Bringing your occupiers back to the office might not be as tricky as you think. A careful, deliberate strategy will help make your return to work a success. Here are three major lessons from our free Ultimate Welcome Back Playbook, available to download now!
The last two years have caused unprecedented changes in the commercial real estate sector. And the biggest change is that your tenants no longer make their decisions unilaterally. Individual users have more control over tenant decisions than ever before. And if you want to ensure long-term retention, it's imperative that you tailor your strategy to reach those individual users.
Proptech works hand-in-hand with strategy
When you're getting ready to welcome your occupiers back to their workplace, it's best to use every tool at your disposal. We know users value technology. But we also know that workers value the office as a venue for community and collaboration above everything else.
And that's the key to your proptech strategy. Make sure everything you do serves to cultivate community and collaboration in your sites. In this article, we'll take you through a couple of key takeaways from our Ultimate Welcome Back Playbook. But remember, the eBook itself is 38 pages long, so if you want full access to all of our data-backed strategies, make sure you download it. Don't worry, it's totally free!
1. Get it right the first time
Creating a long-term relationship between your user and your site is all about first impressions. It might not be the first time your occupiers have been in your workplace, but it's best to think of the return as a reintroduction. The relationship has changed, and it's important to give people a refresher on what's important about their workplace.
It's absolutely vital that this first impression is a powerful one, as research has shown that these early impressions are among the most lasting. That first impression takes place at a number of levels. There's the initial meeting with your tenant representatives. This meeting should show them that your strategy is effective, exciting, and impactful. Because it's this strategy that is the key to your next first impression: the one your building will make on users when they actually return.
Our Welcome Back eBook goes into great detail on this topic. We've broken down a number of lobby-based Welcome Back initiatives to help create the ideal environment for returning workers, as well as detailed budgets for Welcome Back bundles. Make sure to check out the eBook to see exactly how you can craft a powerful impression of your site as an essential part of your users' lives.
2. Creating community with proptech
As we discovered in our Global Office Tenant Report, 73% of workers view connecting with colleagues as the main purpose of the office. And 70% of workers see their workplace as the best "place for collaboration".
Most workers have spent the majority of 2020 and 2021 working remotely. Some of those workers have returned periodically to the office, many have not. And we know that community is the one thing almost everybody is missing.
It's easy to think that physically being in the workplace is all that's needed. But a sense of community isn't automatic just because your workforce has returned. In our Ultimate Welcome Black Playbook, we outline four surefire tactics for fostering the sense of community your users have been craving. You can host onsite networking events or friendly competitions. You can even help your users to bond over shared interests and goals.
The point is this: your users want to feel connected again. And a strategy that helps to foster this sense of connection is destined for success. Find the strategy that will work for you in our free eBook.
3. Start and end with data
The biggest weapon in your arsenal is accurate, real-time data about your asset. If you have enough data about your tenants and users, then designing an effective strategy should be fairly simple.
Equiem's Tenant Analytics Dashboard gives you a simple and responsive way to know what your users want, need, and fear about the return to work. You can also use our custom survey and polling tool to ask users directly, allowing you to gauge enthusiasm for various strategies and initiatives.
If you don't have a tenant experience platform like Equiem, you can still get valuable data by talking to your workplace managers. With an adequate sample size, you can get a pretty clear picture of the asset as a whole. Your data won't be as complete or up-to-date as it would be in the Equiem Analytics Dashboard. But it will still allow you to craft your Welcome Back strategy from a solid foundation of data.
But don't think that data's only important at the beginning of the process. It's also the best way to judge the effectiveness of your campaign. Consider using a poll or survey to see how users feel about individual initiatives. Or even send out polls before and after your campaign to gauge its overall impact on attitudes to the workplace. This information will be useful as you launch similar campaigns at other sites. And it will help to inform initiatives aimed at new starters across your properties indefinitely.
Remember to download our free Welcome Back Playbook to see detailed strategies, budgets, and activation campaigns. And if want to supercharge your campaign, book a free Equiem demo today for a launch in the new year!
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