In the battle to get employees back into offices and out of their homes, free coffee and a few granola bars no longer cut it.

But how far employers and landlords are willing to go – or should go – remains a very open question.

Will building perks that go beyond the old tired amenities make it more worthwhile to attend in person? Could free parking move the needle? What about flexible start times?

With the major banks and Canada’s largest provincial government mandating a return to the office, landlords and tenant occupiers are spending time and money trying to figure out ways to make the experience something employees want, rather than being forced into it.

Cal Jungwirth, director of permanent placement services of talent recruitment firm Robert Half, said the location of the physical office is the major draw.

“The closer you are to home, obviously, affects commute times,” said Jungwirth. “This is a national issue, and we hear it in every market we are in. The length of the commute may be different.”

Some people in

Southern Ontario

may commute 1.5 hours from Niagara Falls to downtown Toronto for work but traffic tolerance is no different in places like Edmonton or Winnipeg; their threshold is just lower.

Offering free parking could be a major step in making returning employees happy, he said. (I’m not sure

Ontario Premier Doug Ford

is offering that as part of a five-day return-to-office plan for 2026.)

“Parking is usually out of pocket and very expensive,” said Jungwirth.

Brett Miller, chief executive of Canderel, which operates office buildings in four provinces, knows it is not business as usual.

His firm has created a brand called Okkto, designed to make employee trips to the office worthwhile.

“If all you are going to do is sit behind the same computer screen you would at home for eight hours a day, why would you come in?” said Miller, who values the creative aspect of having employees come together. “What companies and the

real estate

industry have to do is offer something more.”

The real estate industry has long been driven by tenants seeking the most affordable product in a desirable location. Employees were not a major concern. “That all changed five years ago,” he said.

“We thought, let’s redesign this backward and think of the employee and what they want at work,” said Miller.

Canderel can’t control public transit, but it can locate on transport corridors that ultimately reduce travel time.

Once you arrive, concierges greet you as if at a hotel. Space is designed for a quiet place where someone might even take a midday nap.

“It’s beyond having a summer BBQ or an ice cream stand. It’s a puppy group, and it’s a set day where people go on group walks. It’s bringing in speakers for financial advice. It’s maybe a nutritionist. It’s almost like being at a club,” said Miller, adding he wants employees to get a return on their investment of time coming into the office. “We are just at the start of this; there is going to be a tremendous amount of flexibility. We recognize some companies will not be 100 per cent back.”

Jungwirth said amenities “check a box,” but serious consideration needs to be made about flexibility with staggered work hours.

A condensed work week is rarely offered, but it would be a massive attraction to employees, he said. “When it is offered or even Friday afternoons off, that gets people very excited. It would be a differentiator.”

Flexibility around arrival and departure times also moves the needle. “People get very excited about missing rush hour,” said Jungwirth.

The

Conference Board of Canada

examined these issues closely in a January survey. The think tank found that 34.4 per cent of employees want flexible scheduling options.

“This is flexibility around core hours. It could be everyone needs to be in the office from 10-2, but flexible on either side of that,” said Lindsay Coffin, principal research associate of human capital at the Conference Board. “It’s some form of autonomy on schedule.”

The survey found that 14.7 per cent of people had left a job due to a lack of schedule flexibility. A flexible work schedule was cited by 15.8 per cent of respondents.

Respondents could pick more than one factor for leaving a job, and career progression topped the list at 31.1 per cent. Pay was not on the list, which focused on reward offerings.

“If employees are mandated back in, three or four days, we find positive outcomes if they can choose,” said Coffin.

Sharon Desousa, president of the

Public Service Alliance of Canada

, which represents more than 245,000 workers across the country, emphasized that people need to understand that remote work is the key incentive.

“A lot of people in the last five years were hired with that incentive,” she said, adding Statistics Canada data from 2019 to 2023 shows productivity jumps 4.9 per cent when working from home. “Remote work is the future of work.”

Ottawa has a mandate of three days a week in the office, and Desousa does not make it sound like her membership would value any incentive worthwhile compared to remote work.

“The government has an opportunity to usher that way through,” she said, about pushing more remote work. Not words anyone in real estate wants to hear.

She points out that Ottawa wants 15 per cent cost savings over the next three years, but could save $6 billion on real estate costs by allowing people to work remotely.

“They could then repurpose those buildings and invest in affordable housing,” said Desousa, who maintains that people working from home help pump money into local communities.

The government will face challenges in retaining employees with a stringent policy requiring them to be in the office, she added.

  • Canadians prioritize financial benefits
  • Ontario calls public servants back to the office

“There is the myth out there that butts in seats equals productivity,” said Desousa. “There is a notion of where work should happen. Things have changed. The work is done, why would I go back?”

But in many cases, we are going back. At the very least, employers and landlords should make the experience worthwhile.

• Email: gmarr@postmedia.com