Now that the restrictions of the pandemic are easing up, employees working from home are returning to the office. But the stress and the tension are there because many have grown accustomed to working off-site. There are a few things that employers and managers can do to make the transition easier. The following are a few ideas on how you can make it easy and fun for employees to go back to the office.
Dress Casually On Specific Days
When you have employees who spend working hours at home in their pajamas, it will be hard for them to go back to a formal dress code. You can introduce casual dress codes on specific days to make it more enticing for them to come back to the office.
Choose at least one day of the business week when they can wear simple t-shirts, leggings, denim pants, jeans, or even their favorite sleepwear. If it fits your company culture, you can make comfortable clothing the daily norm and only wear formal attire on special occasions.
To make it extra fun, hold a costume contest and give a prize to the most comfortably-dressed worker.
Create A Memory Wall
If you want a fantastic ice breaker and reconnection tool, have employees bring photos they have that are related to previous company-related activities such as fundraisers, team-building, and outings. Pin them on a designated wall where employees always gather and socialize. Examples of these are the break room, the pantry, or the water dispenser. To make it more personalized, use live screen printing to decorate the memory wall. Have new hires write on a notecard what they’re looking forward to in the coming weeks and what their goals are and pin them to the wall. Then during the group meetings, you can ask about their progress.
Throw A Reopening Party
After quite some time of working from home, the once empty office spaces will open again. It may feel like the first time they have walked into the office. You can welcome them back with a grand reopening party with food, drinks, and party favors. Plan with your team to organize the tablecloths, balloons, paperware, napkins, and even have music play during the event.
Fill bags with personalized favorites like inflatable balls, paper crowns, and more. You can hand them to the employees as they walk through the door. How about a funny spin to their comeback and having them wear name tags to remind co-workers who they are.
If you still have work-from-home employees, you can send them fun and personalized party favor bag filled with the same items that the others received.
Organize A Scavenger Hunt
It’s a fact that no matter how old we get, games are still fun to play, even as adults. A scavenger hunt will get your employees’ attention. They offer a thrill that anyone would want to experience because of the nature of the game. Hunt down clues, locate hidden items, and stimulate their adrenaline as they follow the trail in this mini-mystery game. The game is not just fun, but it also inspires teamwork, cooperation, and the anticipation to reach their goal in record time. Your team will need to use critical thinking skills and make informed decisions. If you can, you can even equip your team with an electronic performance and tracking system, or EPTS, that is usually used by sports teams. If your employees are participating in community games like soccer, they can even make use of this technology to track their physical stats.
Start A Wellness Program
While the pandemic has caused many businesses to shut down, those still in operation are now more aware of the mental health of their employees. Business organizations are now prioritizing to ensure that they’re providing support for the people they work with.
When asking your employees to come back to the office, inform them that the company is launching a wellness program. You can source a good app containing important health information with link-sharing capabilities for pictures and videos. The app will have missions that your employees can do and share with their teams from their phones.
You can set up how to award points and prizes to staff members who can complete missions, goals, or tasks. It encourages accountability and allows your staff members to feel a sense of pride and accomplishment.
In Conclusion
While it may be hard for people to get back to the office, you can make it easy for your employees to come back on-site with these fun activities for them. If you can, you can make any of them permanent to encourage them to work on their tasks and responsibilities while minimizing the stress they used to feel in the office.
