How managers can lead teams through unpopular return-to-office policies

In recent months, we’ve seen a wave of companies (including Amazon, JPMorgan, and Dell) and the federal government announce plans for a full-time return-to-office for workers. Other companies have slowly increased the numbers of the days they require in-office weekly.

The subsequent pushback from many employees has been intense, with workers signing petitions, opting into “coffee badging” routines (where they swipe their badges, grab a coffee, and head home), or quitting all together.

As multiple elements of psychological safety are broken by actions such as these, there is often some collateral damage. After accepting countless changes needed to survive and thrive over the past few years, employees thought they had found their grooves. Therefore, when changes that were viewed as working well are amended or even nullified, workers feel justified in being upset.

If up to 70% of team engagement can be attributed to one’s manager, how, then, should managers guide teams who are feeling let down by the organization? When companies remove the remote flexible work arrangements they have come to enjoy and expect, how can you remain an authentic leader when your team—and you—may be feeling let down?

Does anybody care what we like?

One of the greatest tools leaders can employ to demonstrate their respect toward their employees is how they validate their emotions. Employee engagement has long been measured at an organizational level as an indicator of organizational effectiveness and workforce retention. Whether via large scale annual surveys or team-based conversations, employees will usually respond if asked how they are feeling.

In aggregated findings, flexible work arrangements and ability to work remotely (at least some of the time) have shown positive correlations to employee happiness, augmenting this sentiment by as much as 20%. Combined with other studies that indicate that happier workers are up to 20% more productive, many thought that hybrid and flexible work arrangements were here to stay.

However, for as many different means as executives use to determine levels of employee satisfaction, they seem to be ignoring sentiments that support flex-work and flex-time sentiments. Beyond this, as many companies are eliminating their diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, employees are not only feeling their opinions are unheard, but they are also not feeling welcome.

This sentiment has the potential to create significant ripple effects since, when employees share what’s on their mind, they will only feel “heard” if listeners meet their subjective needs and expectations. Thus, despite many reports indicating flexible work has increased productivity and job-value satisfaction, employers are catching the RTO wave and calling employees back to the office. Employees are, therefore, apt and justified to feel resentment.

This may be an indication that companies are not listening, or perhaps employers simply believe that being in the office will (eventually) equate to higher productivity and/or engagement. Whatever the reason, companies initiating RTO do not appear to be weighing employees’ desire to continue to have flexible working arrangements. Gallup reports that overall, U.S. employees’ daily negative emotions have been and remain elevated above pre-pandemic levels.

If employers were really listening to their people, they would likely hear that workers have settled into flexible work and appreciate its attributes. There are likely opportunities to fine-tune or tweak how it is managed, but abrupt RTO announcements have made the news most often because employees did not see the change coming.

When employees are happy with how things were but sense a change is underfoot, they will look to leaders to make sense of it all. This can be extra tricky with RTO policies, especially if you also appreciated your own flexible work arrangements. Thus, when it comes to leading the initiative to return to the office, a first step will be to determine how members of your team feel. Next, it will be to remain empathetic during the process, rather than trying to “manage” the change.

Change Versus Transition: Making Sense of What’s Happening

In 2020, the world hit a pivot point: Life as we knew it changed and, as a result, how and where we worked did, too. However, as managers we need to ask: Did we change, or did we actually transition to our new reality? Determining this distinction is quite relevant, as identifying what is happening bears significant influence on effective management.

We tend to interchange the ideas of “change” and “transition.” But they actually have a slightly different meaning. We know when we’re experiencing change when external events impact how we live our lives and/or interact with others. Interrupting how work is done with a policy shift is therefore a change. Thus, when the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated people to stop working together in formal office settings, this was a change. Meanwhile, according to the Bridges Transition Model, a model focusing on phases of emotional experiences and reconciliations, a “transition” is an inner psychological process that we experience when we internalize—and then come to terms with—the new situations that change brings about. Learning to regulate individual productivity and the cadence of remote-office workdays was therefore a mental transition.

