Recently, we’ve witnessed daily tales of workers ordered back to their office in the ongoing RTO saga. Boorish leaders are stomping their feet, demanding workers get bums on seats. With many workers happy enjoying the comforts of home, this creates a highly polarised debate.
Between the options of work from home, hybrid and RTO, there’s a fine line between “obey our version of your contract,” and luring people back home with some extra benefits to make-up for the loss of freedom.
There’s also the individual need, with some people missing those water cooler moments and office banter, while many prioritise personal and family time above the lure of a spacious desk.
One of the more wallet-friendly examples comes from Chicago where personal celebrity video message platform Cameoopted for the big carrot approach, waving $10,000 pay increases in front of staff to RTO for four days each week.
Each of the 26 workers in the Chicago area agreed to the deal, so for just over $250,000, Cameo gets the best of both worlds to rebuild its platform that dived from $1 billion in value to just $100 million due to COVID and intense competition in recent years.
What’s the best offer for RTO?
While enterprise CEOs can be more aggressive in their effort to restore order, others will have to find a level of compromise for workers. Negotiations for key experts and knowledge workers can cover a multitude of areas, from hybrid hours, extra days off, additional benefits and better in-office conditions. Doughnuts and coffee won’t sway many in the argument, but for tightly-run teams, the small things can make a difference. One approach involves maximising employee value from RTO days, focused on strategic planning and productive tasks, rather than typical meetings-about-meetings and day-job work.
Of greater concern for new hires, is the risk of taking a role advertised as work-from-home and then finding the company mandates an RTO recall at some point in the future. Contracts should be negotiated to ensure a negotiated change, with specified benefits to make that a happy transition, rather than a forcing workers to quit due to an unfair change in conditions.
While corporate CEOs might not care about losing a few hundred employees that won’t play the RTO ball, many bosses of smaller firms will find that the talent drain can damage their business. In that case, leaders and HR need to change their RTO-obsessed mind before the impact becomes too great.