TWEP - Episode 21 - Post Pandemic - Workplace Guidelines

The Workplace Experience

Do you think attaching bonuses to time in the office is the way to go to get people to return to the office?
If so, would it get you to work from the office more frequently?
Recent media articles reveal that employees at Origin Energy and Suncorp Group risk having their bonuses cut if they do not comply with office attendance rules.
The policies were introduced this year to set clearer expectations for staff and come as organisations try to strike a balance with workers who became used to working more flexibly during the pandemic.
For example, the Commonwealth Bank has struggled to get a couple of hundred workers to comply with its requirement to come into the office at least 50 per cent of their time each month.
So I think we would all refer to this as the big stick approach….the top down approach…management by stealth…. it cetainly does not help workplace culture.
People all need guard rails to protect themselves form making stupid short term decisions.
I want to float a few ideas - we often discuss how the office is one of the key tools in the kit of parts of getting people to return to work, to become more social, more creative, more productive - knowledge is essential from how to use tools in the workplace but this should also include an organisations workplace standards, protocols and policies to assist employees to get the most out of not just the physical office but also now the organisations flexible working policy.
The workplace standards for many organisations have had to be reviewed for a post pandemic workplace, the years of the rack and stack with little or no consideration to the personal physical space for individuals is now long gone.
Many progressive clients have looked at their Workplace Standards documents as an education tool to help employees understand the best way to preserve physical distancing and also what the best settings are best used for what activities a person or team may be doing in that part of the office.
Many of these documents were a standard that was applied globally for multi-national organisations but your local team must be able to relate to the rationale behind the standards.
So it is even more important now to develop a local or regional version of the workplace standards more so the an over arching global version. The office design and functionality are impacted by local cultural factors and their geographical location.
In Australia, this is even a challenge for national organisations that may have employees working in the capital cities verses regional and country locations.
These standards now also need to take into account the expectations of people working from home or other locations other than the office. It sets out the expectation of how the workplace outside the office needs to be set up or configured to understand the basic requirements to minimise risk to the employee. Remember people need guidance to protect themselves from making stupid decisions.
Once an organisation has bought their standards, protocols and policies document up to date, then it will need a periodic review to see how progress in technology, tools and new furniture options can contribute to changes to the standards.
When you add significant changes that are health driven not economically driven, due to events like the recent pandemic these see a requirement for changes in the protocols and policies part of the workplace guidelines. Look at the COVID numbers in recent weeks in Singapore, lets not assume we are out of the woods on this one.
Now lets have a chat about the protocols. Remember these are the rules or guidelines that explain the best conduct or procedure for a particular situation. They are different to a policy.
They consider how to deliver best practice using a rationale process. These often have to be changed or modif