As we keep approaching a more regular lifestyle, workplaces are gearing up to bring employees back to the office. This recently caused an uproar on social media and people started to take sides on the conversation of “Why should we come back to the office when we’ve been working just fine remotely?”. Some are against coming back and some favor it, and I, being someone that works remotely most of the time, completely understand both sides.
I noticed in this dilemma that no matter which side you were on, we all share a common thought:
We all hate commuting.
From spending hours and hours stuck in traffic to getting in on packed trains and buses, most employees don’t have a “good time” commuting, becoming another source of stress for employees. It’s even proven that commuting, in addition to shiftwork, further increases sleep problems, psychosomatic complaints, and difficulties with family and social life.
That’s why we at Freelance Latin America are always working hard to continue to improve ourselves and our freelancers’ lives by offering many different options to make commuting easier for our team, and in this article, we are going to go over some of the opportunities we give to our freelancers!
Tips to make commuting easier
1. Offer Commuter Benefits & Opportunities
A good way to ease off your employees’ commuting stress is by offering a helping hand depending on their commuting issues. One good option is to offer monetary contributions toward your employees’ transportation, so they don’t have to worry about the cost of their commuting.
In Freelance Latinamerica however, we go one step further: We understand the deficiency of Maracaibo’s current public transportation system and the need for everyone to get around town, that’s why we offer private rides and transportation to our offices exclusive to our freelancers!
Offering these kinds of benefits to your freelancers will take the stress off their shoulders, and they’ll be able to focus and dedicate more time to their work. – And believe me, the transportation service has saved my life more than once.
You should also take into consideration offering different services to motivate your workers to keep doing a good job. As an example, we offer our freelancers easy access to different food services, deliveries, transportation, daily products, and much more!
So make sure to keep your employees happy, and you’ll surely start to see good results!
2. Adopt a Hybrid Workplace
With most companies working fully remote for the past 2 years, many employees have been feeling a huge drawback when it comes to coming back to the office.
Most people have already found a commodity in working from home (Me being one of them), and the truth is that bringing everyone back full time may not be necessary. In these cases, a hybrid model is an ideal alternative. With a hybrid workplace, employees can ease into an in-office schedule while maintaining their work-from-home flexibility.
Or as we do here in Freelance Latinamerica, we have both freelancers that enjoy working more in the office and some that prefer remote work. For example, I’m an almost full-time remote worker, but from time to time I like to hop around the office to work there and meet my colleagues. There might also come a time when I can’t work from home, the office is always available for me, and I appreciate that a lot.
It’s always good to hop around the office from time to time to have lunch with your pals!
What is important here is to acknowledge your employees’ efforts. If they have been doing a great job working from home for the past years, you should consider allowing them to keep doing so and not force them to come to the office right away. Of course, there will be times when it’ll be necessary but that’s what the Hybrid Workplace is all about!
With a Hybrid workplace, you allow your employees to work from home, so they can avoid commuting on rainy days, busy days, or when emergencies arise and you’ll still have them at the office when you need them there.
It’s a win-win deal!
3. Make it Fun!
Long commutes may cause a bad effect on your employees’ lives. However, workplace culture initiatives can help to ease off that pain and keep employees entertained on their commutes.
Movie clubs, book clubs, podcast clubs, or music clubs. Our freelancers have a great variety of clubs to choose from so they can not only have another reason to come to the office, which is having fun and connecting with their coworkers, but also they can spend the time commuting listening to a podcast, an audiobook, or music that they’ll later talk about in that club.
One of our Movie’s Club meetings!
This is a way to get your employees excited about going to the office and also to give them a meaningful way to help their commuting time fly.
We also like to implement many different kinds of social gatherings and events so our freelancers can have a good time at the office such as parties, our Freelancer of the Month event, and events on Halloween and Christmas for example!
For me, going to the office is always nice so even though I work from home most days, I always go from time to time!
Remember that most companies right now are open to remote work, and employees will be less inclined to remain in a role with a lengthy or challenging commute. I’m sure that these tips will help you get ahead of the game and keep your workforce happy and engaged.
