Return-to-Office Mandates: Drivers Behind Low Compliance

“Our CEO just issued a mandate to return to the office, but attendance hasn't changed.”

Per CRUX Workplace's recent research, we've noted that organizations are still struggling to gain adoption for return-to-office policies, with compliance rates remaining low.

Here are common barriers that contribute to low compliance: 

1. When the Policy Doesn’t Align with the Overall Business Strategy

This barrier occurs when the policy conflicts with how the business operates and key performance indicators, making the request for increased office presence a source of strain rather than a benefit. Here are two common ways this could present itself within an organization.

The Purpose for Being In The Office Is Unclear: Employees may struggle to recognize the broader benefits of spending more time in the office, especially while many report struggling under increasing workloads. Employees may fear that coming to the office could negatively impact their productivity or work quality by disrupting their established routines. Without a clear link to broader business objectives, leadership support enabling employees to prioritize in-person work, and flexibility to maintain balance, employees are unlikely to spend meaningful time in the office.

Team Meeting Schedules Conflict with Coming into the Office : Employees with schedules shaped by global calls or meetings that fall outside standard work hours—like early mornings or late evenings—find it impractical to commute. Without adjustments to meeting culture or timing, they may feel that working from home is the only feasible option. 

2. When Policies are Created Team by Team

This common barrier arises when decisions about time spent in the office are made only by team or division leaders, without overarching goals or guiding policies across the organization. Below are three common barriers to return associated with this approach.

Cross-Team Collaborations Are Diminished Without Relevant Overlaps: When return-to-office policies are set only at the team level, they often overlook the prevalence of cross-functional interactions. Employees may find themselves in the office with their team but disconnected from other departments they work with regularly, reducing the value they receive from being in the office.

Path to Achieving Strategic Benefits of In-Office Work is Unclear: While organizations may cite innovation, mentorship, or relationship-building as reasons for being in the office, activities and interactions that produce these results often require intentional in-person time that goes beyond an individual team’s deliverables or productivity metrics. Without a broader organizational strategy, teams are unlikely to universally devote time to this effort as necessary to facilitate these benefits. Additionally, these goals require intentional programming and change management to be realized—simply increasing time spent in the office does not ensure positive business outcomes.

Inconsistent Experiences Across Teams: Employees frequently note unwarranted disparities between teams with similar roles when in-office expectations are manager driven. In some cases, we've found, leaders wanted their teams in the office more often but hesitate to enforce policies without organizational clarity. Employees, in turn, have found the inconsistencies to be unfair, wishing the guidelines had more uniformity to ensure equitable treatment across the organization. 

3. When the Office Environment Doesn’t Support Modern Workstyles

This barrier arises when the office design fails to align with employees' daily activities, either because it hasn't been updated in recent years or was originally designed without engaging employees. Here are some examples of how this can manifest as barriers to return within an organization.

Outdated Technology Infrastructure: Modern work relies on laptops, mobile devices, and flexible movement within the office or between sites throughout the day. Unlike older setups with stationary desktops and landlines, today’s workplaces need to support mobility with reliable Wi-Fi, docking stations, and accessible power outlets throughout the office for employees to work effectively.

An Office Layout That is Out of Alignment with Employee Work Activities: The shift in technology and growth of dispersed teams has introduced new needs, such as private rooms for virtual calls and collaborative areas for group work. Offices that fail to provide these spaces leave employees feeling unsupported in their daily activities, driving them to seek out alternatives like home offices to complete these tasks effectively.

Isolation Created by Low Seating Density: Traditional desk assignments, where each employee has a fixed spot, can create physical and social isolation and a perception that attendance is low. This can make the office feel underutilized and discourage employees from coming in, as they are not experiencing opportunities for meaningful connection with colleagues.

In Summary

To develop and implement effective in-office policies—ones that genuinely support the success of the company rather than simply ticking the box—it’s essential to identify and reduce barriers to adoption. 

Policies that clearly link business strategies and employee activities as well as those designed to enable cross-functional collaboration will be most successful. Workspaces should be updated to accommodate modern technology and role-specific activities, supported by organizational guidelines that provide employees with clear policies aligned with the company’s culture and business objectives. 

Understanding the barriers to adoption within your organization can enhance compliance with office returns and make the policies more supportive of overall business objectives. Workplace consultants can assist companies in identifying these unique challenges and developing tailored solutions to address them effectively.

