Mandating Employees to Go Back Into the Office

Lately there has been a lot of talk and articles about companies mandating their employees to go back to the office. Every time I see this, I can’t help but wonder if they think their employees will do their job better from that office cubicle?

Prior to the pandemic, we were a fully in-office company. At the start of the pandemic, we went temporarily remote, and after the first wave of COVID-19, I tried to enforce my employees returning to the office. I quickly realized the value of remote work, and our company is now fully remote.

If you are in a similar situation, here are some things I learned for you to think about as you are deciding whether or not you will enforce returning to the cubicles.

1. The impact of commuting

Employees may lose at least 45 min of their day or more to driving to work & back. Not to mention, gas prices are now high, so you just cut their pay. This is probably the worst time to tell them to do this unless you plan to give them a gas hike merit raise.

2. Work life balance

When we first went home during COVID we struggled to find the balance of working TOO much. We didn’t know how to do remote. But once we began to find tools, we learned we could do more AND balance our life. There are a lot of us who don’t want to lose that balance by going back to the cubicle.

3. Creativity

When people are happy & inspired, they do their best work. For some, that may be in an office around other creative people all day feeding off their common energy. For others, like me, who need uninterrupted focus to be creative, this can be a detriment.

4. Expense

It just costs more to have people in cubicles.

5. Water cooler gossip: remember this?

Employees see & hear a lot more when working around one another – it’s the nature of the beast. Get ready.

6. Pets

Both your employees and their pets have gotten used to being home together. By going back in to the office you are rocking their world. If you return to the office, unless you are allowing “bring your pet to work day” every day your pet loving employees (and their furry loved ones) are going to have a real struggle.

I know a lot of folks love coming back to work. I support you in that if you do. But don’t forget about the culture change and the impact it may have within your company by allowing remote work, followed by the whiplash you will create by forcing those folks to return when the job itself doesn’t support a reason to return.

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Hiring for an HR Director?

By Paula Fulghum • July 21, 2025

I’ve seen a lot of job postings lately for small to medium sized companies looking for an HR Director or Manager. Then, when you get into the details, it shows they are the sole person doing HR for the company- or maybe have an assistant. Does this mean they have a payroll department and/or a benefits department? That’s typical in large companies. Not typical in smaller ones that only have the budget for party of one. What’s eye catching for me is now this person is IT. One man band. Key holder to it all. What’s interesting for me is that HR people are like ice cream flavors- we all have our favorite. Is that flavor strategy? Is it training? Is it compliance? Is it recruiting? Is it payroll? Is it benefits? Neapolitan only has 3 flavors. Once you get past 3, you can’t really taste what’s in the ice cream anymore it’s really more of a mess. HR is much like this messy ice cream. One person isn’t good at it all and if they are they are one in a million & a small business can’t afford them. Or if they can- they won’t last long because that person will be bored in a heart beat. And if they are a good leader of a department and don’t have these detailed skill sets & delgate well- that’s great- but when your company is smaller- who are they going to delgate to? See the conundrum? I enjoy chocolate & peanut butter ice cream. It’s two flavors, I can taste both & I can rely on that. If you start adding in scoops of other flavors it gets a little muddy. But that’s OK- I have an entire team who’s good at what I’m not and I can have them jump in at any time. When you are party of one- that’s not possible. So if you are smaller but want more flavors, HR outsourcing is really the way to go. You get the best of both worlds at a fraction of the cost of a full time salary of one. And you don’t have to worry that your HR person doesn’t like strawberry ice cream when trouble happens and strawberry is the only flavor that will do.