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The past few years saw a robust debate about the merits of return to the office (RTO) initiatives across think pieces, research, op-eds and often tone-deaf executive statements. Cultures calcified and crumbled until, by the start of 2024, most leaders who thought mandated RTO policies were a good idea just enforced them anyway.
During Ragan’s Employee Communications and Culture Conference in Chicago this past April, Zurich North America VP of Internal Communications Nicole Neal shared the strategies for navigating RTO comms when compliance challenges culture.
Here’s what we learned.
Making peace with the process
Neal then presented the dilemma of managing tensions between leadership decisions and impacting the employee experience as a central opportunity to make peace with the process. The culture touchpoints that saw made the most progress include:
Zurich’s journey ranged from requiring everyone to work from home, then offering employees choice, focusing on the needs of the customers to decide who came in and ultimately mandating RTO as being best for the organization. Regular feedback loops with employees, managers and the business happened throughout.
Neal compared this journey to the foundational principles from “The Neuroscience of Trust” by Paul Zak:
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