CRUX Workplace

The Workplace Renovation Gamble

Is this how your occupancy feels?

The Workplace Gamble.

If your “Build it and they will come” approach hasn't panned out, you're not alone. It's a gamble. We’re hearing a lot about mandates and seeing less evidence that newly designed office spaces are reaping optimal occupancy results.

Not only do employees want to be included in the process of creating their new workplace, both the project and company benefit from employee engagement. We're calling this, the "Engage them and they will come" approach.

Let’s imagine this is a restaurant:

A restaurant is losing business. On what have historically been the busiest nights of the week, the restaurant is quiet. Below are two imagined scenarios.

Scenario 1- Build it and they will come. The owners decide to invest in renovating their restaurant with the latest furniture and decor, and new items on their menu. After being closed for renovation, they open up, hoping customers will flock to their restaurant. Maybe it’s a hit, maybe it’s a flop, it’s a real gamble.

Scenario 2 - When they come, I will build. Now imagine the same restaurant- digs their heals in the ground. It’s clear they need to make a change, but they want proof of use and funds to necessitate the space. They delay new investments in their restaurant, asking their customers to continue to patronize their outdated establishment, promising to make updates in the future. (ring any bells?) They are asking their customers to take a gamble – if you keep coming, when the time is right, you’ll be rewarded, maybe.

In these scenarios, there is a promise, a gamble, a hope. It's a bit of fantasy thinking, the solution is not likely to meet some groups’ expectations.

We’re seeing this in office spaces.

A company unveils a shiny new space for their employees. As employees were not meaningfully involved in the planning of the space, it doesn’t fully meet their needs. The company took a gamble with their workplace, and while the space may be beautifully designed- the lack of emotional ‘buy-in’ and functionality for employees’ needs lowers occupancy.

“If employers are looking to see employee commitment to the office prior to making informed changes- they are very likely to be disappointed. “

Optimizing Occupancy & Workplace Renovation

Now let’s talk about a reduced risk approach- the “Engage them and they will come” way.

Back to our restaurant. Upon losing business our restaurant begins speaking with customers and their workers to learn more about the state of their business. What are our best dishes, what would you like more of, how is the experience of coming here, working here? What would you like to see in this neighborhood?

Perhaps from this research, the restaurant tries out a few new sample dishes to gain feedback and show people they are listening and making changes. Then they shift their layout to experiment with service experience. They find people mostly come to them for a certain style of food and they can create more space in their menu for this type of cuisine, removing the dishes that are no longer being ordered.

Now this restaurant’s business is beginning to pick up – not because of any major changes- but because there are signs of greater attunement with their consumers. This change has immediately created a more desirable environment prior to a full overhaul. By showing interest in what their customers want, they've gained a wealth of information and fostered loyalty, delivering a clear path between customer feedback and the changes that are integrated.

"People want a high touch change where they don’t have to wait and guess what might happen, they can see the direction changing in a desirable way."

Now the restaurant is ready for their intentional renovation. As they've been creating pilot projects along the way, they feel confident their new direction will be a success. Their customers are cheering them on and telling their friends because they feel connected, valued, and exceptionally served.

An "Engage them and they will come" approach to workplace change, connects with employees throughout the process creating a solution that is built off evidence, insights, and successful pilot experiences. With the guesswork removed, the outcome will already have benchmark data as a proof of concept, ensuring the results you've invested in materialize.

There’s no need for gambling or leaps of faith with your real estate. Creating a Real Estate and Workplace Strategy with a focus on workforce engagement provides a clear and reduced risk path to a successful solution.

Strategic Uses for Sensor Data

Photo by Headway on Unsplash

In an age where data is more available than ever, measuring does not guarantee understanding.

The path from measuring workplace usage to implementing a successful flexible or hybrid workplace is not a straight line. Whereas companies may have relied on badge swipe or occupancy sensor data to influence traditional office designs, human-centered and dynamic working spaces benefit from qualitative data. Data from technology that senses occupancy can provide evidence to support the needs of your workplace most effectively when the sensing devices are placed strategically, and the data is used in combination with qualitative business intelligence captured through employee engagement.

Sensor Technology

Many organizations have made investments in technology that senses occupancy and utilization to measure how spaces are being accessed in the workplace. These small devices are placed in locations within the office, from conference rooms and open work settings to individual desks. Sensing devices collect information which is then synthesized into proprietary dashboards allowing companies to see utilization patterns and occupancy rates of the monitored spaces. Data collated from sensor technology can be used to clarify actual use patterns from intended and anecdotal use patterns.

