Back to the office: 3 steps to an optimal employee experience

The Rzilient team is delighted to have recently offered you a webinar, co-organized with Osol, dedicated to the employee experience and its optimization.

For those who weren't able to join us, here's a summary of the key points discussed, and a chance to watch the replay.

Discover our speakers:

• Maxime Cousin, CEO of Osol (whose mission is to make it possible to work from anywhere, even at the office!) and also Future Of Work consultant at a firm called Topic ;
• Alban Frémont de Reboul, Rzilient Sales Manager;
• and Audrey Pogu, Rzilient Marketing Manager.

The webinar opened with a look back at the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, which shook up and questioned the organization of many companies.

What emerges from this tipping point? Companies are taking much greater account of the employee experience.

And to illustrate the growing importance of remote working, here's a statistic: 82% of workers will feel more productive when working remotely in 2023, according to Owl Labs. The stakes are high if we are to unleash the growth potential of our companies!

Here's a presentation of the 3 steps presented in the webinar, to successfully optimize your employee experience.

Step 1: Take stock and choose the right model

A quick reminder of the main advantages of remote working, for starters. It offers your employees :

• the ability to organize their day differently, depending on their ability to concentrate or be creative;
• significant time savings, thanks to the absence of work/home travel;
• the possibility of having far fewer distractions and therefore the ability to concentrate more effectively.

There are 4 main models for company work:

• Full office: employees come to the office full-time;
• supervised hybrid: employees alternate between the office and teleworking, in a supervised manner;
• free hybrid: teleworking is used freely by employees;
• Full remote: teams work full time remotely.

Maxime also raises an important point: the need to consider which activities need to be carried out face-to-face (such as training and team time) and which can be done remotely without difficulty (dealing with e-mails, calls, briefings, etc.).

Here are the main steps you need to take to choose the best work organization model for your company and your employees.

Consult your employees to get their feedback

There's no better way to answer this question than to ask the people who will be most affected: your employees!

Taking into account neurodiversity is also interesting. In concrete terms, each employee has his or her own personality and psychology.

For example:

• Some people are introverts and prefer to work alone at home;
• others are extroverted, or very social, and have a visceral need to be in contact with other people;
• Some employees are highly autonomous, while others work better with a more regular level of interaction and follow-up.

Taking this diversity into account is a key factor in optimizing the employee experience!

Take your corporate culture into account

Corporate culture also plays an important role. The speakers discuss two case studies.

At Hermès, for example, it's inconceivable for teams to work remotely, as the company's history is closely linked to fairness between employees. As the "little hands" necessarily work in full office, the rest of the team chooses to remain on this model, out of solidarity.

Theonline insurer Alan, on the other hand, filters its applicants according to their willingness to work solely from home!

Examine the impact on your company's business

Not all companies are in a position to go full remote. This is the case, for example, in retail (distribution) or when production is physical.

Adapting to the legal framework

You also need to take account of legislation and - if necessary - adapt your employees' employment contracts, procedures and working conditions.

Consult your financial center

Working remotely means :

• expenses (increased monitoring required, teleworking bonuses, etc.);
• savings (optimized workspaces, lower IT expenditure, thanks to BYOD, etc.).

Your finance department can advise you on the financial impact of the decision to telework.

Step 2: Adapt your business

The speakers then propose a series of best practices for adapting your company to remote working.

The offices

For Maxime, the office still has meaning today. It's important to :

• define workspaces dedicated to specific activities;
• offer a variety of spaces;
• working with furniture and design to stimulate creativity and well-being;
• play on a collaborative continuum, for example by choosing not to offer fixed workstations.

The technological environment

Rzilient is experienced in supporting companies working in full remote mode.

Alban draws on his experience to suggest a number of best practices to adopt:

• optimize your IT fleet, by choosing the right tools and ensuring strong integration of IT services;
• offer your teams a virtual office, such as a 2D metaverse, whichimproves the quality of conversations (compared to tools such as Slack or email) ;
• think about the details, such as offering office furniture that facilitates the installation of computer equipment;
• offer useful features, such as the ability to lock your computer or remotely wipe your data;
• and finally, offer a quality IT support service, via all relevant communication channels (Slack, email, telephone, Teams, chat...), with the aim of ensuring that no employee loses time because of a bug or software difficulty!

Corporate culture

Audrey then proposes solutions for developing a corporate culture that is more adapted to and conducive to intellectual stimulation.

These solutions must be adapted to the proposed working methods:

• hybrid or remote ;
• according to the plurality of spaces, etc.

In fact, the employee experience needs to be aligned with the corporate culture right from the start, especially in a telecommuting context. It's much more complex to instill a corporate culture in activities that are mainly carried out remotely, so it's vital to provide time for exchange and team building to compensate for this.

Step 3: Support and continuous improvement

Remote operation means supporting your employees in this practice.

We must regularly optimize usage through these actions:

• implement and communicate best practices. This can involve writing a playbook, setting upcarefully prepared onboarding sessions, raising awareness of the rules to be respected, etc.
• train and support employees, through communication on new services, training sessions and optimized technical support;
• improve company operations through employee involvement: satisfaction surveys, brainstorming sessions, individual exchanges, etc.

The speakers emphasized the central role of the playbook. This reference document is the arbiter when a question or doubt arises about the company's processes or organization. Its key advantage? It provides a transparent working framework and facilitates team alignment.

Finally, it's vital to remember that, from a distance, it's not always possible to have an exact vision of the teams' work context. To ensure that everyone is aligned with your company's mission, you need to work hard on team training and individual performance reviews.