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My company’s RTO mandate, coupled with an inadequate desk reservation system, has been so frustrating!
Elaine Varelas discusses RTO mandates and why it's essential to discuss scheduling tool issues with your manager, HR, and team.
Q. There is a RTO office mandate at my company (at least 2 days in the office per week), but the desk reservation system is beyond frustrating! There aren’t enough desks on peak days, it’s hard to locate colleagues, and a handful of my colleagues have assigned desks that go unused when they are traveling or on PTO. And when it comes to our desk reservation system, it’s often not up to date so there’s no room for flexibility. I am not alone in my frustration related to this, but don’t want to “complain.” Any suggestions?
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A. Return-to-office mandates are creating significant tension between employees, Human Resources and facilities staff, while senior leadership often assumes these policies are straightforward to enforce and that accountability will be easy to maintain. Most organizations cut back on their square footage as soon as they had the opportunity following COVID. While they were able to save real estate money, most employees lost any kind of private or permanent workspace. Employees were told to be accustomed to sharing workspace and were no longer able to house or display any personal items or even work tools, such as monitors. And employees must use whatever scheduling tool the organization was able to develop to help people plan so that office space could be maximized.
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What’s unfortunate and seems to be more common is these systems don’t work well. One issue is that they don’t specify where employees are located, which doesn’t help the objective of promoting collaborative team meetings and fostering collegial social interactions.
The reality is that they aren’t near as effective as HR or senior leaders hoped that they would be and there has to be a better way. Some employees have recognized methods to have colleagues “sign in” for them when they are nowhere near the office. Does anyone else remember timecards being punched in or out by one person for crews of people
RTO office mandates have caused organizations to lose skilled employees who might have moved away to a part of the country with a lower cost of living and were able to conduct themselves in a highly professional manner and deliver results. Changing the terms of returning to the office has been much more difficult for employees and organizations than ever anticipated.
When you think about complaining, see if you can reframe the concept into problem solving. Let’s revisit the main objective of having a team workspace: enhancing collaboration. Work closely with your IT or facilities teams to explore options for designating specific days and areas that will help you make the most of your interactions and communication with your colleagues. Be sure to be able to provide examples and data.
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This will allow you to realize the benefits you would expect from RTO mandates. When RTO DOESN’T work, people lose productivity and become frustrated. And employees may even end up losing working hours by often leaving and returning home where they can find the time and energy to work undisturbed.
Having senior leadership try to live by the mandates they create is a great way to help them understand these are not “one off” issues. Discussing these issues with your manager, HR, and your team is the only way to bring about meaningful change. Unless people recognize that there is an issue with the scheduling tool, they’ll leave it alone, assuming that they’ve solved the problem.
Be civil. Be kind.
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