Revitalise your office space
5 mins
The other day, I saw a post of people celebrating on a plane. The caption? It read ‘the best thing about Sydney is leaving it’. And in a pandemic stricken city, they were probably right. Sydney has been very quiet of late.
For one of the world’s great international cities, Sydney and Australia more generally had been hard hit by the pandemic. But, with the National cabinet announcing an end to mandatory quarantine, normal life is having a re-emergence. For several years now, office owners have been worrying that their investment into the workplace is simply no longer worth it as employees opt to set up home offices and are reluctant to return to workplaces.
However, this is not the case for everyone, as some companies have managed to lure their employees back into their offices albeit on different arrangements than prior to the pandemic. Spacenow can be utilised by companies to organise exciting staff events in great spaces to encourage employees to build connections with their coworkers, see their job as more than just work - and even entice them into working in the office for fun, as well as profit.
Not to say that there are no benefits to working from home, you save transport costs, a longer sleep in and overall it makes the work day easier. This is why many people are undertaking a hybrid approach to their office work, working from home some days and in the office on others. Having a balance like this is optimal, you have the best of both worlds as you can meet your co-workers in person some days then on other days you can work from home. The embedded tweet below may open your eyes to why your employees love to work from home if it wasn't already obvious enough. Watch it and think of some ways that you could counteract the dread of getting to the office for your employees.
Make The Office Fun Again
The main issue with attracting employees to your office is it may feel quite soulless and a bit pointless after so long at home. After all, who really wants to leave the comfort of their home to work in an empty, quiet office anyway? Prior to COVID-19 the office was in almost every case across all businesses the central hub where all employees could meet, mentor, discuss, socialise, gossip and engage with each other.
Not every meeting had to be set up via zoom and you could actually see everyone physically.
To rekindle this, an effort must be made to encourage your employees to all be in the office simultaneously. Why not set up an office Olympics, or some team-building exercises? A simple office party is a great way to start if that's too unprofessional for you or just not your job. Invite your employees to the office but make it fun, exciting and different... a cake in the middle of the room with coworkers awkwardly standing around is what your employees will envision, and dread. It's important to be creative.
Benefits Of Working In The Office
Working in the office is paramount to establishing a company culture, so it is up to the people. It’s up to the people that make up the company to be present and establish a healthy, professional, effective culture. An office filled with employees makes it easier to pick each other's brains, because, let’s face it, organising group calls is a massive waste of time, so many ideas are lost behind the screen.
Simply looking to your left and asking a question takes a lot less time than a phone call which may or may not be answered. Younger people may be much more likely to engage with their senior leaders face to face, getting lunch, in the coffee queue, or just walking on by. Unstructured mentoring is so important to businesses that many have lost due to working-from-home arrangements.
Summer’s Coming
Humans are social animals, and the more comfortable they feel with one another the more they will want to work around each other. Building physical professional relationships within your company are so important for this, and, especially coming out of the pandemic, your employees may just not be comfortable around each other. Luckily, it's the perfect time to start planning for summer and spring activities and Halloween parties. After so long of truncated events, a humdinger of a Christmas party could be a great catalyst for professional relationship building.
Simply scrolling the 'Events' category on Spacenow will expose you to hundreds of great spaces to hold a party offsite. It’s important to hold off-site activities with your team so they don't feel confined to a relationship within their usual office space - and more importantly, so they can socialise together rather than just work together. Changing the location of a conference is a great way to capture attention, moving the function from a conference room to nature, a theatre or warehouse for example. It's easy for your employees to paint the picture of what a function will be like based on its location, especially if it's a classic function location. To counteract this, set the stage in an exciting, different space. Besides it's easy too, you only need Spacenow.