return-to-work plan. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) provides a checklist to ensure a safe and smooth return to work. It goes over any policy changes that may need to be made and even mentions the logistics of who starts back in the office and when.
If you’ve had your employees working remotely you might want to consider a hybrid work schedule. To do this properly, SHRM suggests updating both the telecommuting policies as well as the IT policies to reflect the increased prevalence of remote work.
Even if a hybrid schedule is not implemented and all employees are working on site, SHRM suggests creating a plan to slowly transition everyone back into the office. That means that not everyone comes back on the same day as that can be overwhelming and unproductive. It may be better to have some employees come back sooner to avoid that. It’s also an opportunity to get employees whose positions are better oriented towards working in-person rather than remotely a chance to come in sooner.
If you’d like to learn more or view the entire check-list that SHRM provides you can visit their website at https://www.shrm.org/back-to-work-checklist