GM People and Talent at Compass Group

Peter Szilagyi

Introduction
One of the biggest challenges facing HR practitioners in 2023 is supporting business directives to ‘return to work’, all the while creating engagement for employees who have been accustomed to work from home over the past few years. In navigating this challenge, there is a potential solution HR practitioners may not have considered, and it is outlined in Compass Group’s longitudinal Eating@Work research. Let’s review the research with the view of better supporting returning to work campaigns.

Companies around the world and across all industries are having a hard time convincing employees to return to the workplace. Some organisations have taken a hard-line view and mandated returns to the office; however, in many cases, those have largely failed. Most recently, major banks in Australia mandated their employee’s return, and this was met with significant resistance from employees and unions. Similar instances of resistance have come from employees at other companies around the world where forced return to work mandates have been applied. 

Leveraging the carrot to return to work…

For full disclosure, I am a General Manager of HR at Compass Group Australia. Compass Group is one of the world’s largest hospitality and support services companies, and for the past five years, we have been publishing research called ‘Eating@Work’. I was reflecting on the research to see how it could be an additional tool for leaders and HR practitioners to consider in supporting return to work strategies. This year’s Global Eating@Work Survey was developed in partnership with the global market intelligence agency Mintel and covered 35,000 workers across 26 countries and multiple industries. Some of the headline findings of the research were:

● 8 in 10 workers think employers should provide quality breakout areas at work for them to relax and recharge
● Workers are significantly more likely to network with colleagues if food and drink facilities are provided at work
● Gen Z is most likely to spend breaks on activities that benefit their mental health, including socialising with colleagues

The key message from this research has been employers that encourage their teams to take longer, better quality, and more frequent breaks could hold the key to unlocking productivity, improving employee wellbeing, and enticing more people back to the office.

Closing the gap between office and home paradigms…

The Eating@Work research shows that employers should consider competing with home comforts if they want to encourage home-workers back into the workplace. Rather than looking at a return to work initiatives around the needs of the organisation, the research challenges companies to think about a return to work around the needs of the employee. These insights raise important questions for HR in setting up return to work programs. Some of the key considerations that should be thought about in creating a plan include:

● Have we rethought office space to generate connection and community?
● Have we rethought time and space ‘break design’ (kitchens, breakout areas) that is welcoming, inviting and fostering connection?
● Have we rethought incentives and rewards to encourage return to work?

The first step to answering these questions is asking employees what they really want and then balancing against what is possible and practical. Reaction and assumption can be flaws in any planning.

" The challenges for return to work are therefore complex and unique to every organisational circumstance however there is a lens we can take of motivating change with the carrot not the stick "

Research by McKinsey (2022) shows that places designed for entertainment, hospitality, and connection have clearly defined purposes that align with life goals and the desire for personal fulfillment. There’s a clear “why” that connects the organisational and human experience through the concept of purpose and community. There are some great ideas for office and break design that encourage better face-to-face connection, collaboration, and engagement. In a recent article by Andrea Vanecko, Jonathan Ward, and Robert Mankin in the Harvard Business Review titled ‘Design an Office that People Want to Come Back to’, the writers highlight a number of these office design concepts. Salesforce, for example, reduced its desk space by 40% and embraced a floor plan that features more team-focused spaces that encourage a balance of individual and collaborative work.

Designing the concept of space and time – the perfect break…

The Eating@Work research shows that employees are significantly more likely to socialise and network with colleagues during breaks if they are provided with food and drink facilities at work. The more advanced the food offers provided, the stronger this trend becomes. 

Food offerings mean different things to different organisations. Some organisations will have an onsite restaurant or café, and the question for them is how can they optimise that offering to best entice workers back? Is that offering, for example, aligning with best practices in food trends, and is it diverse and enticing? More creatively the food offering support employees in different ways. At Compass Group, for example, we are trialing cooked meals for our own employees that can be taken home to support better work-life balance. With financial pressure weighing on employee lifestyles, not only does great food and experience generate workplace magnetism, it becomes currency in the attraction and retention of talent through the demonstration of care and compassion. This is particularly true of the mining and resources sector, where these concepts are core to talent attraction and retention.

On the other end of the spectrum, organisations may have self-service kitchens, and the question for them is how they could equally optimise that offering to entice workers back. For example, with these workplace offerings, often biscuits and milk are available, which may serve the masses but may not be inclusive (think gluten or dairy-free requirements, which are increasingly becoming the norm). Could a surprise fruit platter or sandwich range generate a little bit of excitement? Could a pop-up kitchen or a gourmet food truck at your premise change worker views of work? These ideas, while simple, lead to a creative space for HR Practitioners to think about the return-to-work program through a different lens.

Finally, it’s true that some of the world’s biggest technology companies are equally having challenges on return to work despite significant investment in employee entitlements and hospitality; however, it is equally true these companies have millions of applicants wanting to work for them every year in part for these very reasons. The challenges for return to work are, therefore, complex and unique to every organisational circumstance; however, there is a lens we can take of motivating change with the carrot, not the stick.

The challenges surrounding the return to the office are many and varied. Principally, what was a pre-pandemic norm of accepted long commute times and costs to get to the office have shifted post-pandemic to being unreasonable and unrealistic – new norms have been set. Where once ‘life revolved around work,’ it now seems the expectation is ‘work revolves around life.’ As economies around the world continue to take a negative turn and heat comes out of the labour market, there will be even more momentum to ‘return to work’. Yet it is unlikely forced mandates will result in positive outcomes, so to use a simple cliché, the carrot needs to outperform the stick if ‘return to work’ is going to work. Organisations that creatively think about break time and food at work will be more successful in bringing their people back!