If you are unsure of how to get the most out of your sensor data, you are not alone. Linear methods of analyzing data create an incomplete view when forecasting future needs of flexible workplaces. Many of our clients are unsure of how to interpret and apply their data to hybrid workplaces. When paired with behavioral context from employee engagement activities, we get holistic information that can more accurately inform both the workplace and real estate strategy.

Context Matters

Contextualizing sensor data with qualitative business intelligence gained through interviews, engagement, and collaboration mapping provides a robust view of space usage. Engaging with occupiers allows you to understand what might be missing from their workplace or work settings that need to be replaced. Hidden impacts like technology mismatches, perceived lack of permission, or expected behaviors can surface during these interactions. Engagement reveals factors enabling employees to work better and provides an opportunity for employees to share insights on improvements to business processes and key adjacencies.

For example, with “frequency of use” sensors, you might see your 10-person meeting rooms are popular, which alone might mislead you into thinking you need more rooms of this size and configuration. With “quantifying sensors” you might find that these rooms are most frequently used by groups of three.

Layering on employee engagement, you might learn that those groups of three choose the larger conference room because they carry a lot of bags with them to the office. With this knowledge, we know more about beneficial conference room sizes, and we’ve identified a need for personal storage that has avoided a costly mistake.

Learning from employees regardless of their current utilization provides a more accurate view of future occupancy.

Workplace sensor technology is only able to track the usage of your office by employees who are choosing or mandated to be there. For the employees who are not currently using the office, the data will not show who would come in if the space had a design that better suit their needs. Gaining insights from these employees can also draw out ideas for policies that might support their office participation. When combined with employee engagement, sensor data can shed light on behaviors and needs of different departments, inclusive of people who are not using the space regularly.

Here are three strategic ways to use sensors and subsequent data on your projects.

PILOT PROJECTS | Workplace sensing technology can be a present observer, creating a view into how people are interacting with your pilot(s). This is especially beneficial when experimenting with new work settings, as it gives an indication of employee preference and can identify where undesirable usage behaviors emerge. Providing evidence of usage within your pilot can inform tweaks and corrections to be made prior to a roll out of solutions across the company.

OCCUPANCY WITHIN ROOMS | Some types of sensor technology can quantify how many people are accessing a space, allowing you to collect the size of user groups and discover new use cases. With this level of specificity, a solo pacer in your training room will register differently than group collaboration, which might otherwise have created a misleading data point.

CHANGES IN OCCUPANCY | Monitoring usage styles and occupancy trends during periods of time can forecast spatial needs and inform workplace experience. Periods of time can include days of the week, business cycles, employee engagement campaigns, trainings, and meetings. This is particularly useful if part of your challenge is to optimize occupancy and potentially rationalize real estate. As an example, changes in occupancy revealing peak days during the week can be identified and resolved using Team Agreements (agreed working arrangements).

Taking Action

Below are some steps for designing your sensing project:

1. Begin with a question, ie: Based on research, what types of collaboration spaces will be the most desirable?

2. Select the type of device that will provide the information you seek, ie: Access, Quantifying, Heat Mapping, etc..

3. Identify sensor placements based on your question, ie: Conference Rooms, Desks, Pilot Areas

4. Ensure the provided dashboard collates the information in a meaningful way. If not, work with the manufacturer to customize the dashboard or design your own template for synthesizing the raw data.

5. Engage with employees to understand and contextualize the findings and initial hypotheses.

Putting it Together

Workplace sensing technology is becoming a growing part of facilities management. By providing evidence of the spaces that are being accessed we can bypass information that might reflect intended usage patterns. Workplace sensing technology is most effective when combined with qualitative employee insights.

Overlaying and translating data sources can be performed by workplace consultants. These specialists can support you in placing your sensing devices strategically and creating a context for the information through exercises to engage your workforce.

Workplace consultants guide clients in utilizing their existing data, making recommendations on new ways to collect, model, and view information. With their deep understanding of your data, they turn insights into a workplace strategy that ensures the future relevance of the office.

Intentional usage of measurement tools such as occupancy sensing technology combined with engagement activities ensure the generated data is relevant to the questions and needs of your organization.

CRUX Workplace