When the Return to Office Mandate Makes Your People Go
Full Braveheart
Anyone else noticed how many return-to-office mandates have been popping up lately?
Woolworths is on the go, along with Coles, Bendigo Bank, AMP, Amazon, Flight Centre and Dell, to name a few.
It was always going to happen. However, for a lot of people, it feels like having their freedom taken away and they are going full Braveheart.
The issue now is how do leaders in companies best support these changes and actually help people get back into the groove of more days in the office and less in their Ugg boots.
They need to foster collaboration, help people build the right relationships, prevent the additional office days from being a sea of meetings, and ultimately rebuild their culture, making the office an enjoyable place to be.
This part of the year is a really good time to do this.
It’s networking season in the corporate world.
People are out and about, attending events, having coffee meetings, generating work, progressing projects and trying to figure out how best to make things happen over the year ahead.
The gap is, very few people have a plan to make this process as effective as possible and even less companies provide training to support this essential relationship building or business development activity.
Instead people fall into the trap of enduring back-to-back meetings and hiding behind their email, hoping someone will do whatever it is they are asking them to.
Mark McCormack, the late founder of IMG once said,
“All things being equal, people will do business with a friend; all things being unequal, people will still do business with a friend.”
So how do you make better friends with your colleagues, customers, suppliers and partners?
I’m glad you asked.
If you’ve been off the patch (WFH or simply not connecting with others for a while), it’s up to you to make the effort. For this you need a plan.
Here’s how to get started:
- Figure out where you’re going to start – internal or external relationships, transactional or strategic
- Create a list of people you need to connect with
- Create a 90-day plan with the names of these people and other activities you can get involved in that will put you in the same orbit
- Then start reaching out
Say things like:
“I was thinking about _____ and would love to run it past you.”“I was thinking about you and realised we haven’t seen each other in a million years. Let’s catch up for a coffee. Let me know if Tuesday works.”
Trick is to not overthink it just and get going.
If you’re a leader in your business, you may need to help people get started.
I heard a statistic last week that one of the biggest reasons relationship development fails is because there’s a lack of employee recognition for the effort expended.
So encourage people and then acknowledge their effort. Reward them if you need to.
Your business depends on it.
When you consider that some people are cutting their toenails in the offices (yes, really), it will help you understand that it’s become extremely challenging for some people to rebuild their social skills.
Although, you could argue the toenail cutters didn’t have a lot in the first place…
Over to you.
What are you doing or could you be doing to get your groove back and build your most important working relationships?
Nina
PS. We’ve been helping clients kick the year off with Strategy Refresh workshops because things keep changing! We’d love to help you and your team too. You can contact me here or reply to this email.
Also, my eBook has a bunch of strategies for building relationships, engaging new markets and motivating teams. Download it here – Strategies for Growth in Uncertain Markets