As you start bringing employees back to the workplace, are your managers ready to support their teams as they transition back? The cost of a bad return to work experience is high – in fact, data shows that 95% of the workforce is considering leaving their jobs as we all return to work.
Managers are vital to keeping employees engaged; and because many workplaces will likely look much different going forward, managers need to ensure their teams are prepared. Some employees may have been hired during the pandemic and have never been to the office or met colleagues in person. How can organizations help managers usher their teams back into a new way of working, so that employees feel excited and supported versus anxious and possibly unsatisfied?
Common activities organizations may want managers to complete:
- Set up 1:1s with employees to discuss how they are feeling about the transition
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- Discuss if their current work is well suited for a hybrid model - should they consider a role or project change?
- For any employees who are new to the workplace:
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- Give a tour of the office
- Organize a team lunch or activity for everyone to meet in person
- Create mentor relationships between new and seasoned employees
- Take training on how to use new tools effectively to support hybrid teams
- Define and communicate team plan for working in office vs. home
- Learn about the company policies on working from home
How can ServiceNow help?
Use a Campaign (Or content automation) to deliver scheduled and targeted messages to managers with important to-dos, knowledge articles, videos, and other sources of information to help drive manager action in welcoming back teams. For instance, you might create a campaign targeting managers that includes several to-dos required for making employees feel comfortable in the office, complete with banner visuals on the Employee Service Center and Now Mobile app that link to knowledge articles with recommended return to work best practices and tips. You may include a to-do for managers to create an action plan in Journey Accelerator or to set up 1:1s with team members. A campaign is perfect if you want to provide targeted communications to a certain group of people, such as managers.
Use Journey Accelerator to create customized action plans for managers to provide their teams to increase employee time to productivity. With Journey Accelerator, managers can create their own team plans, based on organizational templates, for employees. Managers can trigger trainings, social activities, and schedule 1:1s through an Outlook integration (see Common Activities section above for recommended action plan activities). Journey Accelerator is perfect if you want to allow managers to be able to have control over the process but also provide some organizational materials.
Note: You can also trigger a campaign to-do for managers to educate them on how they can use Journey Accelerator for their teams.
Use a Lifecycle Event for Return to Work if you want to make sure that managers and employees complete certain organizational-required activities. Lifecycle events are perfect for more complicated processes that require cross-departmental action and workflows. See our Return to Work Experience Pack for pre-configured workflows to support Return to workplace.
Interested in Learning More?
Is your organization interested in using Campaigns, Journey Accelerator, and/or Lifecycle Events? Or do you just want to learn more about how the HRSD products can help bring employees back to the office? If so, please comment on this post!
