$10K raises: RTO incentives are back in vogue
While some employers are launching bold mandates requiring workers to ditch remote work, some are still looking at how they can sweeten the deal and make the trade-off worth it.
Cameo, a celebrity video platform, recently announced it was offering $10,000 raises to staff in the Chicago-area, where it’s headquartered, who come to work out of its office four days a week. Cameo has about 50 staff, with about half residing in the Chicago area, and the rest scattered across the U.S. and the globe.
Among the 26 Chicago-area staff, every employee accepted the deal to return in exchange for a raise, said CEO Steven Galanis.
One staffer who was planning to move out of the area is reconsidering now with this offer. And several others located outside of Chicago have now expressed interest in moving there to get the raise, Galanis said. For those employees, Cameo will help pay relocation costs, up to $5,000.
Like many other companies, Cameo took a lighter approach with its initial RTO rollout which began roughly two years ago, but realized scattered attendance wasn’t helping achieve the goals intended behind bringing people back.
“We had really been wrestling with this idea of how do we really maximize that in-person connectivity and time together, and we started hashing out the concept of, what if we pay people more to come back?” Galanis said.
Without mandating certain days everyone must return, the company ran into a number of challenges. Some people would come in only to find their closest coworkers and supervisors weren’t there. Many found themselves still doing Zoom calls all day while coworkers still worked remotely. Dedicated “Team Weeks,” where the company offered to fly in staff and have everyone work out of the office helped, but didn’t offer enough consistency.
“It never made sense to me to mandate people that I hired remotely, that never lived in Chicago, to have to move here. That was always a non-starter for me,” Galanis said.
Cameo’s chief people officer ultimately developed the plan to pay staff to come back, and company leaders so far have been pleased with the result. “I think that we’re objectively asking more out of people that come in every day,” Galanis said.
“I believe that those people have an opportunity to be bigger bar raisers at the company, whether it’s through mentoring or cross functional work or just the speed at which we operate. And to me, that’s more valuable, and that should get compensated,” Galanis said.
Cameo’s new RTO plan includes other incentives to make coming to the office worth it while accounting for the time and financial costs staff now have. They’ll be provided with free lunch every day, free parking at the office, and have access to an on-site gym.
While it may not be possible for some larger companies to extend such raises to staff returning to in-person work, many have turned to other incentives to ease the burden of returning and entice workers back over the past few years. Here’s a look at some other examples covered by WorkLife:
One major barrier for staff who are asked to return to in-person work is finding adequate childcare. Some companies, like Walmart, have built childcare centers on their campuses to alleviate those concerns. The retailer’s new Arkansas headquarters campus includes an on-site childcare center that accommodates over 500 children.
At Envoy, a workforce solutions software firm with about 250 employees across six offices, teams are required to be in the office the same three days a week. If everyone on the team meets those requirements, that team gets an entire Friday off the next month. The arrangement started as a challenge after the company’s initial RTO rollout fell flat, and it’s worked so well it’s now a permanent arrangement.
On-site cafes, coffee shop vibes
Post-pandemic, some companies have revamped their offices to appeal to staff demands. One trend is to make their offices look and feel more like restaurants or coffee shops, leaning on cafe-like atmospheres to foster more socialization and collaboration while providing people with spaces they actually want to work out of.
Some companies have leaned on more luxury amenities and into a hospitality focus in offices to entice staff back to in-person work. A handful have turned to adding speakeasies to their spaces. The private, quiet, dimly-lit rooms with comfortable seating are ideal places for private conversations, client meetings and recording podcasts, according to designers. They’re also a more intimate, casual setting for small groups to mingle and where coworkers can get to know each other. And of course – there are drinks (and sometimes food.)
Since the beginning of the RTO conversation, it was common to hear that pizza parties and free bagels just wouldn’t be enough to encourage people to come back in. Yet the rising cost of living and inflation has made free food increasingly valuable to staff, especially younger employees, who can’t whip up a quick breakfast or lunch anymore like they had while working remotely.
The golf course has long been a setting for conducting business among higher-level staff when wooing new clients or executives, and golf simulators in the workplace provide a new opportunity for staff of all levels to connect and have a more unique workplace experience. Design firms like TPG Architecture, Perkins&Will, and HLW, have all recently completed golf-simulator amenity spaces in offices in cities across the U.S.