Return to office plan template

Set and communicate RTO conventions with our return to work template

After over a year of working remotely, some businesses are starting to think about how they'll reunite and reopen. There is no right answer to reopening. Whether you decide to return to in-office work or build out a hybrid work model, thinking through your plan ahead of time can help you clearly communicate any relevant return to office (RTO) policies to your team. Use this return to work template to define your reopening plans and set conventions during the transition to in-person collaboration. This template can help you:

• Define and communicate policies. Before reopening, identify existing policies or practices that will be impacted by your return to office. Then, use this template to create new policies to carry your team through the transition back to the office. This includes how your company defines your in-office, hybrid, or remote work policies.

• Align on health and safety requirements. Gather local requirements and guidelines for reopening in one tool. Use this checklist to guide policy decisions and ensure compliance.

• Establish dates and phases. Consider reopening in a phased approach so you can gather feedback and reopen in the best way possible for your team. Even if you don’t plan to open in a phased approach, use this template to establish and share key dates and milestones with your team.

• Solicit feedback to course-correct if necessary. Just like the sudden transition to remote work, reopening will be a learning experience for you and your company. Use this return to work plan to coordinate feedback and pulse checks, and course-correct your reopening strategy if necessary.

Your return to office questions, answered:

Everyone's return to office plan will look slightly different—because every business is slightly different. While no one can tell you exactly how to reopen, here are a few best practices and common questions to help you get started.

• How can we communicate our return to office policy? Before you can communicate your policy, you need to define the policy with key stakeholders and decision makers who are part of your reopening process. Then, use our return to office template to coordinate the information and instructions you will send to your team.

• What's the best return to office policy? There is no right or wrong way to reopen. As you plan how and when to return to office, align on your company values and decide what makes sense for your team. For more tips, read how we’re reuniting and thriving in a distributed world at Asana.

• How do we plan our return to office if we have multiple global offices? Even if you plan a full return to office, managing a globally distributed team requires additional policies. For example, you may need to develop different return to work policies for different global offices, depending on the health and safety requirements for that region.

Creating a return to office plan is all about communicating how your business will transition to in-person collaboration. Use this template to set conventions and align on key RTO policies.