While the change to remote work was almost impossible to plan for, developing a longer-term management plan was encouraged in tandem. However, in retrospect, it seems that many of these suggestions focused on the macro/organizational level, such as codifying company standards and practices and instituting training. Helping workers to become comfortable with their new reality was not a priority, and many fell into ruts of anxiety, burnout, and depression. However, those who elected to stay in their roles made mental adjustments, got into a new groove, and transitioned into a comfortable new-normal.

The Center for Creative Leadership, a nonprofit focusing on leadership development, advises leaders who manage change to bring their team members together to create a shared vision around desired goals. This was not done with the switch to remote work, as workers were abruptly sent home because of health risks. And now employers are again sending this signal with blanket RTO initiatives.

Some leaders may view changing work modalities as “just going back to how things were,” but for employees who had mentally transitioned to their new normal, it’s more than that. For the second time in five years, employees are realizing that what they want and like about how they work does not matter to their supervisors. If they are not willing to return to the office, their jobs will not be theirs. So it’s no wonder that many employees are sending their own signal: They are not happy being called to the office and many are indicating they would rather quit.

Putting It Together: Transitioning Through Change

While there are surely some organizations that are bringing people back to work just because they can (and do not have more of a rationale than that), most companies will have done some due diligence to make the RTO decision. Whatever the reason, if your company is going to institute a change in work modality, you will need to accept the decision, and then lead your people through.

What if, instead of trying to manage the team through a change, you are empathetic to the unique needs, wants, and levels of acceptance the individuals on their team are experiencing? In other words, instead of focusing on the RTO change, focus on helping the team transition through the ending of what they are used to and will likely miss?

Employees who were given the opportunity to work from home or who had flex-time or flex-space work arrangements have become comfortable in how they do their work. Whether they adjusted post pandemic or were hired into remote or hybrid roles, employees established a comfortable rhythm of work and felt trusted and empowered to work remotely. No matter how well justified RTO initiatives may be, individuals will feel shocked and angry, and may even try to deny that their old way of life is ending. It is very likely that they will grieve the loss of what they had become accustomed to which may manifest in sadness or anger if gone unattended.

To approach a change that impacts a way of life by using company policy—objectively saying “this is what has been decided”—will not feel good. At the same time, trying to make people feel comfortable by telling them it is not a big deal or that they will not notice the change after a while will also not likely work. In times of transition, a leader’s imperative is actually to help people feel like they can be successful despite being uncomfortable and temporarily unhappy.

Empathetic leaders who recognize their team members are struggling with a transition will create opportunities to foster dialogue. This may entail acknowledging that the situation is difficult and reminding the team that they have experienced challenges in the past, but the commitment to working together toward organizational goals while upholding organizational values has never waivered and will not change now. Then, leaders will listen to concerns while seeking to abate confusion and uncertainty by answering questions about what a change means, what it means to them, and how it will impact interactions with systems and with their colleagues.

They will also not hesitate to offer direct feedback to their team members about how the change is going to impact things at an organizational level. For example, if RTO is a company-wide ordinance, leaders will want to explain how office space will now be managed in a way that may enhance team interactions and/or encourage team building. If relationships are nurtured in this way, it is reasonable to expect that most employees will progress to a calmer state of acceptance—what Bridges calls a “neutral zone.”

As a leader, you can follow up on what you hear as an employee advocate. You can find the right time and ask your own supervisor your why, what, and how questions such as: Why is the company doing this now? What metrics/data demonstrates that returning to the office is appropriate? And what lift do we expect to see (productivity, efficiency, retention, etc.) with RTO? How will we accommodate employees who have made plans assuming we were going to stay remote/hybrid as we said we would?

If you do not feel the answers you receive make sense, it’s also okay to talk with Human Resources. Remember, you are not only asking for yourself, you are asking for the people you are leading.

Authentic reconciliation: You and the change

Change is never easy, but it can be the impetus for a new beginning. Leaders who take the time to respectfully listen to how team members are feeling will also need to remember that what they do with what they hear matters. The goal will be to help team members make sense of what is changing, then determine how they can effectively contribute as part of the new environment.