The challenge of the new working world is for your company to unite your teams both virtually and physically. Office days offer a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between working remotely in a home office and a permanent presence on site. Find out here how to use office days to effectively bring your team closer together.
Key facts
- Hybrid working has many advantages, but it can sometimes mean that areas of responsibility are not transparent, employees feel isolated or innovative strength decreases.
- Office days offer a good opportunity to specifically gather your teams for one or more days to work on corporate culture & team dynamics.
- However, these should under no circumstances be mandatory. Instead, you must set specific incentives to see your employees on site.
- Meetings, team events or the mere presence of favorite colleagues mean that your employees find their way to the office of their own accord.
Why are office days important in a hybrid set-up?
With the hybrid working model Many people primarily combine flexible work in the home office. Office days are often seen as a disruptive factor — especially when your employees are encouraged to come more often.
For employees as well as for you as a company, office days should be combined with hybrid work In no way be regarded as a relic of the traditional old working world. Rather, it is also an essential component in this model that increases efficiency, stimulates creativity and strengthens the social fabric of your company.
Office days play a central role in balancing flexibility and your corporate structure. They encourage spontaneous encounters at the coffee machine or in the corridor and ensure that innovation is created and that projects can be completed via short official channels. They strengthen your corporate culture and are trying to iron out the disadvantages of hybrid work.
Benefits of physical presence
Despite the numerous advantages of hybrid work, it makes sense for you as a company to plan office days. Despite ongoing digitization, physical presence remains an irreplaceable aspect for direct interactions, communication with facial expressions and gestures, and strengthening team dynamics.
The benefits of office days are therefore:
- Avoid misunderstandings: Digital communication from virtual teams works well thanks to numerous tools, but can always be associated with communication problems. It is sometimes difficult to read the facial expressions and gestures of the other person; you misunderstand yourself. Office days in particular offer new employees the opportunity to understand colleagues better and learn to read them. Conflicts can be avoided in this way.
- Increasing innovative power: Spontaneous encounters were often the drivers of innovation in the traditional working model. To keep your company coming up with good ideas, office days are ideal to make these random events possible. But also planned Brainstorming can be implemented better on office days than purely digitally with an online whiteboard.
- Promote corporate culture: The culture also keeps your company and teams together digitally — but it is much more difficult to keep alive when there are only digital encounters. Team events or Team building On office days, ensure that you get to know each other better and close the gap in digital communication and, in the long term, employee retention strengthens.
- Strengthen corporate structures: While remote work offers flexibility, office days provide the necessary structure for everyday working life. They help to draw a clear distinction between professional and private life, which is particularly important for the mental health and well-being of your employees.
- Using office space efficiently: Many companies complain about empty offices and can office expenses barely lower. In order to breathe life back into your spaces and use them efficiently, office days are a good way to make better use of these resources again while maintaining the potential for savings as an advantage.
What is the optimal frequency for your office days?
There is no general answer to how often you meet in the office. Instead, you should tailor the number of office days to the specific preferences of your employees. The right mix of home office and office is crucial.
It is important that you by no means mandatory office quotas should introduce to promote collaboration in your company. Although they guarantee a certain attendance rate, it will have a significant impact on employee satisfaction in the long term.
Strategies for naturally implementing office days into everyday working life
In order to implement joint Office Days regularly, you need to ensure that they fit seamlessly into everyday working life. Only then will they feel relaxed for everyone involved:
Define clear communication & purpose
Before you try to convince your employees of the need for office days, you need to communicate clearly with them. Highlight why these days are important and how they contribute to achieving company goals. Above all, communicate that these office days are by no means mandatory. This increases acceptance.
Integration into existing work processes
Office days should be incorporated into your existing work processes without major disruptions. This can be done by coordinating joint days with regular team meetings or project deadlines.
providing an attractive office environment
Hybrid work requires an inviting office environment that offers both comfortable and efficient working conditions. Focus and collaboration zones as well as sufficient meeting rooms increase attendance in the office. Therefore, try modern Office concepts to establish, promote office days and the way your employees work.
Fostering team culture
Events such as joint lunches, coffee breaks or afternoon team activities can help create a positive and inclusive atmosphere that motivates employees to come to the office.
Using technology to support
Technological tools can make it easier to organize and coordinate office days. Calendar apps, planning tools, and communication platforms can help coordinate office presence and ensure that all necessary resources are available.
32% more office attendance with Seatti
With our Workplace Engagement Software, you can significantly simplify the planning of joint office days. About our Meetup dashboard You can see at a glance who will be in the office and when and which projects your colleagues are currently working on. Without having to actively coordinate with each other, you can plan office days.
Team bookings They also give you the opportunity to invite your entire team or individual departments to the office and spend the day together. With just a few clicks, you can invite all your colleagues to joint events or a simple office day.
