Whether you're doing it to support your customers or to stay afloat, it may be time to start sending at least some of your employees back to the office. But even with vaccinations finally becoming a reality, employers will need to tread carefully, which means deploying new technologies and building measures (depending on your state and municipality) to keep employees safe and your return-to-work (RTW) transition legal. Several human resources (HR) and facilities management software vendors are looking to help with new solutions.

Employers have a lot to consider when selecting RTW tools, how they can impact returning to work, and how they fit in with other managerial tools. The pandemic has irrevocably changed the modern workplace, both now and very likely into the permanent future. The ever-changing state of the coronavirus and its variants is only one consideration, but it's an important one right now.

Doctors believe the current virus is contagious within six feet, mainly through respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or talks. What the newer COVID variations bring to this equation may change things, so you'll need to pay attention there, too. This makes high-risk environments for restrooms, elevators, hot desks, meeting rooms, and open-concept offices.

You can find dedicated space management software to help redesign your office floor plan and keep employees adequately distanced. There are also real-time contact tracing solutions that'll let you know who might be infected, where they've been, and who else is in danger. But this category of RTW tools manages all the gray areas in between. That includes access control, pandemic communications, policy creation, and support for infected employees.

Sweeping Changes to the Workplace

A survey titled, The Rise of The Hybrid Workplace, conducted by Dimensional Research and Cisco Webex in October 2020, revealed (not surprisingly) that 99% of companies are planning sweeping and permanent changes to the workplace as a result of COVID-19. These changes include things as diverse as adding more private cubicles and dividers, rotating in-office attendance requirements, and implementing stark new office sanitation and air quality requirements.

The same survey also showed that 94% of companies say technology should benefit them by providing a safer work environment. The survey further revealed that 77% of organizations plan on increasing work flexibility, while 53% have decided to shrink office sizes with at least some employees continuing to work remotely.

But your impending changes will likely go even deeper than that, and your choice of RTW tools will need to reflect those needs. For one, returning to the office means you're asking employees to leave the safe bubble of their homes. Depending on where you are, this will mean that you, the employer, may need to become directly involved with your employees' daily commute.

"Employers have done a good job making sure offices are safe and sanitized with protocols to keep them that way. But since public transportation remains the primary mode of getting employees to the office, safety [there] is an entirely new challenge," said Dave Bryant, a vice president at One workplace, a leading commercial interiors company in the San Francisco Bay Area.

"Giving employees alternatives and safer ways to get to work, like corporate buses and ride-sharing services that have cleaning protocols," he says, "are options employers should [now] consider getting workers to and from work."

And that's only the first part of the safety equation. "When employees walk through the front door, companies need to be mindful about the experience they're creating," Bryant cautions. Strict safety protocols and rigid logistic processes can weigh down on employees, decreasing their productivity and even their desire to come to work at all. He advises carefully planning ways to safely reopen workplaces using processes that support employees' wellbeing and foster a positive office culture.

Input From Employees

An essential aspect of creating a positive workplace culture is gathering input from employees. After all, they have significant issues to consider, too. Many employees have remained productive and maintained previous performance levels even while working remotely. But working from home can be challenging, especially if multiple persons are all working or studying from smaller homes where getting privacy or even some peace can be downright impossible. Caring for children can also be a considerable time burden, especially if parents need to act as teachers even just some of the time. Finally, sharing residential Internet bandwidth can be troublesome, too, when half the family wants to game while the other half has to video conference.

Even for those employees who've found themselves more productive without commuting to work, there are some new and unexpected considerations. An important you'll probably face quickly is a new set of benefit priorities.

"In a survey of Fringe users, we found that 80% of employees felt the work-from-home era permanently changed the way they look at benefits," says Jordan Peace, co-founder and CEO at Fringe, a platform for personalized lifestyle benefits. "We found 84% said they believe that lifestyle perks will be more valuable in a post-COVID world than in-office perks and amenities, even after they return to the office," he continued.

According to Peace, his employees were looking not just for more flexible benefits but ones that helped them meet immediate needs rather than what they'd find in the more standard benefits packages that HR might typically offer.

Coupling that with the fact that the workplace won't look the same for a long time, employers will have to take a critical look at their perks and benefits strategies to ensure they're making the necessary adjustments. Otherwise, employers risk losing current talent or being disadvantaged when hiring new workers.

From an employee's perspective, they need to take a much closer look at the benefits packages offered by both current and prospective employers to make sure they're getting the best for themselves and their families. Management teams should lead with empathy and reach a consensus on what will keep their employees comfortable in the long run. They also need to exercise flexibility during unpredictable times.

Choosing Your RTW Solution

At the outset, addressing your RTW needs will entirely depend on increasing communication between managers and employees. Only with regular and two-way conversations can businesses hope to discover what employees expect from a COVID-safe office, what benefits they think they might need, or how they hope companies will help them with the daily commute. So when choosing an RTW toolset, you should look for the ability to add new communication channels or better leverage existing ones.

All the other considerations mentioned above are also essential, and together, they represent a lot of ground to cover for any single software product. That's why different products support such varied capabilities. Below, we look at ten general RTW solutions, which can help with transitioning employees back to the office. However, as each seeks to accomplish this mission a little differently, you'll want to evaluate them carefully and make sure they address what is most important to your workforce.