Practical Tips to Make Your Return to the Office Smooth, Easy, and Fun
Back to the office? Maybe not. After over a year of working from home—turning our apartments and houses into offices, rearranging living rooms, buying not-quite-loved standing desks—many white-collar professionals are choosing to look for another good remote job when asked to return to physical workspaces.
Remote work seems like the best of both worlds: no commute or uncomfortable dress pants, infinite lunch options, and not even a need to wear shoes. (Worth mentioning, Yomer is a fully remote team and we’re hiring. Check out our careers page.) Who wants to go to an office?
Some people do. And there are reasons to do so. Separating work and life can be healthy. Working from bed isn’t ideal. While going to the office five days a week may not be for everyone, occasionally working somewhere other than your bedroom or tiny home nook isn’t a bad thing! A regular office schedule—like going in a couple of times a week—could be the best of both worlds.
Because it’s been a while, here are a few things to keep in mind to help us readjust to going back to the office—whether it’s occasional, regular, or anything in between.
Safety First
The New York Times reports that the office we return to may be very different from the one we left. Many offices have begun replacing individual workspaces—personal desks, offices, and cubicles—with modular, movable furniture. Ditching traditional workstations for mobile options allows offices to be better adapted to another pandemic—or the current Delta variant—without having to shut down completely like last year.
This means new office layouts: common areas may be larger than before, with ideal tech-office layouts—bright spaces with computer couches, large central kitchens, and high-tech conference rooms—gradually expanding from tech companies to just about everywhere.
These offices may look swankier than the place you worked in last March, but it’s less about appearances and more about employers’ blending workspaces into pandemic-appropriate environments. Spread-out workspaces are more compliant should another bad thing happen, and seem to be the new direction in a half-pandemic, half-not-pandemic new way of life.
A main selling point for physical offices is that having employees working together inspires their communication and creativity. Under the same roof, employees will be more creative, come up with solutions, make connections, and discuss the details of the Anderson account in a way they might not over Slack or Zoom.
Or, that’s the idea. While open offices aren’t necessarily the most creative workplaces, they do allow people to socialize and chat, which is necessary for certain companies’ business models.
Regardless, the push to remain office-forward will be easier to stomach if everyone’s safe. The CDC’s website is a good resource for office-safety concerns.
Understand Expectations
One benefit of working from home was totally destroying the physical boundaries between work and life—you’re editing spreadsheets in bed! Your kid just walked into the Zoom!—many employees created real temporal separation between their careers and other aspects of their lives. That is, when 6 p.m.—or 7 p.m., or 8 p.m.—rolled around, work was over and it was time to ride a bike, watch The Great British Bake Off, or just re-open your laptop, but this time for fun.
It’s a new alertness that wasn’t quite as possible in pre-pandemic offices. Strive to not feel like you’re always working, but hope that the work-life balance we established during the pandemic can hold as we re-enter the office.
An office day is more likely to turn into a late night than a remote workday, especially if employees are occasionally going into the office, or going in a few days a week. Why wouldn’t employers want to make the most of an employee’s rare office visit? Of course, most employees have a good sense of their workload, busy seasons, and how slammed they’re going to be.
Building a career usually means work will occasionally bleed into life. As long as the work-life boundaries we established for our personal sanity remain as we enter the office, everything should be fine. Sometimes all-hands-on-deck is required. But only certain days in the office should extend into the evening. (Unless you’re into that, of course.)
Enjoy It
After a year and a half at home, going to the office can feel like a novelty. Your workstation view, free sparkling water, tasty Wednesday oat bar. And, when you get dressed and walk into the city, there’s a positive feeling to having something to do and joining the collective activity the world calls going to work.
Basically, going to the office has to be special. Dressing up is one way to do that. After a year of wearing sweatpants or athleisure, formal clothing is more appealing. Now is a great time to upgrade or overhaul the wardrobe entirely. Going out often, into an environment where appearances matter, is an opportunity to try new styles, or bring your work clothes closer to what you wear in your off-hours. Maybe that means a tailored suit, or that rare band T-shirt you’ve been eyeing on eBay.
Bringing a tasty, healthy lunch is a good way to make the workday feel purposeful, and sure, stopping at Popeye’s is fine, too. Why not? You’re only in the office a few days a week. Going for good coffee instead of close coffee is also an option.
Making sure to do something fun after work—see a movie, or just walk in the park—can elevate the day’s experience. One thing that helps me, and pardon the plug, is Yomer’s text reader. I throw stories I’ve been meaning to get to but haven’t had the time for into the reader and listen to them on the train, catching up. Listening to that old New Yorker story about jewel thieves feels like tuning into my own radio station or podcast, just without the mattress ads.
These are all small, meaningful ways to elevate the workday into something great, little habits that make the journey to the office more pleasurable than it was over a year ago. Those of us who don’t have to remote-commute every day are lucky. Mostly because going to the office can be a fun little treat.
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