By Amy Gallo
As vaccines roll out across the globe, more and more offices are opening up—or making plans to in the near future. That’s good news for people who are eager to get back to their desks.
Amy Gallo But what about people who are anxious or conflicted about returning to in-person work? Maybe they have health issues that would put them at risk, even with broad vaccine adoption. Or they have caretaking responsibilities that prevent them from going in. Perhaps they’ve found that they’re happier and more productive working at home, or they had a long commute they’re content to no longer endure.
As a manager how do you help people manage their return-to-work anxiety? Should you be nudging your employees to return, if that’s what your company’s leadership wants? And if they’re worried that their career will be impacted if they need to keep working from home, should you assure them it won’t?
This is uncharted territory for all us, especially managers. So I reached out to several experts who study the role of middle managers and compassion at work to ask what they’d advise.
They all agree that there are, of course, upsides and downsides for everyone. As Jane Dutton, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, says, “For some people, the return to routines and seeing colleagues can be very healing.” But others just aren’t ready.
As a manager, you may feel stuck. As Jacob Hirsh, an associate professor at University of Toronto, explains, “The challenge of a middle manager is to manage employee concerns about directions from upper management,” so you may not be making the call about if, when and how often your team members come in, which makes the situation even trickier.
It’ll be far easier to navigate all of this and help those who are worried if you know how people on your team feel. You can’t assume that your employees will tell you if they’re feeling anxious about reentry, warns Linda Hill, a professor at Harvard Business School. “People are fearful of looking weak or not living up to expectations,” she says. Therefore, you need to make it safe for people to speak up. Hill suggests using anonymous surveys to ask how employees view the return.
Then use the insights you glean to address people’s concerns. For example, if several people mentioned health considerations in your surveys, you can make sure that the team knows precisely what precautions the company is taking to keep staff safe or lobby senior leaders to put more preparations in place. The point, Dutton says, is to make people feel heard.
When people share their concerns—either openly or anonymously—make sure you allow for people to have mixed and complex feelings. It’s tempting to be positive about the upcoming changes as a way to assuage worries, but you risk making people feel dismissed.
Brianna Caza, an associate professor University of North Carolina at Greensboro, studies emotional ambivalence and how managers can use it to help people build resilience. Managers often feel pressure to respond to negative emotions encouraging people who are struggling to look on the bright side. But Caza’s research with Lehigh University’s Naomi Rothman and UNC’s Shimul Melwani has shown that a better path might be for managers to lean into the emotional ambivalence, making it OK to have mixed feelings. “Leaders who model ambivalence can create a culture where people adapt and pivot more easily,” Caza told me.
If at all possible, at least at the beginning of your office’s reopening, give people some options about when and how often they come in. As Dutton says, “The message should be one of flexibility, flexibility, flexibility.” A recent survey found that 58% of people say they would “absolutely look for a new job if they weren’t allowed to continue working remotely in their current position.” Of the more than 2,000 respondents, 65% wanted to work remotely full time in a post-pandemic world, and another 33% prefer a hybrid work arrangement.
Mandates may have the opposite effect than intended. “You’re not going to get what you want if you’re basically roping people into the office,” says Hirsh. “A rush to establish the old normal doesn’t make sense and is going to cause friction.”
When people have to do something they feel anxious about, it can help to know there’s a good reason behind it. If the senior leaders at your company haven’t clearly articulated why it’s important people come back to the office, you may need to fill that gap. “Communicate the vision from upper management so employees see it as reasonable and can get out on board. If they don’t buy in, it’s going to feel like coercion,” says Hirsh.
You also want to make sure that your team knows this wasn’t a decision haphazardly made. “They need to see that there’s a competent and well-thought-out plan,” Hirsh says. And that plan should consider their needs.
To avoid overwhelming employees, you could also consider running pilot programs or letting people experiment individually within their level of comfort. As Hirsh says, “Baby steps are a good idea,” especially for those who have concerns. You might suggest they try going in one day a week for several weeks and then check in to see how it went. Whenever possible, give the accommodations people need to do their best work.
No matter what messages you have to deliver, what accommodations you can and can’t make, and what policies you may have to enforce, do it all with compassion. It’s often an antidote to anxiety. “Find small ways to be present for your people,” Dutton says. Continue to ask about how they’re doing and what else they have going on besides work. Talk about what you’re going through to make it OK for them to do the same.
One of the silver linings of the pandemic is that it has become more acceptable for people to be more open about personal struggles at work. Just because many of us are going back to the office it shouldn’t mean that dialogue and compassion should stop. As a manager, it’s important to remember that you may not know what your employees have been through or continue to go through. As a friend recently told me, “No vaccine is going to take away the grief and trauma that we’ve all experienced.” Keep that in mind when helping your employees make their way back into the office.
Amy Gallo is a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review.