5 steps to crafting a return to office plan employees won’t hate

Employees need to feel like what they are being asked to do has a purpose, says Pitts. Managers who are equipped to communicate the why and how a return-to-office policy is important for their team stand a better chance at bringing people along, and will encounter less friction, she says. 

“You have to be able to be concrete about what the ask is and why it matters,” she says. “Filling people in along the way is a distraction. A ‘because I said so’ approach causes a tremendous amount of friction. If there hasn’t been intentional investment to build the rapport required to have those conversations, it will be slow going, like pushing a boulder up a steep hill.”