New incentives could boost satisfaction with in-person work, but few employers are making changes

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Workers have since begun to return to the office in waves, at least for part of the week, and navigating that transition is an ongoing and significant hurdle for employers and workers alike. And many simply cannot fathom a return to the pre-COVID status quo, changing how companies approach their staffing needs.

Retaining employees who don’t want to work in person is an issue for companies, but relatively few employers (13%) have introduced new incentives that would make employees more satisfied with it, according to a newly released poll conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago.

About 3 in 4 human resources representatives say that retaining employees who don’t want to work in the office is a problem — including 19% who call it a “major problem.” Another 54% of HR representatives call it a minor problem. And only about one-third of HR professionals say employees at their workplace are “extremely” or “very” happy about returning to the workplace.

“Once workers discovered that (remote work could be) less expensive and... make their life a little easier, they just wanted to keep doing it, even once the pandemic began fading away,” Marjorie Connelly, senior fellow with NORC’s Public Affairs & Media Research department, told The Associated Press.

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