Home office and hybrid working have now established themselves in the working world. Although many companies now allow and welcome office presence, many employees would like to be able to continue working from home - at least for the majority of their working week.
According to a study by the Fraunhofer Institute, employees can certainly imagine returning to the office. However, a complete return to the office has become unthinkable for a large proportion of employees.
However, it is also clear that employees recognize the office as a creative place for social exchange: Thus, the most frequent reasons for returning to the office are direct and personal communication and collaboration with colleagues as well as the opportunity to exchange ideas informally.
So how do companies entice their employees back from the home office? What does it take to make employees want to come back to the office? Special incentives are needed to awaken the desire to return to the office.
For many employees, a weighty argument against the office is the commute to work. According to an international study, employees save an average of around one hour per day by working from home.
65 minutes - That's how high more than 2,000 employees in Germany indicated for the survey how many minutes their commute to the office would take (there and back). The respondents also indicated how they spent the time gained instead.
According to the study, 65 minutes are saved per day in the home office. According to the study, employees use 20 minutes of this time for additional work, 10 minutes for household chores and 5 minutes for childcare or caring for relatives. Almost half of the time gained, around 30 minutes, is used by employees for their free time, e.g. for sports, reading or other hobbies. The figures show that the home office probably has a positive effect on the work-life balance and well-being of employees.
So what does it take for employees to give up this extra free time - and want to come back to the office?
It is important to coordinate who actually comes to the office and when. After all, if you come to the office and end up alone again, holding virtual meetings with colleagues who are in the home office, you'll think twice next time about whether it's worth going to the office.
A fixed weekly presence day for the team could help here, which can be combined with additional social offerings, such as a joint lunch or a team meeting in a relaxed atmosphere. In this way, companies can show that presence has an incredible value that the home office alone cannot offer.
However, employees are also concerned that they are more likely to be disturbed by colleagues in the office or to lose their flow more than in the home office - especially in open-plan offices. What is needed here is an infrastructure that is adapted to the needs of employees. In addition to large meeting rooms, companies should also create retreats and workspaces for individuals where employees can work undisturbed.
In addition to the modern office environments already mentioned, it is worthwhile for companies to make an effort to offer other benefits. In addition to office events, these can also include childcare or sports activities. The general rule here is that benefits are useful if they allow employees to save time and reconcile their professional and private lives.
However, the choice of benefit should be carefully considered, because offers such as childcare or sports activities do not necessarily appeal to everyone in the company and tend to address the individual needs of specific employee groups. It is therefore important to create an incentive that is flexible and from which all employees can benefit.
Last but not least, the commute to the office is also a financial issue: anyone who has been able to save on commuting expenses for months is unlikely to voluntarily make the trip to the office again without financial incentives.
Classic mobility offers such as a company car or a job ticket are no longer up to date and too inflexible in times of hybrid and flexible working. In addition, a representative survey commissioned by the digital association bitkom shows that these offers no longer reflect the actual mobility behavior and needs of employees. 96% of respondents said they had fundamentally changed their mobility behavior in recent years. The main reasons for this are the climate and rising costs, but also the shift to home offices.
What is particularly striking here is that people are increasingly relying on a mix of different modes of transport and mobility services. For example, bicycles are being used more and more frequently and the use of sharing services, such as car sharing or bike, e-scooter and moped sharing, has increased significantly.
This change in mobility behavior also has an impact on employee mobility in companies. With only a few trips to the office per week, employees more often want more flexible mobility options that are adapted to their personal needs and circumstances. Offers such as a company car or a monthly job ticket are no longer worthwhile for many because they are too inflexible.
A monthly mobility budget can meet this new mobility mix of employees and noticeably relieve them financially in the process. A flexible offer creates incentives for a return to the office.
The topic of mobility, whether commuting to work or the private trip to the grocery store or to the family, also appeals to every employee in the company and is not limited to individual employee groups. All employees benefit from a mobility budget.
From an administrative point of view, a mobility budget as an employee benefit can also be advantageous for companies. While many classic benefits platforms offer many benefits that companies are not interested in, a mobility budget platform focuses on the area of employee mobility and bundles all mobility offers centrally in one place.
Mobility is relevant for all companies and their employees, but classic benefits platforms can only inadequately or not at all cope with the complexity that the mobility sector entails.
For larger companies, the complexity of the issue is also greater than for smaller companies. To reduce this complexity and make the area of mobility more manageable and with less administration, a simple and digital solution is needed.
