The majestic sun dropeth down over the horizon later, the weather is warming, and the vaccines are distributing! You know what that means? Return to office is almost upon us! Or…is it?

Just this week San Francisco announced the city entered the “Orange Tier”. The Orange Tier, you see, is a new phase which no one quite knew about until we entered it. For startup employees of the office variety it now allows for indoor non-essential space to reopen at 25% capacity.

The reopening is upon us. Executive teams all over the globe have been shared doc’ing, debating, and strategizing on what the future of work means for their businesses. The new migration is going to be absolutely fascinating to watch unfold.

We managers sit a little lower to the ground at the team level. The needs are a bit different. Keeping the team together, mainly. Executives weigh the outside world, industry forces, and its effects on the company. Team managers are more likely to look inside out beginning with the needs of individual team members. As they should!

To that end, what does a good return to office plan mean with the goal of trying to keep a team highly effective and…together?

The information we have in front of us today lays out roughly three scenarios:

• Return to office full time
• Return to office part time (hybrid)
• Go fully remote

We can debate the efficacy of each model, the tradeoffs, and the potential team retention of each option. With the bias of trying to keep a team together, multiple options within the same company should win the day.

The higher the skill of the function the more options you’ll need to theoretically offer to win talent. Companies that want to compete on a global scale will need to appeal to a global audience with multiple options. Whether it’s due to the perk wars or just plain common sense, there is major doubt that anyone will be back in the office 5x per week.

Return to office is almost here. The decisions ahead to keep teams together…or push them apart may very well determine winners and losers in the years ahead.