Organically increase office attendance
No one wants to waste hours commuting to and from the office, only to spend the day sat by themselves. Provided you are able to do your job at home, why would you risk a day of loneliness without your homely creature comforts?
So many offices that have opened their doors again remain empty, or only have a small core group of people going in. When others do go in, it tends to be in groups, where their co-attendance has been organised between the team members. But this organisation is difficult and clunky. It's based on email, instant messaging or SMS and takes time. People are busy and finding the same day to work from the office together becomes and after thought.
Connecting people
Getting people back into the office is less about the benefits of free lunches and pool tables, and more about the connection between people that these benefits create.
Physical interaction is the golden goose benefit of any office space, we just need to find the optimum amount.
One of the hardest things about lockdown was the absence of seeing friends and family in real life. Zoom fatigue and feelings of isolation affected our productivity and sometimes even our mental health. The majority of us find that a 100% remote working set up isn't right for us.
The same can be said for the other extreme, which is why there is the pressure on companies to adopt hybrid working. But by introducing this level of flexibility without some form of coordination you're leaving the benefits of real life interaction down to chance.
Like most things in life, you can easily improve the situation through better communication.
The network effect of office attendance - it's all about coordination
Early communication of your plans to work from the office creates a network effect within your team, helping them to decide which days to go in. It removes the fear of a day by yourself. Similarly, if you can see that everyone else in your team is working from home, you can adjust your plan to coincide with their "in the office" days.
So before executives introduce free lunches or building new relaxation areas to bribe people back into the office, why not start with improving communication?
intheOffice helps employees see where their colleagues plan to work, allowing them to easily arrange their office attendance.