Bring teams back into the offices! Rewrite a beautiful love story! Who would have imagined it? Covid has revolutionized the way we work with teleworking and the home office. All over the world, bosses and employees have discovered that they can be just as operational remotely, from home or sometimes very far from their company’s bases. At the end of 2023, however, more and more large groups are pushing for a return of their executives in person, at least two or even three days a week. A trend that has once again started in the United States.
When the office takes its revenge…
At Zoom – the teleworking tool, specialist in video, which has so disrupted the way we work – management believes that a “structured hybrid approach is now the most effective”. The leaders of Meta, Salesforce and Google are also convinced: “Teleworking alone is no longer acceptable. » Elon Musk took the trouble to convey this message himself to the Tesla teams with the delicacy that we know him to be: “Any person who wishes to telework must be in the office for a minimum of forty hours per week, or leave You’re here. […] If you do not show up, we will consider you to have resigned. »
Of course, there are employees happy to finally leave their home office! Covid has left psychological marks on some of them. According to Béatrice Roulleau, SEO Manager at Factorial – which offers a complete and scalable HR solution: “Teams need to get together, and managers need to recreate a dynamic. Flexible working is a good alternative. » It is not easy, however, to get certain people to admit that they must return there full time. Habits are formed quickly, especially when you have the feeling of being as effective from home… and when the facts have been able to prove it in reality. In 2022, 56% of French people worked remotely, for an average of 3.6 days per week. Particularly on Fridays, with 49% of employees working at home; 77% of employees requested more relevant tools, which they often obtained to increase their productivity. If companies really want to bring employees back to their premises, the equation is quite simple: make the office even better than their home for those who don’t want to leave it! And 55% of employees consider, to date, that their company does not put enough actions in place to guarantee their well-being at work.
The ball has never been so much in the court of HR managers and businesses. Léa Binet-Ferté, deputy general director of Great Place to Work France – an actor who measures employee confidence in 70 countries – observes a pendulum swing with the return to the office. “With economic uncertainty, the relationship between the employee and the company is rebalancing. There is also an issue of equity between blue-collar workers and white-collar workers which was difficult for companies to manage. Employers feel that excessive teleworking can have a negative impact on productivity and on attachment to the organization which leads to less commitment. »
Flex office
Facilitating places for exchange and creation with communication tools connected to the outside world, developing moments of conviviality, offering activities ranging from coaching to fooding, services – nursery, in particular –, these are the new major trends. Let’s also add flex office, which optimizes collaboration. “We must support these movements,” recommends Léa Binet-Ferté. These new places, ways of working and activities offered create links beyond the different teams, very simply. Sometimes an app is designed to ensure connections. This is one of the favorable conditions that can encourage employees to return to the office and be happy there. » Some groups go so far as to help their employees find accommodation near the offices, sometimes even by purchasing accommodation that they rent to them. Coliving solutions are developing. La Casa is one of the key players. Companies like Capgemini are also banking on coworking and forming partnerships to provide employees with suitable, connected work spaces close to home. An “intermediate” place, but a real office. This model, however, remains fragile, as evidenced by the announced bankruptcy of the American giant We Work, which is reportedly preparing to file for bankruptcy. In total, 777 locations and 906,000 workstations, spread across 39 countries, are threatened with closure.
Feel Good Manager
CSR performance and the office’s carbon footprint have now become key criteria of choice for the employee, who, after remuneration and the interest of the position, has his eyes fixed on the environmental values conveyed by the employer. Sarah Delaval is associate director of Pousse, an agency created in 2013. In Paris, Bordeaux and Lille, with around thirty employees, she greens living and working spaces, indoors and outdoors, with style. Her well-known clients include Hermès, Morning Coworking, Lydia and Bacardi. “With post-Covid, we had to reinvent the office. We no longer put plants because they are beautiful. We seek the meaning of why we beautify places. » And Sarah Delaval points out all the new professions that have developed within the groups: “Before, there was HR. There is now, at his side, the CSR manager, the Happiness Office Manager, the Facility Manager, the Plants Office Manager. The Feel Good Manager has also appeared! It is a new phenomenon which responds to an environmental trend but also to that of well-being at work. » With other clearly stated objectives, those of nurturing a corporate culture and seeking quality and service labels. All this of course has an assumed and budgeted cost.
The office environment is increasingly at the heart of the priorities of French companies. It is no longer an epiphenomenon reserved for trendy start-ups. Valrhona, a chocolate factory intended for pastry chefs and artisans, located in the South-East, has invested significantly in the quality of life at work for its employees in the factories but also in the administrative offices. “This is how we created a health center, to help our employees better understand relationships not only at work but also outside. This center is made up of two nurses from the company who can rely on a social worker and a psychologist. »
How can you not be happy as 2024 approaches in the office? But the real next revolution linked to AI, ready to sweep across all our screens and workspaces, is not far away… Elon Musk – always him – has he not just confided that “thanks to AI, working will no longer be necessary […] but a personal choice”, while emphasizing “the importance of having a physical switch” – understand for robots and crazy software. The office has not finished its revolution…